There are one million new books published each year. With so many books and so little time, where do you begin to find your next must-read? There’s the New York Times Bestseller list, the Goodreads app, the Cape Library’s Staff picks shelf and now Martin’s Must-Reads.
Every Wednesday at 6:42 and 8:42 a.m., and Sunday at 8:18 a.m., Betty Martin recommends a must read based on her own personal biases for historical fiction, quirky characters and overall well-turned phrases. Her list includes WWII novels, biographies of trailblazers, novels with truly unique individuals and lots more. Reading close to 100 titles a year, Betty has plenty of titles to share. Tune in each Wednesday and visit KRCU.org for previous must-reads.
Local support for "Martin's Must Reads" comes from the Cape Girardeau Public Library and the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library.
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This book was so good that I felt it was necessary to veer from our usual adult titles and share it with you. Gary Schmidt’s book The Wednesday Wars, published in 2007 is a Newbery honor book. -
“I am your maid. I’m the one who cleans your hotel room who enters like a phantom when you’re out gallivanting for the day, no care at all about what you’ve left behind, the mess, or what I might see when you’re gone.”
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“She immediately knows something is wrong The door to Marik’s house is ajar, and there is a black car blocking the street just a few meters away. Not really a car - there aren’t many cars in Ivanovo...Who is this wagon waiting for?”
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“My Seven Black Fathers tells the stories of the men who have shaped my sense of what it means to be a Black man in twenty-first century America...My Seven Black Fathers retells the story of who Black fathers are. My seven Black fathers demonstrate there’s no one right way to mentor and there’s no standard fit.”
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“To Emmett, all the houses in this part of the country looked like they’d been dropped from the sky. The Watson house just looked like it’d had a rougher landing. The roof line sagged on either side of the chimney and the window frames were slanted just enough that half the windows wouldn’t quite open and the other half wouldn’t quite shut. In another moment, they’d be able to see how the paint had been shaken right off the clapboard.”
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“Like all humans, my mind is wired to look for the story in any situation. Where’s the beginning, the middle, the twist, the end? And what’s the moral?”
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The Legends Club begins in the spring of 1980 when Mike Krzyzewski was named the head basketball coach at Duke University, and Jim Valvano to North Carolina State. Dean Smith had already been the coach at North Carolina for 19 years.
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“Spring, 1923. Ada smelled the swamp before she reached it. The mingling of sulfur and rot worked with memory to knot her stomach and burn the back of her throat. She was returning with little more than she had taken with her a year before.”
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“I learned about Belle from a passing docent, who took a few moments from her busy schedule to describe this astonishing woman, and, in so doing, offered me a new lens through which to view the Pierpont Morgan Library, its collection, and the time in which it was created.”
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It’s July 1539 and the lives of three women are about to converge in England. Mary Boleyn of Norfolk House is to return to court, Ann, Duchess of Cleves is having her portrait painted in anticipation of being chosen by Henry the VIII as his next queen and fourteen year old Katherine of Norfolk House, a vain and silly girl is adding up her possessions.
