Recommended Reads: Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight: an African Childhood

Recommended Reads: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: an African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (BIOG FUL)

This compelling autobiography opens with Alexandra's mother warning her six year old daughter not to startle her parents while they are sleeping because "We might shoot you . . . by mistake." Alexandra's parents sleep with loaded guns by the bed because they are white farmers living in Rhodesia during the civil war between the black natives and the white colonial rulers. In vivid language, Alexandra describes her childhood in southern Africa, a place she loves despite its harshness. Surrounded by war and domestic chaos, Alexandra (nicknamed Bobo by her family) grows up and creates her own identity while never ceasing to love her unusual parents and her homeland. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is moving book that will especially appeal to readers who love autobiographies.

Recommended Reads: I See You Everywhere

Recommended Reads: I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass (FIC GLA)

I See You Everywhere is the story of two dramatically different sisters. Louisa is the responsible older sister who builds a life for herself as an artist in New York. Clem is the unpredictable and rebellious younger sister whose passion for wildlife leads to a career as a biologist in the West. The novel is narrated by each sister in alternating chapters over a span of 25 years. Louisa and Clem love and hate each other, support and comfort each other, and struggle to understand each other. In beautiful prose, Glass fashions a realistic portrait of ups and downs between two siblings over a number of years.

Recommended Reads: The Slippery Year

Recommended Reads: The Slippery Year by Melanie Gideon (BIO GID)

This is an enjoyable reflection written by a 44-year old mother and wife trying to determine what is important in life, and what it means to be happy with the life you find yourself in. It’s her uplifting and funny story of how she deals with her husband’s midlife crisis when he buys an atrocious-looking camper RV that he insists on parking in the driveway of their affluent suburb, or tries to recapture her passionate feelings for this otherwise-practical husband who insists on wearing a safety helmet while surfing, or missing her nine-year old son when he goes off to camp for the first time. As she says in the introduction, “The Slippery Year is the story of how I come to terms with my happily ever after. It’s a conversation – personal and universal, funny and heartrending – about all the things that matter: children, the Sunday paper, sisters, good-hair days, dogs, love, loss, the passage of time, and all the reasons to go on living even when the only thing we can be sure of is that one day it will all end."