What Have YOU Been Reading Lately?

I highly recommend the powerful, yet tender historical fiction novel News of the World by Paulette Jiles, a book I read quite recently. I am not alone in my positive feelings about this book. News of the World was a 2016 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

Set in lawless, post-Civil War Texas, the novel’s hero is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a retired Civil War captain. Now in his seventies, Kidd spends his time traveling through northern Texas as a respected news reader, giving live readings of the news to paying audiences who are eager to know the events of the world. At one of his stops Kidd is offered a $50 gold piece to return a 10-year-old girl, Johanna, to relatives 400 miles south in San Antonio. Kidd feels obligated to take the job.

Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister. The Kiowa spared Johanna and raised her as one of their own. Recently “rescued” by the U.S. army, the young girl has once again been torn away from the only home she can remember. She has forgotten the English language and rebels at all efforts to “civilize” her, attempting to escape at every opportunity.

The 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and dangerous and both Kidd and Johanna realize they must rely on one another in order to survive. Slowly a bond begins to form between the two. When they reach San Antonio and Johanna’s relatives, Kidd is confronted with a complex moral decision, one of the most difficult of his life.

The audio version of this title is also highly recommended.

What have YOU enjoyed reading lately? Let us know!

BF