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February 21, 2009

Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems
by Mark Doty

This book is the 2008 winner of the National Book Award for poetry. Fire to Fire collects the best of Mark Doty's seven books of poetry, along with a generous selection of new works. Doty's subjects, our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire's transformative power, and art's ability to give shape to human lives echo and develop across twenty years of poems.

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American family
by Annette Gordon-Reed

This book is the 2008 winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction. This book is for a history buff since it is serious, thick, and complex. This multigenerational saga traces mixed-race bloodlines that American history has long refused fully to acknowledge. Blending biography, genealogy, and history, Gordon-Reed brings to life the family from which Sally Hemings came and the family that she and Thomas Jefferson created.

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
by Gail Tsukiyama

In her sixth novel, Tsukiyama tackles life in Japan before, during and after WWII. The story follows brothers Hiroshi and Kenji Matsumoto through the devastation of war and the hardships of postwar reconstruction. Orphaned when their parents were killed in a boating accident, the boys are raised by their grandparents in Tokyo.