The Time of Our Singing

Book cover of The Time of Our Singing

Book description

“The last novel where I rooted for every character, and the last to make me cry.” - Marlon James, Elle

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory and the Oprah's Book Club selection Bewilderment comes Richard Powers's magnificent, multifaceted novel about a supremely gifted―and divided―family, set against the backdrop…

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Literary fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Time of Our Singing as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Julie Kabat

Author

As a musician, I was initially intrigued by the title. I soon realized that Richard Powers would interweave his characters’ love of classical music with complex issues of race within a family. The parents-to-be meet in 1939 at the historic outdoor concert featuring singer Marian Anderson, who really was denied the best concert hall. He is a German-Jewish refugee; she is an African American music student. Can love withstand society’s pressures tearing Whites and Blacks apart? Can the parents’ idealism protect their children?

The narrator moves back and forth between the parents’ and children’s stories, from the 1940s through the…

From Julie's list on building compassion around issues of race.

No, You're Crazy

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Book cover of No, You're Crazy

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What is my book about?

When she helps her drug-addicted father win enough casino cash to accidentally overdose, she becomes the target of violent people determined to exploit her, and she goes on the run. Ashlee reaches out to a distant relative, traumatized war journalist Mike Baker. Soon, at least in Ashlee's eyes, they are…

No, You're Crazy

By Jeff Beamish,

What is this book about?

When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable. And when she helps her drug-addict father win enough casino cash to accidentally overdose, she becomes the target of violent people determined to exploit her, and she goes on the run. Ashlee reaches out to a distant relative, traumatized war journalist Mike Baker. Soon, at least in Ashlee's eyes, they…

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