| Publisher Macmillan reverses e-book policy restricting library access
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| The Thread's Must-Read | 
"The Winters"
by Lisa Gabriele
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Admit it, sooner or later those reruns of Game of Thrones are gonna get old. And you will realize that social distancing is a perfect chance to get up close and personal with a great novel!
So, I’m going to bring sunshine and suspense, spiritual awakening, spies and silly stories into your solitary life while we wait this pandemic out.
My first trio of COVID-19 blues-busting novels are all about the sun-dappled yet solitary life of an island.
I just finished “The Winters,” Lisa Gabriele’s 2018 spin on Daphne DuMaurier’s “Rebecca” — a novel I adore.
Gabriele puts wealthy, widowed Max Winters and his young soon-to-be bride in the Cayman Islands where a courtship that includes nights of romance aboard a yacht does nothing to prepare our 25-year-old narrator for what she’ll encounter when she accompanies Max back to Asherley, a brooding estate off the coast of Long Island.
The first Mrs. Winters was a beautiful tempestuous woman who turned her adopted daughter, Dani, into a kind of “mini-me.”
And Gabriele does well by the dark drama that DuMaurier set up in “Rebecca.” Heck, read them back to back. You’ve got time!
My second island novel is from Jenny Han — you may know her as the author of “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” — and Siobhan Vivian’s 2013 YA novel “Burn for Burn.”
Part of a trilogy, it’s set on the fictional Jar Island ”that lets people pretend the world has stopped spinning,” our narrator tells us, and where three teen-aged girls form a friendship to exact revenge on the mean girls and a boy who have wronged them.
If your teen reader races through this novel like I think they will, there are two more delicious Jar Island books to go.
And finally, my third COVID-19 blues-busting island novel is Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s “The Dragonfly Sea.”
Published last spring, the novel is set on an island off the coast of Kenya, where a young woman slips into the sea and enters a kind of supernatural realm and a kind if pilgrimage that takes her on an odyssey into beautiful and ethereal worlds.
Now, be warned — this is a nearly 500 page novel but then again — maybe that’s just right for the times we’re in.
Next week: Three spy novels that will take you far afield from your social distancing couch.
-Kerri Miller |
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 | | This young chess champion is 'not scared of anything on that board' | | "My Name Is Tani ... and I Believe in Miracles: The Amazing True Story of One Boy's Journey from Refugee to Chess Champion" by Tanitoluwa Adewumi |
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Tani Adewumi's family fled Nigeria after being threatened by Boko Haram. They were living in a homeless shelter when Tani won the primary division at the New York State Scholastic Chess Championship. | | |
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 | | Too busy? Make time to 'do nothing' | "Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving" by Celeste Headlee |
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As many Americans start thinking about what a self-quarantine might look like, author Celeste Headlee has some advice: Put down your phone. Her book explains how we're "overdoing and underliving." | |
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 | | Skier Jessie Diggins on her new memoir | "Brave Enough" by Jessie Diggins, Todd Smith |
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MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with Olympic gold medalist and Afton native Jessie Diggins about the World Cup (which was unfortunately canceled), and her new memoir, “Brave Enough.” | |
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 | | Author Louise Erdrich on ‘The Night Watchman’ | "The Night Watchman" by Louise Erdrich |
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In the 1950s, the federal government worked to end Native American rights and treaties under a “termination policy.” Author Louise Erdrich sets her latest novel at her family’s home reservation, with a focus on this period of history. We talk with her about her latest work. | |
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