Shelfology Book Pairing

A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

by Brit Bennett

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • NPR • PEOPLE • TIME MAGAZINE • VANITY FAIR • GLAMOUR New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century 2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST “Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal “A story of absolute, universal timelessness . . . For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it’s piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment Weekly From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction

by Barbara Kingsolver

#1 NEW YORK TIMES READERS BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY PARTITA - THE HEARTRENDING NEW NOVEL FROM BARBARA KINGSOLVER - COMING OCTOBER 2026 A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTION THE MULTI-MILLION COPY SELLING AUTHOR BOOK AT BEDTIME ON BBC RADIO 4 AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK 'Without a doubt the best book I'll read this year.' KATE ATKINSON 'It's EPIC. Righteously angry, DEEPLY moving and exquisitely written.' MARIAN KEYES 'Daring, entertaining and highly readable.' The Times 'Electrifying.' Daily Mail 'A blaze of a book.' RACHEL JOYCE 'A masterclass.' RICHARD POWERS 'Masterful.' Pulitzer Prize 'Powerful.' Guardian 'A work of genius.' KATE MOSSE ____________ Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can. Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there. Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between. ____________ Readers love Demon Copperhead: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Outstanding . . . I don't know how someone can write a book like this: inhabit a totally different character and create it with such empathy, respect and fullness.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Powerful and brilliant. To immerse yourself in a Kingsolver novel is to put yourself in the hands of a master.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This was one of the greatest books I have read . . . Kingsolver is a magician with words, and her rage quietly seeps from each page.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Raw, angry, starkly beautiful . . . Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'An incredibly raw and moving read, with a big-hearted hero who will stay with me for a long time.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I cannot overstate how absorbing this book is. It is wonderful and has restored my faith in fiction and novels.'