{"id":49225,"date":"2023-10-10T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=49225"},"modified":"2023-10-03T14:51:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T19:51:56","slug":"octobers-celebrity-book-club-picks-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/octobers-celebrity-book-club-picks-3\/","title":{"rendered":"October’s Celebrity Book Club Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join\u00a0Simply Held<\/a>, these titles will automatically be put on hold for you.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Jenna Bush Hager has selected\u00a0How to Say Babylon: A Memoir<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Safiya Sinclair for her October pick.<\/p>\n

Curious what\u00a0How to Say Babylon<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/i><\/b>is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.<\/p>\n

With echoes of Educated and Born a Crime, How to Say Babylon is the stunning story of the author\u2019s struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father\u2019s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair\u2019s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman\u2019s highest virtue was her obedience.<\/em><\/p>\n

In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya\u2019s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father\u2019s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya\u2019s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.<\/em><\/p>\n

How to Say Babylon is Sinclair\u2019s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.\u00a0<\/em> – Simon & Schuster<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Reese Witherspoon has selected\u00a0Starling House<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Alix E. Harrow for her October pick.<\/p>\n

Curious what Starling House<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/a>is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.<\/p>\n

I dream sometimes about a house I\u2019ve never seen\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Opal is a lot of things\u2014orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier\u2014but above all, she’s determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n

All she left behind were dark rumors\u2014and her home. Everyone agrees that it\u2019s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n

I should be scared, but in the dream I don\u2019t hesitate.<\/em><\/p>\n

Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House\u2014and make some extra cash for her brother’s escape fund\u2014she can’t resist.<\/em><\/p>\n

But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur\u2019s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.<\/em><\/p>\n

In my dream, I\u2019m home.<\/em><\/p>\n

And now she\u2019ll have to fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to Starling House: enter, if you dare.\u00a0<\/em> – Tor Books<\/p>\n

Join\u00a0Simply Held<\/a>\u00a0to have Oprah, Jenna, and Reese\u2019s adult selections automatically put on hold for you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join\u00a0Simply Held, these titles will automatically be put on hold for you. _________________________________ Jenna Bush Hager has selected\u00a0How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1,8],"tags":[5293,5895,7389,402,7647,5267,1187,1765,7648,6397,7701],"class_list":["post-49225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-readwithjenna","tag-alix-e-harrow","tag-celebrity-book-clubs","tag-fiction","tag-how-to-say-babylon","tag-jenna-bush-hager","tag-memoir","tag-reese-witherspoon","tag-safiya-sinclair","tag-simply-held","tag-starling-house"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-cNX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49614,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49225\/revisions\/49614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}