Three Newish Thanksgiving Books to Binge!

Note: I have not yet read these.

It’s a little early, but I wanted you to have time to order print copies if that is what you like to read! Recently, I looked at new or newish Halloween books. Today, I’ve moved on to Thanksgiving–a holiday I pretty much skip anymore. Oh, I do bake a turkey because they are on sale. But, my kids are on their own and usually either want to sleep or do something with friends, my mom has other options and we all eat a lot of turkey so the thrill isn’t there. I don’t have a t.v. so that cuts out parades and football! If I’m awake I will make pumpkin scones and go watch the parade with my Mom. It works for us! I will, however, read a lot that day. Not sure if I’ll try one of these or not. One year I even participated in a Thanksgiving readathon–I wonder if that is happening this year?

“Nesbit mines a trove of primary sources from Plymouth Colony for a riveting story of a murder amid religious hypocrisy and inequities between indentured servants turned rebels and prominent Mayflower colonists. The author’s in-depth portrayal of the female characters imagines a vital history of women’s voices and day-to-day activity in the colony, unrecorded in the archives.” Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2020 (fiction)

Beheld: A Novel by TaraShea Nesbit.

“A Stranger Among Saints traces the life of Stephen Hopkins, who spent ten months stranded with the Sea Venture crew, during which he was charged with attempted mutiny and condemned to die—only to have his sentence commuted just before it was carried out. Hopkins eventually made it to Jamestown, where he spent six years before returning to England and signing on to another colonial venture, this time with a group of religious radicals on the Mayflower.”

A Stranger Among Saints: Stephen Hopkins the Man Who Survived Jamestown and Saved Plymouth by Jonathan Mack.

“The Mayflower is an intensely human portrait of the Winslow family written with the pace of an epic. Rebecca Fraser details domestic life in the seventeenth century, the histories of brave and vocal Puritan women and the contradictions between generations as fathers and sons made the painful decisions which determined their future in America.” (Amazon).

The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America by Rebecca Fraser.

• Although not new, my favorite “grown-up” Thanksgiving read is Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Here is my review, from 2010, of the audio version:

I love history, but the 17th Century has never really captured my interest……until now. My interest in the Quiverfull Movement and Christian Patriarchy helped this book capture my attention. The ancestors of the current Christian far-right are profiled in this highly readable account of the Pilgrims true story. Not surprisingly, there were problems in getting a long with others not like-minded. There was blood-chilling violence, starvation, greed, power struggles, etc. Interestingly, with all the fuss the current ultra-right puts on “Covenant marriage,” the Pilgrims viewed marriage in the Dutch way–as a civil matter. Since the marriage ceremony is not in the Bible, they held that it a civil ceremony was good enough. They also didn’t celebrate Christmas–too pagan. They even punished later arrivals who choose to enjoy themselves and play a rag-tag version of Cricket called Stool Ball. The Pilgrim fathers confiscated the stool ball equipment! Similar to those far-right parents today who want to keep their kids isolated from everything, the Pilgrims struggled to keep their kids away from un-Godly influences. It’s a gripping tale.

Can you add to this list? Leave me a comment or a link to your own post.