When my good friend raved about a book by a new-to-me Irish writer, I hurried to buy it. And now I’m Keegan’s biggest fan. She writes short books that say so much. There’s history, complicated families, and unexpected turns. She has a talent for putting sentences together that make me want to read them over and over.
Another of her books, Foster, was made into a perfect movie, The Quiet Girl. Rarely do I think a movie measures up to a book, but this was an exception. Just writing about Keegan’s books makes me want to hit pause and curl up with Small Things Like These again.
"A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers
Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him…
I was so intrigued by the complications of this story that when I finished reading the library’s copy, I ordered my own.
Now I’ve gifted it twice. It’s a book you want others to read so you can discuss it. Okay, truthfully, sheepishly, I once saw a perfect stranger reading it on an airplane and wanted to switch seats so we could talk about No Two Persons.
I also liked it because it was a novel about a writer and a manuscript that changed lives and connected people in surprising, powerful ways.
One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons is “a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives.”*
That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go…
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to…
This spring Naomi Nye did a reading near me and a friend who knows her took me along. What a night! In the signing line, I got to tell her how much her poems have meant to me.
In a year that’s had its struggles, I’ve turned to poetry. Memorizing poems and attempting to understand them has made me hope writing could be fun and rewarding again.
I loved Voices in the Air for inspiring me, for being so beautiful and yet so accessible. It’s a book for young readers, but it’s one I keep close.
"Nye once again deftly charts the world through verse."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A beautifully constructed, thoughtful, and inspiring collection."-School Library Journal (starred review)
Young People's Poet Laureate and National Book Award Finalist Naomi Shihab Nye's uncommon and unforgettable voice offers readers peace, humor, inspiration, and solace. This volume of almost one hundred original poems is a stunning and engaging tribute to the diverse voices past and present that comfort us, compel us, lead us, and give us hope.
"I think the air is full of voices. If we slow down and practice listening, we hear those voices better. They live…
Billy Wong befriends Azalea when she comes to his small town in Arkansas to help her ailing grandmother. Between keeping up the garden and figuring out snippy Melinda Bowman and a few other town characters, Azalea learns more about herself than she ever expected, and she finds a friend she didn’t know she needed.
My third middle-grade novel is near and dear to my heart because of how it came to be. I grew up in a part of Mississippi with many Chinese Americans who owned small grocery stores. My friend Bobby Moon shared what it was like to live in our hometown, attend recently de-segregated schools with kids who didn’t really understand. Eventually, his story birthed Billy Wong’s.
