About the Book
“The Big Door Prize” is a humorous and delightful story of a small town upended.
An unassuming booth shows up at a Deerfield, Louisiana grocery store, promising to reveal your true life potential for a mere two dollars and a swab of DNA from your cheek. Suddenly, store owners, nurses and teachers are striving to be cowboys, magicians and athletes. The steady and quietly happy marriage of Douglas and Cherilyn Hubbard is disturbed by Cherilyn’s readout from the mysterious machine, which declares her true life calling to be “royalty.” Meanwhile, teenager Jacob tries to figure out who he is after the death of his twin brother, Toby. And Toby’s troubled ex-girlfriend, Trina, plots revenge. M.O. Walsh addresses serious topics with a light hand in this offbeat and charming novel about small-town life, relationships and the power of dreams.
About the Author
M.O. Walsh was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, and many others. His first novel, “My Sunshine Away,” was a New York Times bestseller.
He is a graduate of the MFA program at Ole Miss and also has degrees from the University of Tennessee and LSU. He currently directs The Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans and lives with his family near Lake Pontchartrain.
Biographical information and author photo courtesy of mowalsh.com.
About the Book
“Furious Hours” is the stunning story of a serial killer and the book Harper Lee failed to publish about his crimes.
Part true crime narrative, part biography, “Furious Hours” documents the remarkable story of the 1970s-era Alabama serial killer Willie Maxwell, and Harper Lee’s attempt to write a book about his crimes, the justice system and racial politics in the deep South. Cep first tells the story of Maxwell, the mysterious deaths of several family members, accusations of voodoo and his dramatic murder at the funeral of his final alleged victim. Cep next dives deeply into the trial of Maxwell’s killer (which Harper Lee attended), Alabama politics and the insanity defense. Finally, Cep creates a portrait of a frustrated Lee, trying — and failing — to get to the truth behind the murders onto the page. The result is an extensively researched and immersive work of nonfiction. Continue reading “2021 One Read Winner: About “Furious Hours” by Casey Cep”
About the Book
“A Gentleman in Moscow” is a grand adventure that takes place within the walls of a single luxury hotel.
In 1922, a Bolshevik tribunal sentences Count Alexander Rostov to house arrest in the luxurious Hotel Metropol. For the next 30 years, the Count experiences his country’s upheaval and transformation from the confines of his attic room, the building’s grand public spaces and the behind-the-scenes domains of hotel employees-turned-friends. While Rostov cannot go out into the world, the world comes to him in the form of Nina, a bureaucrat’s precocious daughter; the film actress Anna Urbanova; American intelligence officer Richard Vanderwhile; and even political leaders like Nikita Khrushchev. This novel is a lightly drawn, episodic portrait of Russia’s 20th century political history, as well as a charming tale of one man’s dedication to family, memory and home. Continue reading “2020 One Read Winner: About “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles”
About the Book
“Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” is a compelling work of immersive journalism.
Author Jessica Bruder describes the lives of nomadic workers who travel from one temporary job to another to make ends meet. Working long hours at beet harvests and walking miles in Amazon warehouses, these mostly older Americans live in their RVs, cars or vans and represent an increasing population of migrant workers living just this side of homelessness. Bruder provides both a critique of our current economy and a celebration of human resourcefulness and resilience.
Continue reading “2019 One Read Winner: About “Nomadland” by Jessica Bruder”
About the Book
”Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” is a compelling work of true crime that will captivate fiction and nonfiction readers alike.
When white settlers pushed the Osage Nation into Oklahoma in the 1800s, the tribe retained the mineral rights to the infertile land they were forced to call home. The subsequent discovery of oil made the Osage rich, and the U.S. government appointed white “guardians” to help manage their wealth. In the early 1920s, a number of Osage Indians suddenly died under mysterious circumstances or were outright murdered. This campaign of terror spurred young J. Edgar Hoover and his newly established FBI to investigate, ultimately uncovering shocking depths of greed, bigotry and corruption. David Grann’s dogged research and spellbinding storytelling combine to create a riveting true-crime narrative. Continue reading “2018 One Read Winner: About “Killers of the Flower Moon” and David Grann”
About the Book
“The Turner House” is a moving and celebratory portrait of a family and a city in transition.
The house on Detroit’s Yarrow Street has been home to the colorful and complicated Turners for more than 50 years. The family matriarch’s failing health, the declining neighborhood and an underwater mortgage force a family meeting to decide the house’s fate. Cha-Cha, the oldest son and unofficial head of the Turner clan, wrangles with his family’s past and the varied demands of his 12 siblings in this entertaining and vividly drawn family saga. In Angela Flournoy’s novel, the story of the Turners is also the story of Detroit, the Great Migration and this country’s recent economic turmoil.
Continue reading “2017 One Read Winner: About “The Turner House” and Angela Flournoy”
About the Book
“Bettyville” is a funny, tender memoir about a son coming home to a place he never quite fit to care for his aging mother.
Hodgman, after working for years as an editor in New York City, returns to Paris, Missouri and finds that his hometown and his mother Betty are both in extreme decline. The two share a fierce love, but a deep silence, as Betty has never been able to understand or accept his homosexuality. Hodgman reflects on his recovery from addiction, losing loved ones to the AIDS epidemic and his struggles to care for the still feisty but failing Betty. Funny, honest and tenderhearted, this memoir illuminates how a person is shaped by a family and community that are at once loving and damaging, flawed and beautiful.
Continue reading “2016 One READ Winner: About “Bettyville” and George Hodgman”
About the Book
“Station Eleven” is a literary, post-apocalyptic page-turner.
Twenty years after a deadly flu outbreak kills most of the world’s population, what survives? What matters? This haunting novel begins with the on-stage death of famous actor Arthur Leander during his performance of King Lear, which coincides with the beginning of the pandemic. The narrative moves back and forth between Leander’s younger life and 20 years after his death, weaving the stories of a handful of people connected to him – some closely, like his ex-wife, and some by the smallest thread, like the EMT who attempted to save his life or the child actress with whom Leander briefly shared a stage. A lyrically written examination of the importance of art and what it means to be human.
The book’s UK publisher describes “Station Eleven” as “thrilling, unique and deeply moving … a beautiful novel that asks questions about art and fame and about the relationships that sustain us through anything — even the end of the world.”
Continue reading “2015 One READ Winner: About “Station Eleven” and Emily St. John Mandel”
About the Book
“The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” is an uplifting and fast-paced Cinderella story.
This nonfiction work describes the journey of nine working class young men from the University of Washington as they row their way out of obscurity and into the gold-medal race at the 1936 Olympic Games in Hitler’s Berlin. The story of poor, twice-orphaned Joe Rantz anchors this cinematic tale of passion and perseverance set against the struggles of the Great Depression and a looming Second World War. Drawing on interviews, journals and period photographs, Brown tells the fascinating story of these unlikely American heroes.
The book’s publisher calls “The Boys in the Boat” an “irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times.”
Continue reading “2014 One READ Winner: About “The Boys in the Boat” and Daniel Brown”
About the Book
“The Ruins of Us” is a fast-paced work of contemporary fiction that explores the terrain of family relationships complicated by cultural conflict.
After more than 20 years of marriage to wealthy Saudi Abdullah al-Baylani, Rosalie, an American expatriate, discovers that her husband has taken a Palestinian second wife, which makes her contemplate escaping both the marriage and the country she has grown to love. Leaving will not be easy, however, given the country’s restrictions on women and the needs of her teenage children – a headstrong daughter becoming increasingly westernized and a son succumbing to radicalism.
The book’s publisher describes “The Ruins of Us” as “a timely story about intolerance, family and the injustices we endure for love.” Continue reading “2013 One Read Winner: About “The Ruins of Us” and Keija Parssinen”
