Books

Poetry

                      By Marie Howe, Class of 1968

The Good Thief (1988)
Selected by Margaret Atwood for the National Poetry Series. 

What The Living Do (1997)
“. . .a deeply beautiful book, with the fierce galloping pace of a great novel. Boston Globe”.
Chosen by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the best books of poetry published in 1997.

The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2008)
An anticipated new volume.  Hurrying through errands, attending a dying mother, helping her own child down the playground slide, the speaker in these poems wonders: what is the difference between the self and the soul?  The secular and the sacred?  Where is the kingdom of heaven?  And how does one live in Ordinary Time—during those periods that are not apparently miraculous?

Memoirs

The Color of Water:
A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother
by James McBride

Recommended by Maureen Hooley McHugh (’66) who writes, “excellent memoir - after reading, it sure gives one pause for thought about just how good a life we all have & how sometimes you just gotta tough things out”.

(Winner of the 1997 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Literary Excellence.  In 2003 it was the inaugural selection of “New York City Reads Together” and was the 2004 selection of “One Book/One Philadelphia”.) 

Mystery and Suspense

Close Brush With Death: A Lawton Close Mystery
by Joseph F. Hanna

In this entertaining mystery, a celebrity lawyer is hired to discover who is masterminding the thefts of famous paintings and who killed the last man to ask about them.
Note:  The author is the brother of Joanne Hanna (’66)