A Harvest of Great Reads
By Tari Hendrickson, Reviewer
THE CORRESPONDENT
BY VIRGINIA EVANS
This novel is told entirely through letters, emails, and notes. Surprisingly, these forms are perfectly suited to its central character. Sybil Van Antwerp is a 73-year-old retired lawyer, prickly on the surface and deeply wounded beneath it. Following a car accident, she conceals her failing eyesight from her children, fearing they will push her toward a retirement home. Most of her days are spent writing to friends, family, and favorite authors. She carefully crafts a polished version of herself for each recipient.
But secrets have a way of surfacing. A DNA test her children gift her reveals biological roots she never knew. Threatening letters from a mysterious stalker force a reckoning with her past. And Harry, the troubled boy of a friend she takes in, becomes an unlikely companion in her unraveling. Beneath it all lies decades of unspoken grief—a loss that quietly shaped everything.
What gives the novel its emotional power is Evans' insight that Sybil's lifelong gift for correspondence, the very thing that kept her connected to the world, also kept the world at arm's length. It makes for a warm, perceptive, and quietly moving book.
You may find a long waitlist for this novel. Lincoln City Libraries has 53 copies of this book, available electronically.
THE LOREN EISELEY READER
COMPILED BY THE LOREN EISELEY SOCIETY
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” —Loren Eiseley
For readers unfamiliar with Eiseley, this collection is an ideal introduction to a most remarkable mind. A naturalist, anthropologist, and poet in prose, Eiseley saw the world with uncommon depth—in a fossil, a spider's web, a winter sky, he found the whole story of time and the human place within it. The essays gathered here move between science and meditation with ease.
He was born in 1907; raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. Eiseley earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and English from the University of Nebraska. At the time of his death in 1977, he was the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Eiseley wrote in a way that made the immensity of evolutionary time feel personal and even tender. He was a man who carried a sense of wonder like something fragile and precious, and it shows on every page. Nebraska readers will find pleasure in recognizing the landscapes of his Lincoln boyhood woven through his work. This is writing that slows you down in the best possible way.
If you are spellbound by his writing style (as I am!), consider exploring Eiseley's legendary anthologies: The Immense Journey, The Unexpected Universe, and The Night Country.
Lincoln City Libraries has 10 copies of this book, not available electronically.
DIRT: ADVENTURES IN LYON AS A CHEF IN TRAINING, FATHER, AND SLEUTH LOOKING FOR THE SECRET OF FRENCH COOKING
BY BILL BUFORD
Buford's book is an adventure of appetite— for food, for knowledge, for the stubborn, beautiful particulars of French culinary tradition. When he and his wife uproot their family, including twin toddler boys, and move to Lyon, France, to learn to cook, the results are both instructive and deeply, wildly entertaining.
Lyon is the right city for such a quest. Buford apprentices in restaurant kitchens, studies with bakers and butchers, and tracks down the culinary traditions that make French cooking what it is. He is not above looking foolish in the pursuit of understanding, which makes for some giggle-worthy moments. The book is as much about obsession and family life as it is about food—how a person chases mastery while also navigating a marriage, children, and life in a foreign city.
Readers who love food writing, travel, and a good story told with humor will find Dirt irresistible. I am traveling to Lyon soon and will explore its famed culinary traditions this fall and promise to report back to readers of this publication!
Lincoln City Libraries has 3 copies of this book, available electronically.
Tari Hendrickson is a member of two book clubs, one of which she founded over 20 years ago. She remembers the thrill when letters and words came together and made sense in first grade.