Houses Here and Now & In History

The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

From the Jacket

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove—a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different.

From the Discussion

"Some of the passages I had to read over and over because they were so beautifully written." —Gingie_W

"The book is multi-layered and can be reread for historical reference, for its descriptive language or for its humanity." —Lynne_Zolli

"The Bluest Eye is one of the best books I've ever read and I have recommended it to my book club. I haven't read other Toni Morrison books prior to this, as they were difficult for me to get into. I'm looking forward to reading more of them in the future." —Amy_A

This issue of The BookBrowse Review contains reviews and "beyond the book" articles for 14 titles, including One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad, Three Days in June by Anne Tyler, and Mornings Without Mii by Mayumi Inaba.

We also bring you March Books We're Excited About, First Impressions books, the latest book news, and more.

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A Calamity of Noble Houses

by Amira Ghenim

An illicit affair precipitates the drama in A Calamity of Noble Houses by Amira Ghenim. On December 7, 1935, a letter hidden between several loaves of bread arrives at the wealthy Ennaifer household. The plan is for the maid Luiza to accept the bread delivery and tuck the letter in a safe place until handing it to Zbaida Rassaa Ennaifer at an appropriate time. But Mhammed Ennaifer spots the letter and reads it out loud, shocking the family with the contents. Zbaida, his sister-in-law, has been having an affair.

Immediately, the pious Ennaifer family, devout followers of Islam, are in chaos. The misgivings about their son's wife that have been shelved during their five-year marriage rise to the surface.

Although A Calamity of Noble Houses is a story of an affair, it really isn't a story about an affair. It's a story about women who have the independence to make their own choices and the chasm created within a family by those choices that are seen as unforgivable. ... continued

Review by Valerie Morales

"In This House, We Believe"

In One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad levels several critiques against Western liberalism and its contradictions. One of the most damning is this: "It's difficult to live in this country in this moment and not come to the conclusion that the principal concern of the modern American liberal is, at all times, not what one does or believes or supports or opposes, but what one is seen to be...Saying the right slogans supersedes whatever it is those slogans are supposed to oblige." One of the most visible sets of slogans about progressive beliefs, nearly ubiquitous in some residential neighborhoods in so-called blue states, has become the subject of both inspiration and ridicule: the "In this house, we believe" lawn sign.

Although she didn't come up with any of the original slogans (the sources are as varied as Black activists on social media, a Hillary Clinton speech, and the band They Might Be Giants), the first person to put them all together in this form was a white youth services librarian from Madison, Wisconsin. The day after Trump's win in 2016, Kristin Garvey pulled out a piece of posterboard and a black marker while her children were napping, scrawled the slogans, and planted the sign in her yard. ... continued

Article by Norah Piehl

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