February 26, 2021
One of my book groups has a Facebook group page, and we chat there about the books that we are reading --- and want to read. We are skipping this month and picking up in March to discuss THE FOUR WINDS by Kristin Hannah, which is a "Read with Jenna" pick for February and a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. I have to share the links to Kristin’s appearances this week on "Today with Hoda & Jenna" and their Instagram Live page.
February 12, 2021
Yes, love is in the air as we move into the long weekend. We’re talking book love here! It may be a short month, but it’s packed with lots of books to discuss --- and events to attend!
This month, we are featuring the discussion guide for Kristin Hannah’s highly anticipated new novel, THE FOUR WINDS. This #1 New York Times bestseller is February’s “Read with Jenna” Today Show Book Club pick, a LibraryReads Top Pick, an Indie Next pick and a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. In 1934 Texas, millions are out of work, and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli --- like so many of her neighbors --- must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. Along with the guide, be sure to take a look at our Bookreporter review and my Bets On commentary.
Bookaccino Event on March 10th
Editorial Content for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Teaser
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
Promo
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
About the Book
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power --- which groups have it and which do not.”
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma and more.
Using riveting stories about people --- including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others --- she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Beautifully written, original and revealing, CASTE is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
