New Book of the Month

The Last Days of Dogtown
By Anita Diamant

Anyone who treasured Year of Wonders: a novel of the plague will want to read The Last Days of Dogtown by the author of The Red Tent. Like Year of Wonders, Dogtown was inspired by a real place, this one in early nineteenth-century Massachusetts. Other parallels are that it is a story of a community of dwindling population in a harsh environment, that there are strong women characters, and that the details of domestic life are so vividly given that the reader seems to be there, undernourished and shivering in the cold. This is not a tale that tells of pretty people and homes, not a tale that ends happily for all concerned. Not a “pretty” tale, but a beautifully written, magnificent story that will have the reader not wanting to finish.

The Last Days of Dogtown has been nominated for College Book for spring 2008. It is available for checkout in the New Book area of the library until July 16 (call number 3011).