A Ballad of Love and Glory (historical fiction – hardbound) by Reyna Grande
Ximena Salomé is a gifted Mexican healer who dreams of building a family with the man she loves on the coveted land she calls home. But when Texas Rangers storm her ranch and shoot her husband dead, her dreams are burned to ashes. Vowing to honor her husband’s memory and defend her country, Ximena uses her healing skills as a nurse on the frontlines of the ravaging war.
Meanwhile, John Riley, an Irish immigrant in the Yankee army desperate to help his family escape the famine devastating his homeland, is sickened by the unjust war and the unspeakable atrocities against his countrymen by nativist officers. In a bold act of defiance, he swims across the Río Grande and joins the Mexican Army—a desertion punishable by execution. He forms the St. Patrick’s Battalion, a band of Irish soldiers willing to fight to the death for México’s freedom.
April is National Poetry Month and Book Passage has a robust and varied collection of poetry books and poets to recommend. Here are a couple:
Boomerang/Bumeran (poetry – paperback) by Achy Obejas
This is a unique and inspiriting bilingual collection of lyrical poetry written in a bold, mostly gender-free English and Spanish that addresses immigration, displacement, love, and activism. The book is divided into 3 sections: first, poems addressing immigration and displacement; secondly, those addressing love, lost and found, and finally, verses focusing on action, on ways of addressing injustice, and repairing the world. The volume will be both inspiration and support for readers living with marginalized identities and those who love and stand with them.
Call Us What We Carry (poetry- paperback) by Amanda Gorman
The luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, this beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning.
Upcoming Events
Thursday, April 14 @ 5:30 pm (free-online) Rabih Alameddine, Elizabeth Crane, Susan Perabo, Jess Walter, and Hannah Tintirik Larson, authors of Small Odysseys
Some of the thirty-five literary luminaries who came together for the stunning collection Small Odysseys will be present for this virtual event. The collection is a must-have for any lover of literature as it sweeps the reader into the landscape of the contemporary short story.
Monday, April 18 @ 7 pm (ticketed, in-Person at Dominican University) Valerie Biden Owens, author of Growing Up Biden
Valerie Biden Owens is Joe Biden’s younger sister, trusted confidante, and lifelong campaign manager. She will speak about what it was like being one of the first female campaign managers in U.S. history, and of her family, faith, and the fate in shaping her life, and the power of empathy and kindness in the face of turmoil and division. Growing Up Biden details her decades-long professional career in politics, and the central role she played in her brother’s life as an insightful adviser, an ever-loyal advocate, and best friend.
Published on April 7, 2022
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