Beloved

Download every one of her books she narrated. Even when the subject matter is dangerous and painful, like Beloved, her voice made me feel that warm, safe, storytelling feeling of having my mother or my elementary school librarian read to me as a child—that magic, storytelling feeling.

This is an unsafe ghost story. It will take you places you might not be ready to go, emotionally and historically. This is a reread, and I still feel worn out upon finishing it. But it is also a Great American Novel, and o say that without hyperbole. I was lucky enough to study it at Yale—my first read. Now I simply come to it the second time as a reader. I am enraptured and heart-rendered.

Wow. What an emotional ride. This is a haunting tale of Construction Era Cincinnati and the lives of former slaves there.

It's been a long time since I've gotten choked up reading fiction, but in one page towards the end, all the intensity (and boy was it intense) culminated in one giant emotional punch. I was engrossed the whole way; Morrison has such a talent for narrative, dialect, magical realism, and complex but relatable characters. Her style is so inimitable, and I loved the way that psychological deluges were complimented with fairly straightforward dialogue, and how the past was revealed slowly through the story-telling of others, too painful to be directly recounted by thos who loved it. I loved it but wow. Need a palate cleanser after that one. Real heavy.