Looks like snow’s coming. To warm hands, heart and mind on these chill days, some great books that have just won top awards:
Nathan Harris’ “The Sweetness of Water,” his debut novel, has won yet more acclaim, this time the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. The tale, set as the Civil War winds down, chronicles the unlikely bond between two freed men and a Georgia farmer. That bond alters each of their lives.
Harris said he’s always been fascinated with historical fiction about that war, including “Cold Mountain” and “Gone With the Wind.”
“I had never read a story, personally, that was set immediately after slaves were freed,” said Harris, now 29. “So I started to read some oral histories that discussed that time when the gate was opened and people had to decide whether to stay or go. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like, so I put that to paper and began to explore.”
Harris, a native of Ashland, Ore., who lives in Seattle, said he’s been writing all his life.
“I was one of those elementary kids who wasn’t good at math or science or sports, though I tried,” he said. “But I could always keep people interested in my stories. I kept at it through high school and college and here we are.”
The Baton Rouge Area Foundation presents the $15,000 award annually to an emerging Black fiction writer to honor Gaines, whose stories gave voice to African Americans in rural areas. Among his novels: the acclaimed “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and “A Lesson Before Dying.” (AP)
Laurie R. King is the new Grand Master named by Mystery Writers of America. Readers might begin with “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” (1994), the launch of her Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Here the gawky, orphaned 15-year-old, reading Virgil on Sussex Downs, runs across Holmes, who’s retired and a beekeeper. As for King, she calls herself “probably the only writer to have both an Edgar and an honorary doctorate in theology.”
For young readers, honors from the American Library Association include the John Newbery Medal for the year’s best children’s book, to Donna Barba Higuera’s “The Last Cuentista.” It’s a post-apocalyptic tale of a girl who must preserve the memory of Earth’s history. (Ages 10 through 14.) Also, the Randolph Caldecott Medal for outstanding children’s picture book, to “Watercress,” by Andrea Wang and Jason Chin, illustrator. Here, a Chinese-American girl learns about her heritage.
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A Kwame Alexander trilogy launches Sept. 27 with “The Door of No Return” (Little, Brown). The books follow the lives of Kofi, 11, and his family from pre-colonial Ghana to the “woes and wonders” they face in Europe and America. “I wrote this one because people need to know that the middle (passage) was not our beginning. I wanted to speak the truth about the history of African Americans,” said Alexander, a Chesapeake native. His book “The Crossover” won the Newbery Medal for best children’s book of 2015. (AP)
Obituary notes: Thich Nhat Hanh — the Buddhist monk from Hue, Vietnam, who brought the concept of mindfulness to Western audiences with books including “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and “Peace Is Every Step” — was 95. In the 1960s he was exiled from Vietnam for opposing the war. … Dennis Smith — a juvenile delinquent, veteran, firefighter and bestselling author of “Report from Engine Co. 82? and “Report from Ground Zero” — was 81; he died of COVID-19.
New and recent
Isabel Allende, “Violeta.” Toward the end of her century-long life, Violeta Del Valle tells her story in a letter. Major events have shaped her: two pandemics; wars, economic calamity; joys large and small. A novel inspired by Allende’s beloved late mother; translated by Frances Riddle. (Ballantine, 336 pp.)
Also: “Unthinkable,” U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin’s memoir of his son’s suicide, the Capitol insurrection a week later, and Donald Trump’s impeachment. … From “Masterpiece Mystery!” host Alan Cumming, “Baggage,” a memoir. … “The House of Love” by Adriana Trigiani, illustrated by Amy June Bates. The first kids’ picture book by the native of Big Stone Gap.
— Erica Smith, erica.smith@pilotonline.com
