We check in with NPR’s
Petra Mayer, who has some more book picks for your summer reading enjoyment.
Petra Mayer’s Summer Reading List
This book is super buzzy: It’s an Oprah pick, it’s on former President Barack Obama’s summer reading list, and it absolutely lives up to the hype.
“The Sweetness of Water” is set in a small southern town just after the end of the Civil War, under Union occupation and trying to figure out how to deal with the sudden influx of freed Black people. It follows three sets of people — a farmer and his wife, two Black brothers who’ve left a neighboring plantation, and a pair of Confederate soldiers who are having a clandestine relationship.