Linda Lou Brawley

Job title: Librarian II, Central Library

@ Joan & Irwin Jacobs Common,

San Diego Public Library

She recommends: “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernardine Evaristo

(Black Cat, 2019; 452 pages)

It’s remarkable! For the first time in its 50 years, the Booker Prize, the U.K.’S award for best fiction, was awarded to a Black woman. But that is not why I’m recommending this novel. The novel presents 12 Black British, mainly female characters, each featured in their own section. While their lives do intersect at points, they have vastly diverse backgrounds, even those with familial ties. Issues of gender identity, social class, access to education and “otherness” are explored within their day-to-day activities. Like a kaleidoscope with 12 unique colors, each turn resets the picture with one color lit a little brighter, offering the same palette, but a unique perspective. Bernardine Evaristo coined the term “fusion fiction” to describe her natural free-flowing writing style — sparsely punctuated, sans periods. It took me a while to acclimate, but it was well worth it.

Teri Den Herder

Job title: Book buyer, UC San Diego Bookstore

She recommends: “Hummingbird Salamander” by Jeff Vandermeer (MCD, 2021; 368 pages)

Jane, whose name is not really Jane, is going on an unexpected adventure, and she’s going to tell us all about how the world might end. From the author of “Annihilation,” this is a brilliant eco-thriller that takes you into the dark world of wildlife trafficking, climate change and humans’ role in the world. A key in an envelope left for Jane at her local coffeeshop and her endless curiosity led her to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and cryptic clues. Silvina, the dead woman who left the envelope, is a known eco-terrorist from a powerful family, which brings with it dangerous creeps and elaborate conspiracies. As Jane gives up her life little by little to go on the quest Silvina put her on, time is running out. Noir elements with unexpected twists and unreliable characters changing from good to bad and bad to good throughout. A true page-turner.

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