Tuesday, March 31, 2020
By Adele Lander Burke and Janet Bain Fattal
Hello! Adele Lander Burke here, Vice President of Public Programs at the Skirball. With so many of us spending more time at home, I figured some of you might be in search of a few good books.
I reached out to Janet Bain Fattal, our much-beloved Skirball Book Groups facilitator, to see if she had any ideas. Of course, she came back with a treasure trove of great reads, including fiction and nonfiction, memoirs, short stories, and a spotlight on Philip Roth. You can rent e-books, audiobooks, and more from the Los Angeles Public Library free of charge. Sign up for an e-card if you’re not already a member.
I hope you’ll find something here to enjoy.
Recent releases
- Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
- Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
International
- A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
- The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah
- A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Nonfiction
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
- Seabiscuit: An American Legend or Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
- Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead Maupin
- Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Light
- The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
- Mary Coin by Marisa Silver
- News of the World by Paulette Jiles
- The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Deep dive into the great Philip Roth
The short stories of...
Classics
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- and, of course, anything by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and F. Scott Fitzgerald
Adele Lander Burke is Vice President of Public Programs at the Skirball Cultural Center. She has a BA in political science from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MA in education from Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. She is currently reading Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
Janet Bain Fattal holds an MA in comparative literature from UCLA. She has taught world literature and composition at many levels. A screenwriter, novelist, and book group facilitator, Fattal loves to share her passion for stories and ideas with others, particularly in an informal environment.
