The Bookies Bookstore suggests a trio of thought-provoking titles

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from The Bookies Bookstore in Denver recommends a book on racism, as well as novels exploring slavery and a ghostwriter who sees…ghosts.

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From the publisher: It’s no secret that white women are conditioned to be “nice,” but did you know that the desire to be perfect and to avoid conflict at all costs are characteristics of white supremacy culture? In this book, Jackson and Rao pose these urgent questions: how has being “nice” helped Black women, Indigenous women and other women of color? How has being “nice” helped you in your quest to end sexism? Has being “nice” earned you economic parity with white men?

Beginning with freeing white women from this oppressive need to be nice, they deconstruct and analyze nine aspects of traditional white woman behavior–from tone-policing to weaponizing tears–that uphold white supremacy society, and hurt all of us who are trying to live a freer, more equitable life.

From Bess Maher, event liaison: This book, by Denver-based and formerly Denver-based authors Regina Jackson and Sairo Rao, addresses–yes–white women. White Women isn’t always easy reading, but the authors show how real anti-racism work never is. It’s a call to action, and I highly recommend it. 

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From the publisher: Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For 10 years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it. Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

From Krista Carlton, manager: A book about a romance ghost writer who sees ghosts? I’m not normally a romance reader, but this book surprised and delighted me. It’s a sweet (and a little spicy) romance that also delivers a frank and refreshing view of death, which grounds the book pleasantly. It kept me engaged and left me feeling like it was time well spent. Poston’s newest novel, “A Novel Love Story,” publishes at the end of June.

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From the publisher: Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

From Pat Macy, bookseller: “The Water Dancer” explores slavery from the point of view of the enslaved people. In this unique storyline, memories of the old power from Africa mixes with the Underground Railroad. A very good book!

Type of Story: Review

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