Welcome Readers!
This month the Online Reading Challenge travels back in time to the 1940s. Our Main title for April is The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner.
Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.
Sally Horner’s story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper in the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel’s creation, The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic. – Ecco/Harper Luxe
Looking for some other books set in the 1940s? Try any of the following.
- City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
- Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
- The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
- Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
- The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
- We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
- We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
- The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
- The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!