Book cover of Grace

Book description

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Prophet Song, a sweeping, Dickensian story of a young girl on a life-changing journey across nineteenth-century Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine.

Early one October morning, Grace's mother snatches her from sleep and brutally cuts off her hair, declaring, "You are the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Grace as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Paul Lynch was recently announced as the (very deserving) winner of the Booker Prize, but I’ve been a fan of his ever since his spectacular novel about the Ireland’s Great Famine, Grace.

How do you capture trauma on a national level? Of course, you embody it in the personal, and I was in constant awe of Lynch’s immediate, visceral sentences, and their ability to force me to embody Grace’s experience living through absolutely unimaginable history.

One memorable section is made up of four entirely blacked-out pages, a brilliant nod to the way trauma overwhelms and erases.

If you love Grace...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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