Hello
 This week we feature City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York by Tyler Anbinder; You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris, a very personal response to the 2015 Paris terror attacks; and the YA novel Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven. I hope you also enjoy the weekly roundup of some of the best just published books, and our top 12 book club recommendations for 2017. We also have copies to give away of Donald Stratton's soon to publish memoir, All The Gallant Men: An American Sailor's Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor. Of the 1,182 crew aboard the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, Stratton was one of just 5 to survive. 75 years later, he tells his story. No issue next week. Happy Thanksgiving to all our US readers! Your Editor, Davina
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  Editor's Choice 
City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York by Tyler Anbinder
Hardcover (Oct 2016), 768 pages. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. BookBrowse Rating: 5/5, Critics' Consensus: 5.0/5 Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie Review & beyond the book article by James Broderick Perhaps there are books about the immigrant experience in America that are longer than Tyler Anbinder's City of Dreams (768 pages), and conceivably cover even more years (1632 to the present) than this one, but I'd be surprised if any other related volume offers more "I never realized that" moments. It would take a ridiculous number of pages to chronicle all the fascinating revelations embedded within Anbinder's brick of a book, a sprawling chronicle which lives up to its subtitle: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York. For all its comprehensiveness, it remains a compelling - and at times touchingly personal - page-turner. In an author's note, Anbinder explains that The City of Dreams focuses more heavily on the distant past than on contemporary New York because, for recent immigrants, "few of their scrapbooks, diaries, and photos have made their way from their grandchildren's attics to archives and historical societies. Social scientists are studying today's immigrants, but their data-heavy, theoretically oriented publications lack the compelling personal narratives that make New York's immigration history so rich and rewarding." ... continue readingFull access to our reviews & beyond the book articles are for members only. But there are always four free Editor's Choice reviews and beyond the book articles available.
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Editor's Choice 
You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris
Hardcover (Oct 2016), 144 pages.
Publisher: Penguin Press.
BookBrowse Rating: 5/5, Critics' Consensus: 5.0/5
Review & Beyond the Book Article by Kim Kovacs
On Friday, November 13, 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris left 130 people dead, 89 of them at the city's Bataclan theater (see Beyond the Book). Antoine Leiris's wife Hélène was at the Bataclan that night. In You Will Not Have My Hate he writes about waiting to learn her fate and the subsequent process of grieving her death. The title is somewhat deceptive because it makes one believe that the book might not only detail the author's experiences but also discuss his response to terrorism. In fact, only a few pages move the focus beyond the intimate portrayal of one man's grief. The book's genesis is a Facebook posting, made a few days after Hélène's death, which encapsulates Leiris's opinion about the attackers:
On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know. You are dead souls. If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, each bullet in my wife's body will have been a wound in his heart.
So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. That is what you want, but to respond to your hate with anger would be to yield to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change.
This important sentiment deserves to be shared widely. The narrative, however, is mostly an expression of the author's anguish at the loss of his soulmate and the pain of knowing their 17-month old son Melvil will grow up without his mother, too young to process her death. ... continue reading
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Editor's Choice
Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven
Hardcover (Oct 2016), 400 pages. Publisher: Knopf Children's Books. BookBrowse Rating: 5/5, Critics' Consensus: 4.6/5 Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie
Review & Beyond the Book by Donna Chavez Jennifer Niven's spectacular Holding Up the Universe has everything that I love about Young Adult fiction. Begin with the characters. Libby Strout and Jack Masselin are unique, yet totally relatable. Put them in a situation where they come head-to-head, not just against each other, but also against their better selves. Develop a plot that respects their personal dignity and humanity even as they stumble, make some good and some poor decisions, and eventually come into themselves as the innately good people they are. Libby Strout is facing her first day in high school following several years of homeschooling and three years under strict medical supervision for weight loss. This was severe weight loss as Libby was the 600-pound Fattest Teen in America who had to be crane-lifted from her bed at home and delivered via truck to the hospital. Now, having lost 300 pounds, she is finally ready to resume classes in a regular school for the first time since the fifth grade. Some of the kids might recognize her, most won't. At least she hopes they don't. She's ready to start a new chapter, a clean slate, a slate that she hopes includes a spot on the school dance/cheer squad. "I'm carrying the world's biggest secret. You may not know this about me, but I love to dance." Jack Masselin, a senior, is big man on campus. Tall, lean, good looking with a gigantic Afro, and a real party guy. Always with a ready quip, a flip response and a quick escape plan should anybody try to pin him down. See, he too has a big secret that he guards desperately. Behind that winning smile, he is face blind, something called prosopagnosia which affects about 2.5% of the population. (See Beyond the Book.) It can be congenital or brought on by a blow to the head or other factors. Jack's has never been diagnosed because, well, he's a teenager and he hasn't even told his folks of his problem. It becomes complicated because he's discovered his father is cheating. Another secret. He's the eldest of three boys in a biracial marriage and keeping secrets has become a lifestyle choice. ... continue reading
Read the review and Beyond the Book article on Prosopagnosia - Face Blindness Full access to our reviews & beyond the book articles are for members only. But there are always four free Editor's Choice reviews and beyond the book articles available. |
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 Book Club Recommendations for 2017 It's the most wonderful time of the year. No, we're not talking holiday parties and sugar cookies although those are fun too. It's time to start planning your book club lineup for 2017. Wading through recommendations from friends and family alike is not for the faint of heart so we've culled a select dozen novels that we suggest should be at the top of your "to consider" pile. Plus an additional three suggestions for the young adult set.
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 Published This Week
Interested to know what notable books published this week? Click on any of the book jacket images to view info about the book on BookBrowse.
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 Win This Book  All the Gallant Men: An American Sailor's Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor
by Donald Stratton & Ken Gire
Published Nov 2016, 320 pages
Enter the Giveaway From the Jacket The first memoir by a USS Arizona survivor: Donald Stratton, one of the battleship's five living heroes, delivers a "powerful" and "intimate" (Library Journal) eyewitness account of Pearl Harbor and his unforgettable return to the fight. At 8:06 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Seaman First Class Donald Stratton was consumed by an inferno. A million pounds of explosives had detonated beneath his battle station aboard the USS Arizona, barely fifteen minutes into Japan's surprise attack on American forces at Pearl Harbor. Near death and burned across two thirds of his body, Don, a nineteen-year-old Nebraskan who had been steeled by the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, summoned the will to haul himself hand over hand across a rope tethered to a neighboring vessel. Forty-five feet below, the harbor's flaming, oil-slick water boiled with enemy bullets; all around him the world tore itself apart. In this extraordinary never-before-told eyewitness account of the Pearl Harbor attack-the only memoir ever written by a survivor of the USS Arizona - ninety-four-year-old veteran Donald Stratton finally shares his unforgettable personal tale of bravery and survival on December 7, 1941, his harrowing recovery, and his inspiring determination to return to the fight. 5 people will each win a hardcover copy of All the Gallant Men. This giveaway is open to residents of the USA only, unless you are a BookBrowse member, in which case you are eligible to win wherever you might live. Enter the giveaway | Past Winners
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