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by Jai Chakrabarti
I recently discovered an excellent short story collection called A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness: Stories by Jai Chakrabarti. This author won the National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction with his novel A Play for the End of the World, and it is clear that his talent extends to the short story form as well.
The stories in this collection follow men and women as they navigate transformations and familial bonds across countries and cultures. Each story is unique and captivating, but the one that struck me was the title story about a closeted gay man in 1980s Kolkata who seeks to have a child with his lover’s wife. Chakrabarti’s skill as a storyteller is on full display in this story and throughout the collection.
I highly recommend A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness: Stories if you want a book exploring love and family’s complexities in uncertain times. Each story is a masterful exploration of what it means to cultivate a family across borders, religions, and races. I look forward to reading more by Jai Chakrabarti in the future.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
In the fourteen masterful stories of this collection, Jai Chakrabarti crosses continents and cultures to explore what it means to cultivate a family across borders, religions, and races today.
In the title story, a closeted gay man in 1980s Kolkata seeks to have a child with his lover’s wife. An Indian widow, engaged to a Jewish man, struggles to balance her cultural identity with the rituals and traditions of her newfound family. An American musician travels to see his guru for the final time—and makes a promise he cannot keep. A young woman from an Indian village arrives in Brooklyn to care for the toddler of a biracial couple. And a mystical agent is sent by a mother to solve her son’s domestic problems.
Throughout, the characters’ most vulnerable desires shape life-altering decisions as they seek to balance their needs against those of the people they hold closest.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Bonnie Blaylock
Light to the Hills: A Novel by Bonnie Blaylock is about Amanda Rye, a young widowed mother and traveling packhorse librarian who comes through a mountain community struck by the nation’s economic collapse in the 1930s. I recommend this page-turner as it highlights the importance of family and community. From this foundation, truth lights a path toward survival, mountain justice, forgiveness, and hope.
The novel was recommended by Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of The Fire and the Ore, who said, “Light to the Hills is a touching meditation on motherhood and the importance of community, especially during difficult times.”
Last year I read a modern tale about Appalachia, Demon Copperhead. Both are good novels but very different.
Light to the Hills was a feel-good read despite the problems faced by Ms. Rye and the MacInteer family. It was precisely the book I needed to read this week.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
The folks in the Kentucky Appalachians are scraping by. Coal mining and hardscrabble know-how are a way of life for these isolated people. But when Amanda Rye, a young widowed mother and traveling packhorse librarian, comes through a mountain community hit hard by the nation’s economic collapse, she brings with her hope, courage, and apple pie. Along the way, Amanda takes a shine to the MacInteer family, especially to the gentle Rai; her quick-study daughter, Sass; and Finn, the eldest son who’s easy to warm to. They remind Amanda of her childhood and her parents with whom she longs to be reconciled.
Her connection with the MacInteers deepens, and Amanda shares with them a dangerous secret from her past. When that secret catches up with Amanda in the present, she, Rai, Sass, and Finn find their lives intersecting—and threatened—in the most unexpected ways. Now they must come together as the truth lights a path toward survival, mountain justice, forgiveness, and hope.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a collection featuring the landmark essay The Case for Reparations he wrote for The Atlantic. Even though I am a subscriber to The Atlantic and have read many of the pieces, this is a must-read book as it reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency, and its jarring aftermath, including the election of Donald Trump.
We were eight years in power as the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s first white president.
But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.
We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates’s iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including Fear of a Black President, The Case for Reparations, and The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration, along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coate’s own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era. We Were Eight Years in Power is a vital account of modern America, from one of the definitive voices of this historic moment.
I recommend this book to all readers.
by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel is the first book in a three-part series on Thomas Cromwell. I am an amateur historian, and one of the characters I have always wanted to know more about was Cromwell. Although I might have achieved that by reading actual history textbooks, this three-part series seemed like the perfect next book for me to read. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.
At least this time, I am reading book one first instead of last. I highly recommend this book.
The Goodreads overview provides more details.
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Civil war could destroy the country if the king died without a male heir.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Louis P. Masur
The Sum of Our Dreams: A Concise History of America by Louis P. Masur is a book I got through my membership at One Day University. Professor Masur is one of the best teaches that One Day University has. He is the Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University.
Most concise histories leave out more than they include. I found the Sum of our Dreams to be an excellent book to read, and professor Masur conveyed the American experience concisely and clearly. The more recent history is complex as events like the Global War on Terror are still being analyzed and re-understood.
Evoking Barack Obama’s belief that America remains the “sum of its dreams,” Masur locates the origin of those dreams-of freedom, equality, and opportunity-and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation’s struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise.
Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin’s observation that “American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it,” he expands our notion of that history while identifying its threads.
I recommend this book as well as any of Professor Masur’s lectures at One Day University.
by Isabel Waidner
Today, I began reading “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility: A Novel” by Isabel Waidner. The book is about Corey Fah, a writer whose novel has just won the Fictionalization of Social Evils prize. Despite this achievement, the trophy and funds with the award still need to be in reach. The novel celebrates radical queer survival and challenges false notions of success.
Corey, their partner Drew, and their pet spider, Bambi Pavok, embark on a quest to find an elusive trophy with neon-beige color and UFO-like qualities. This journey takes them back to their childhood in the forest and includes a stint on a reality TV show. While facing the horrors of wormholes and time loops, Corey discovers the difference between a prize and a gift in a complex way.
Following the Goldsmiths Prize–winning Sterling Karat Gold, Isabel Waidner’s bold and buoyant new novel is about coming into one’s own, the labor of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself, and what ensues when a large amount of cultural capital is suddenly deposited in a place it has never been before.
