Horses by Geraldine Brooks

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamour of any racetrack.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse – one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred, Lexington, who became America’s greatest stud sire, Horse is an original, gripping, multi-layered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America.

E6 J9 S8 C9 T9 J9 P8 R&Janet not read

Trude S
Score: 8.3

2024-04-17

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE BY THE NOBEL-PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR
ONE OF THE BBC’S ‘100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD’

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past . . .

A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro’s beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love.

E7 Janet 8 C8 P8 June 8 S9 T9

Janet J
Score: 8.1

2024-03-13

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Winner of The Women’s Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

The poignant – and at times very funny – novel from the author of The Dutch House and Commonwealth.

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country’s vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honour of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera’s most revered soprano, has mesmerised the international guests with her singing.

It is a perfect evening – until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

E6 Janet 6 June 6 P7 T7 C8 S7

Christine P
Score: 6.7

2024-02-14