2024 the best books of 2023 review

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THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION

FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review

“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.

Reviewer: switterbug/Betsey Van Horn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: It does move heaven and earth for the reader
Review: James McBride is an accomplished saxophonist/jazz musician. I knew that going into the book. (Oh, digression--did you know that he also played with the band, The Remainders? That’s a band with other writers like Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen King, Maya Angelou and several others who played for charity and fundraising). Anyway, I mention his musicianship because I see it all over the pages of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.This is the first book I’ve read by McBride (definitely more to come), so pardon my schoolgirlish, giggly first crush for the way that his writing lifts me up, how his words and characters opened my heart, only to break it, and then put it back together in a most absolute and tender way. James McBride is a kind, gentle soul, and his writing reflects this—his ability to bring the world together in a novel. He honors humanity. We are all connected, and this author compels that naturally from his characters. Now, how great is that, yeah?I want to put this in your hands and promise you a magnificent reading experience. It starts off in a shaggy dog kind of way, with an ensemble of characters, several who possess whimsical names like Fatty, Big Soap, Monkey Pants, Dodo. And their names fit flawlessly to their nature. The story starts with a 1972 prologue—a human skeleton is found in an old abandoned well, and then the body of the story begins in 1936 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a place called Chicken Hill, where Jews, immigrants, and Black folks lived side by side, sometimes in harmony, other times in discord, but here’s the thing—the goodness of people, the kindness of their hearts—that is what ultimately rises to the top.For the story to unfold, there has to be some sinister aspects, too—aren’t we still fighting the fight of ignorance, bigotry, corruption, meanness? But, in the McBride world, well, we also follow the long stretch of yarn as it wends around this way and that, through streets and backyards, dirt roads, onto hills and a shul and a church, through tunnels and a dance hall. And The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.I don’t need to rehash the plot, but there are a few fun facts about this book worth mentioning in a review. Such as, there are an abundance of characters introduced early on, and then again later on, before the plot actually launches. That’s the shaggy part. We don’t get to the plot too quickly—instead, Mcbride takes his time, builds the characters. They are already leaping off the pages by the time the plot rolls in.There are subplots, too, but in the end, they all weave their chords and come together. McBride may slow your roll at first, but it’s a winning bonanza of breadth and depth, from the smallest detail to the broadest design. Scenes that seem initially inconsequential become key notes later on.Early on, we meet the arresting Jewess, Chona. Chona is an unforgettable female protagonist—I’m keeping her in my journal of best. female. characters. ever. She is handicapped with a limp—but her limp doesn’t stop her strength of purpose, her fierce dignity, her bounteous benevolence, her gentle grace, and her consummate integrity. You will fall in love with her, just like Moshe, the theater and dance hall owner, did. Moshe and Chona dared to welcome change and inclusivity to their part of the world.At this time, in the 1930s, Black people were almost exclusively cast in menial jobs. But Moshe books Black jazz bands to play at his theater, and successfully includes all tribes together at the dance hall, who “frolicked and laughed, dancing as if they were birds enjoying flight for the first time.” Chona runs the grocery store, and extends credit to anyone who can’t afford to pay; she rarely keeps a record of their debt. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store may lose money, but it is rich in goodwill and kindness.Back to this being like a musical book—a jazzy book. Jazz music conjures that raspy, soulful, edgy flavor, blended from a mix of cultures and harmonies. McBride embraces those diverse, insistent, zingy, soul-stirring rhythms and blues into the narrative threads of his novel. I can hear the swing and the chase, the boogie and the blues, the sounds that go everywhere at once and jelly roll the story within a complex set of fusion and feelings. It’s also just a damned good story!The narrative pulls you here and there, up and down, and when you meet Dodo, the sweet and barely teenaged deaf kid, your protective instincts will wrap yourself around him and never want to let him go. And, when Dodo meets Monkey Pants—well, this right there—the heart of the novel that will break you in pieces.At times, I had a wellspring of tears—not just for joy or anguish. Sure, comedy and tragedy fill these pages. But McBride’s natural humanity and gentle nature is the colossal, phenomenal heart of the book. The author steps aside, he doesn’t ever intrude. The core of the narrative are the characters. Their cacophony becomes a coda for living large.This tale made me want to be better, to do better, to open my eyes to all the missed connections, to fix the broken chords and forge new ones, and seek eternally to strengthen them. We are humanity, we are the essential substance to add love to the world, one modest good deed at a time. That is The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

Reviewer: Erika Tunson
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: 4.5 Stars for The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (if I could give a half)!
Review: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store poignant look at relationships, redemption, racism and the American dream. The author, James McBride introduces us to a series of characters living in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and surrounding areas, focusing on the residents of a community called Chicken Hill in the 1930s. Chicken Hill is home to Pottstown’s Jewish immigrants, Blacks coming from the South during The Great Migration and immigrants from other European countries. The Heaven & Earth grocery store is owned by a Jewish couple, Chona and Moshe and serves the residents of Chicken Hill. The novel is mostly centered around a 12 year old deaf boy named Dodo, but each character introduced (and there are a lot) also has a story. I gave 4.5 stars because the book has a slow start and it is hard to keep the characters straight, but stick with it! As the book progresses and there is an incident involving Dodo, the characters and their stories begin to connect and the result is an emotional, touching, sometimes infuriating, engrossing story. McBride tells the story in an interesting way with complex dialogue and character development through flashbacks and memories that explain how and why they are the way they are as the events with Dodo begin to unfold and every character is involved or becomes involved in some way. I both read and sometimes listened to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and enjoyed both.

Reviewer: Dorothy
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Loved it! Characters are real
Review: What a great read! So full of culture, personalities, compassion and struggle. It sure illustrates the power of one simple compassionate life and its effect on a whole community. If you want to laugh, cry, get angry and rejoice this is your read!

Reviewer: Cheryl Gillette
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wonderful Book
Review: This book was a pick by another member of my book club but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing was wonderful and the characters enjoyable and it nteresting. The book gives you a understanding of the time period and the struggles of immigrants and poor people.

Reviewer: S. Cwik
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Too Scattered
Review: I found this book to be annoying to read. By the time I got to the end of the book I couldn’t remember how it started. So many chapters that just seemed unnecessary creating confusion with me asking 'why?' It was a word vomit and I was so glad when it was over.

Reviewer: Patrick N Brown
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Best book of the year!
Review: The story was captivating and so much better than the recent cable movie. Great characters set during WW 2. Fascinating concept and can’t put down intrigue

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a wonderful story by James McBride. I was captivated by the many characters that live in the village of Potsdam, Pennsylvania….stuck up on ‘Chicken Hill’. The author’s ability to develop the many characters (they feel like your neighbours) and reveal both racism at its best as well as ‘laugh-out loud’ paragraphs, left me turning every page with anticipation. Great novel.

Reviewer: Uwe Meller
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: An intertwined story about negroes, jews and whites. James McBride knows all three very well , he is Jewish and Black , presumably with a white Jewish mother. All the characters are well fleshed out with dialog befitting the times. A wonderful find.

Reviewer: James
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Personnelle

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Absolutely Brilliant Book what a story from start to finish not often a story grips like that memorable beautifully written

Reviewer: Rotna
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Didn’t enjoy the book at all . The story was a good one , but the unravelling of the plot was uninteresting, and language difficult to followDisappointing book