The most recommended books about Connecticut

I read that Matt Weiner wouldn’t have had the courage to write Mad Men if he’d read this before he worked on the series.

Revolutionary Road is set in the world of New York advertising during the martini lunch era, and it’s one of my favorite books of all time. It doesn’t exactly have that Singin’ in the Rain optimism, but it’s darkly hilarious. The opening scene is literary perfection, set at the dress rehearsal for the Laurel Players.

Yates masterfully captures that Waiting for Guffman sincerity (and inherent comedy) of community theater, and the novel sets the stage for the deeply human tale of longing. It is deeply American and deeply perfect.

One of the common reactions to the death of a loved family member–especially any death we perceive to be unnecessary or unnatural–is extreme anger. We have to blame someone, and yes, there’s plenty of reproach and self-recrimination in John Burnham Schwartz’s novel, Reservation Road. But there’s a clear culprit–a hit and run driver–and it seems the police are hardly bothering to investigate, and in a case like that, anyone would have a target for their helpless rage. We see Ethan, a father who witnessed his ten-year-old son killed, become obsessed with tracking down the perpetrator himself to accomplish some justice. I understand that kind of anger and frustration, and I know many others do, too. I think it’s useful to both accept that it’s normal, but to look at how destructive it can become to carry it, and to consider how to let it go. 

Reservation Road is also… show more.

Anne Gardiner Perkins’ Yale Needs Women combines rigorous historical research and riveting storytelling to produce a book that is both insightful and inspirational. She explains how Yale University’s first female students in 1969 faced extensive discrimination and had to fight rampant misogyny, outdated traditions, and backwards views on a daily basis to get an education.

This true story of love and lasting marriage in later life is told by the husband and wife in alternating first-person voices. Ingrained habits of social and personal life and relationships with both parents and children all create stumbling blocks as the two lovers strive to create a unified way of life. I admire this book for its frank and vivid presentation of the pitfalls that can threaten a union of two individuals who meet in late middle age, already well set on their paths. In its presentation of problems and solutions, this book offers the most “self-help” of these five recommendations.

I love the way this author puts ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances. I read the book in gulps, and as I neared the end, I slowed down to savor the mind-blowing story as it was unfolding. I became fully absorbed in the lives of people I now knew well and liked. I rooted for the good people and knew the bad would finally meet their end. This was an utterly unpredictable story that kept me guessing and surprised me all the way through.

I was immediately taken by 17-year-old Justin Bailey because, like him, I didn’t have a strong father figure who could teach me how men were supposed to behave. So when he lands an internship at a legendary muscle car shop, it seems like a dream come true until it quickly becomes clear that his new mentor is equally vulnerable to tragedy.

As his hero falls, Justin falls right along with him—easily lost in his surroundings and eager to accept one justification after another until he succumbs to the darkest of temptations. As a protagonist, his only saving grace is understanding what he did was wrong, albeit too late. And at the same time, it reminds me that the most dangerous unreliable narrator could be me.

“For us it is a farm with a different kind of harvest,” Teale describes of how his aging Trail Woods farm yields observations, memories, and adventures. Teale has been called a “20th-century Thoreau” for his work as a naturalist, writer, and nature photographer. But in chapters titled A Hammock in the Woods, Stone Fences, The Man in the Brushpile, and more, his expression of love for living things transcends scientific observation; he shares his relationships with stones, plants, and animals so that we recognize they are made not only of earth, but of spirit, too.

I tell anyone who will listen that I am not a fan of anything paranormal, but this series has me hooked. I think Summoning the Winds is the first book I ever read about witches (Hamlet doesn't count), and I loved it. In a nutshell, the series takes the notion of witch trials and turns it on its head with tales of real witches in colonial Connecticut of the 1660s (where, in my time machine, I would view the events in this story from a safe distance).  

Yarrow Pickering, the main character and an eighteen-year-old orphan, is spunky and smart. She’s also a witch. She uses her abilities for good and, like her mother, is skilled at creating herbal remedies for illnesses and injuries suffered by the people in the village of Milthorpe. When she attempts to help a young girl who has become ill, the girl’s father becomes… show more.

When I finished this book, I immediately told all my close friends to read it so we could discuss. At year’s end, it’s the book I’ve recommended most. This is a quick, juicy, sometimes infuriating read, and I could not put it down.

Jess is a Black liberal from Nebraska, starting her first post-college job at Goldman Sachs. Josh is her white, conservative coworker from Connecticut and a former thorn in her side from undergrad. 

Watching these two opposites attract during the Obama-Trump transition was the most fun I ever had (the banter is top-notch) and had me squirming with its hyper-realistic portrayal of America’s political polarization. Will Jess and Josh’s love survive, or will it suffer death by a thousand microaggressions? Everything’s Fine is a romance wrapped in an enigma.

When civil war threatened to destroy the American form of government and the liberty and freedom it represented, Alexander Herritage Newton rallied to the cause. “My bosom burst with the fire of patriotism for the salvation of my country and my people.” His people were millions of enslaved Black families who had toiled for generations in service of the white majority population. Early in the war, Newton was not allowed to serve because of the color of his skin. But as the laws changed, he joined the 29th Connecticut Infantry. He tells the story of his journey in a vivid autobiography, Out of the Briars.