heaven and earth grocery store reviews

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(as of Dec 29, 2024 14:57:15 UTC - Details)

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.

From the Publisher

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books (August 8, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593422945
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593422946
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.26 inches
Reviewer: Shar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wonderful book!
Review: Rich in superb writing, this is a powerful story of a time when families were struggling to find ways to support themselves as immigrants and as minorities. These memorable people are creative, compassionate and fiercely protective of those they love. Ingenious in finding ways to fix things and skilled problem solvers, the inhabitants of this small town are a fascinating cross section of people, most of whom I grew to admire and with whom I empathized.Bravo!

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: jhbandcats
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Beautiful, phenomenal
Review: This book deserves more than five stars. It is phenomenal. Beautifully written, emotionally wrenching, it’s a tale of a poor community of immigrant Jews and Southern Blacks in PA in the mid-1930s. Neither group trusts the other until an American Jewess, Chona, starts running a store that caters to Blacks. She turns a blind eye when customers can’t pay their bills, and she hands out small gifts to children, the most popular being marbles.There’s so much love here. Chona and her husband Moshe remain passionately in love after twelve years of marriage. Chona and her best friend, a Black girl named Bernice, haven’t spoken in years, but Chona still loves her. Chona takes care of a deaf Black boy whom the authorities want to house in a horror of a state insane asylum, even though he’s neither insane nor mentally incapacitated. Chona is the glue that holds the neighborhood together.There are many, many characters, and the first part of the book devotes a chapter to each. There’s a lot of humor, a lot of compassion, and again, so much love - of the author for his characters.I tried reading McBride’s Deacon King Kong a few years ago and couldn’t get into it. I’m going to try again in hopes I find the same magic that’s in this book. He’s such a talented author. I’m bowled over.

Reviewer: goobcrew
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Such a great book!
Review: I loved everything about it - it’s quirky, heart warming, sad and happy. The story is intertwined with great characters and the author finds a way to make each one memorable. A very satisfying read and my favorite book of the year.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Forgot a conclusive ending
Review: Until the end, McBride writes a well crafted book with many loose ends. But the ending felt like he didn’t really know how to pull the pieces together and chose to lazily write an epilogue.

Reviewer: luvdemhuskies
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wonderful
Review: A lovely story told in a wonderful way by a master storyteller. The characters come alive, as does the town in the Pennsylvania hills almost a hundred years ago, filled with its melange of immigrants and white supremacists going about their lives, loving, harming, being born, and dying. It leaves you wistful and satisfied. Thank you, James McBride.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: complicated read but worth it
Review: There are a ton of characters and many a tangent into each of their back stories but they weave together in a complicated and ultimately satisfying tapestry. A tale of injustice made as right as possible and bright spots in dark times. Worth the effort.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: poignant yet delightful
Review: What an insight to human character and what we all should strive to be. This book captures the imagination and challenges our own character.

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: K. M. Newitt
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A ‘keep you up all hours reading’ book. Great characters, heartbreaking yet hopeful story. James McBride is an excellent author

Reviewer: Jim
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Tutto bene

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