Book Notes

All Book Notes articles are collected here.

Book Notes | This Tender Land

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This Tender Land is an epic coming-of-age story set in Minnesota during the summer of 1932. It chronicles a mesmerizing journey of four children who escape the horrors of the Lincoln Indian Training School and sneak away in a canoe in search of a home.

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This Tender Land, book cover

Book Notes | The Personal Librarian

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This historical novel tells a compelling story about the archivist and librarian who developed the Pierpont Morgan Library into a world-class collection in the early 20th century and kept secret her African American heritage her whole professional life.

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The Personal Librarian

‘A cornucopia of riches’ brought to life with UMRA grant support

Joanne Eicher’s new book, Global Trade and Cultural Authentication, published with support from UMRA’s grant program, is the capstone of a stellar career launched by serendipity.

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Global Trade and Cultural Authentication, book cover

Book Notes | 'Hamnet'

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Most members of the UMRA Book Club liked this historical novel. Set in both the 1500s and the present, it tells the story of William and Agnes Shakespeare and their grief at losing a child.

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Hamnet

Book notes | Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

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Members of UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club enjoyed a lively discussion of author Gail Honeyman’s prize-winning debut novel and what it reveals about the importance of friendship and care to the development of the quirky main character.

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The life of an outsider is vividly captured in Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, a debut novel that was discovered through a writing competition and quickly became a worldwide best seller.

Book notes | Circling the Sun

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This historical novel depicts the life of aviation pioneer Beryl Markham and the early decades of her extraordinary life growing up in Kenya.

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Circling the Sun

Book notes | Strangers in Their Own Land

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On June 24, at the end of a week like no other (House Jan. 6 committee hearings, and Supreme Court decisions on gun control in New York and overturning Roe v. Wade), UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club had a deep and passionate discussion on Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild.

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Strangers in Their Own Land

Book notes | Still Life

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Several UMRA Book Club I members are avid fans of the Louise Penny books while for a few this was their first introduction to the mysteries set in Three Pines.

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still life

Book notes | The Things They Carried

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"The Things They Carried" is an exquisitely written collection of short stories by Minnesota-born author Tim O’Brien about a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War.

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The Things They Carried

Book notes | Prairie Fires

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Caroline Fraser’s Pulitzer prize-winning book Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a meticulously researched biography of the much-loved author of the Little House books.

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Book notes | The Nickel Boys

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Colson Whitehead, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for The Underground Railroad, explores the horrors of a reformatory school in Florida in his subsequent novel, "The Nickel Boys."

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Book notes | Have You Seen Luis Velez?

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This inspiring book by the prolific American author Catherine Ryan Hyde conveys a hopeful theme that also underlies her first novel, "Pay It Forward."

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Book notes | A Confederacy of Dunces

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For those with contemporary 2021 sensibilities, "A Confederacy of Dunces"—acclaimed as a literary masterpiece after it was published posthumously in 1980—is a canonical work of modern literature, best understood as a period piece.

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Book notes | Braiding Sweetgrass

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In Braiding Sweetgrass, author Robin Wall Kimmerer, a trained botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, shows how other living things like plants offer us lessons to live by. The culture of gratitude is a key theme.

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Book notes | Invisible Man

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First published in 1952, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is not a one-dimensional novel about racial unrest. Members of URMA’s Fourth Friday Book Club found it to be a book rich in ideas.

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