#Ilyon Woo

[longreads]

This week, our editors recommend stories about:

The decimation of a national park.

The survival of Texas Monthly.

An enslaved couple’s daring escape.

Scheduling a death.

The future of jelly.

All in this week’s Top 5!

[williamandellencraftfoundation]

The William & Ellen Craft Foundation is very proud of Ilyon Woo for winning the Pulitzer Prize for a Biography with "Master Slave Husband Wife" (Simon & Schuster), telling the story of William & Ellen Craft--and their daring 1848 escape from enslavement--in such a detailed, compelling and moving manner.

[indiesee]

Watch the P4P Discussion with New York Times bestselling author, Ilyon Woo

On Thursday, February 22nd 2024, people from across the country joined Politics for the People host Cathy Stewart for a virtual discussion with Ilyon Woo, about her recent book: Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom You can watch the full video below. Here are some highlights from our conversation. Ilyon on the space she wanted to create in liiieu of the “happy…

[biglisbonnews]

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week Today we are featuring stories about the decimation of a national park, the survival of Texas Monthly magazine, how a couple escaped slavery in Boston, choosing when to die, and the future of jelly. 1. In a Famed Kenyan Game Park, the Animals Are Giving Up Georgina Gustin | Undark | January 4, 2023 | […] https://longreads.com/2023/01/20/the-top-5-longreads-of-the-week-449/

[qqueenofhades]

top ten non-fiction (general) books and top ten history books?

Naturally, whenever I volunteer to talk about books, I completely forget everything I have ever read, but we'll try to overcome this. Since it is impossible for me to pick them from all-time, I'll do this list from what I have recently read and enjoyed, including both nonfiction and history specifically since most of these fit that bill somehow:

Society of the Snow by Pablo Vierci. Just finished this last night, and it's the source material for the Netflix film of the same name, of the 1972 plane crash of an Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes and their incredible survival odyssey. If you've seen the film, you know how harrowing and also incredibly moving it is.

Pretty much anything by David Grann, including The Wager, Killers of the Flower Moon, Lost City of Z, etc. The Wager is his newest one, though people may have heard of Killers of the Flower Moon, but they're all good. He's up there with Erik Larson as one of my favorite writers of utterly gripping and novelistic nonfiction.

Speaking of Erik Larson: pretty much anything by, including Dead Wake, The Splendid and the Vile, In the Garden of Beasts, etc. Most people will have heard of and/or read Devil in the White City, but his other stuff is equally good. His newest, The Demon of Unrest, is a bit slower than some of the others IMHO, but it's also about the beginning of the Civil War and the crisis at Fort Sumter and is important reading in our current perilous moment.

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. A forensic and incredibly detailed history of the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986.

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, by Anthony Bale. This is an entertaining and readable introduction to mobility in the Middle Ages: who traveled, where they went, what they thought, and how they reacted and wrote about the other cultures they encountered, from both east and west. Definitely a good entry point for the layman who has heard the "medieval people never traveled/went anywhere" stereotype and knows it's wrong, but wants to know more HOW.

Into the Silence: Mallory, the Great War, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis. Another incredibly detailed doorstopper history book that reads like a novel, exploring 19th-century British imperialism in Asia, the race to climb Mount Everest, the Great War, and more.

Emperor of Rome and SPQR by Mary Beard. These are both incredibly accessible starting points for studying Rome, written by a renowned classicist with a knack for making her historical material and concepts easy to understand and entertaining. Don't be put off by the length of either of these, as they read easily.

The Wide Wide Sea and The Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides. The former is his newest book, about the last voyage of Captain Cook, and the latter is my favorite of his other books, about the 19th-century USS Jeannette polar expedition. He is a writer of incredible skill, thoughtfulness, and detail in handling subjects of empire, exploration, colonialism, maritime history, and adventure.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Raddon O'Keefe. A compelling, disturbing, mesmerizing, and infuriating account of the Sackler family, the creation of OxyContin, and the opioid epidemic in America.

Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo. Now, this one is a bit cheating since I haven't actually read it yet (it's on hold at the library), but it's won the Pulitzer Prize for history so I'm fairly sure it's going to be good. It's about 19th century slaves-turned-abolitionists William and Ellen Craft and their race- and gender-bending journey to freedom and anti-slavery activism.

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

Best Books According to New York Times

FICTION

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray: “This is a book that showcases one family’s incredible love and resilience even as their world crumbles around them.”

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: “The United States of Chain-Gang All-Stars is like ours, if sharpened to absurd points.”

Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal: “The insecurity of existence across this vastness and on board the train emphasizes the significance of human connection.”

The Fraud by Zadie Smith: “As always, it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself.”

North Woods by Daniel Mason: “Mason’s ambitious, kaleidoscopic novel ushers readers over the threshold of a house in the wilds of western Massachusetts and leaves us there for 300 years and almost 400 pages”

NONFICTION

The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen: “The Best Minds is a thoughtfully constructed, deeply sourced indictment of a society that prioritizes profit, quick fixes and happy endings over the long slog of care.”

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley: “…a book that is riveting and darkly funny and, in all senses of the word, unclassifiable.”

Fire Weather by John Vaillant: “…the real protagonist here is the fire itself: an unruly and terrifying force with insatiable appetites.”

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo: “…Woo’s immersive rendering, which conjures the Crafts’ escape in novelistic detail, is equally a feat — of research, storytelling, sympathy and insight.”

Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista: “Offering the intimate disclosures of memoir and the larger context of Philippine history, Evangelista also pays close attention to language, and not only because she is a writer.

[cheshirelibrary]

Editors Recommend: 7 Brilliant and Surprising Spring Reads 

[via Off the Shelf]

With a seal of approval from publishing’s top editors, these new releases are guaranteed to hook you this spring.

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett    

Cold People by Tom Rob Smith

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

The Reunion by Kayla Olson

Regrets Only by Kieran Scott

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

...

Click through to see more titles.

[taylortruther]

What book next?

i've started reading the school for good mothers by jessamine chan!

i also got testosterone rex by cordelia fine (about myths surrounding sex and gender) and master slave husband wife by ilyon woo, which is about ellen and william craft, who escaped slavery and the south by posing as a white slave owner (ellen) and "his" slave (william.)

so i will probably read at least two of these simultaneously, i think that'll keep my interest more.

[wellesleybooks]

Pulitzer Prize Winning Books

Fiction

WINNER

Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf)

A beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia’s Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War where a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, long abused by a Confederate soldier, struggle to heal.

Finalists

Same Bed Different Dreams, by Ed Park (Random House)

Wednesday’s Child, by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

History

WINNER

No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era, by Jacqueline Jones (Basic Books)

A breathtakingly original reconstruction of free Black life in Boston that profoundly reshapes our understanding of the city’s abolitionist legacy and the challenging reality for its Black residents.

Finalists

American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, by Michael Willrich (Basic Books)

Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion, by Elliott West (University of Nebraska Press)

Biography

WINNERS

King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

A revelatory portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. that draws on new sources to enrich our understanding of each stage of the civil rights leader’s life, exploring his strengths and weaknesses, including the self-questioning and depression that accompanied his determination.

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, by Ilyon Woo (Simon & Schuster)

A rich narrative of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant, exploiting assumptions about race, class and disability to hide in public on their journey to the North, where they became famous abolitionists while evading bounty hunters.

Finalist

Larry McMurtry: A Life, by Tracy Daugherty (St. Martin’s Press)

Memoir or Autobiography

WINNER

Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, by Cristina Rivera Garza (Hogarth)

A genre-bending account of the author’s 20-year-old sister, murdered by a former boyfriend, that mixes memoir, feminist investigative journalism and poetic biography stitched together with a determination born of loss.

Finalists

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions, by Jonathan Rosen (Penguin Press)

The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, by Andrew Leland (Penguin Press)

Poetry

WINNER

Tripas: Poems, by Brandon Som (Georgia Review Books)

A collection that deeply engages with the complexities of the poet’s dual Mexican and Chinese heritage, highlighting the dignity of his family’s working lives, creating community rather than conflict.

Finalists

Information Desk: An Epic, by Robyn Schiff (Penguin Books)

To 2040, by Jorie Graham (Copper Canyon Press)

General Nonfiction

WINNER

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan Books)

A finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, told through a portrait of a Palestinian father whose five-year-old son dies in a fiery school bus crash when Israeli and Palestinian rescue teams are delayed by security regulations.

Finalists

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, by Siddharth Kara (St. Martin’s Press)

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, by John Vaillant (Knopf)

Drama

Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth

A simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person’s life and enrich an entire community.

Here There Are Blueberries, by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich

Public Obscenities, by Shayok Misha Chowdhury

Link to list here

[jtuohey]

Ilyon Woo on her favorite book club

http://dlvr.it/T5gtxH

[indiesee]

Reader's Forum - Tiani Coleman on Master Slave Husband Wife

Reckoning with the Past By Tiani Coleman The incredible, true story of Ellen and William Craft, told in the book Master Slave, Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, by Ilyon Woo is eye-opening to say the least.  Ellen, a lighter-skinned slave (due to her original Master fathering her) dresses as a man in 1848 and becomes her husband’s master (and he her slave) for their journey…

[williamandellencraftfoundation]

FREE BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVENT TODAY WITH ILYON WOO, NYT BESTSELLING AUTHOR & WILLIAM AND ELLEN CRAFT DESCENDANT, PEGGY TROTTER DAMMOND PREACELY

#SpreadTheWord | TODAY, Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 2 pm PST, a FREE #BlackHistoryMonth event, in person with #IlyonWoo, author of the #NewYorkTimes Bestseller, “Master Slave Husband Wife” and #WilliamAndEllenCraft descendant, Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely for a special conversation: "Public History, Private Memory: The Legacy of Ellen and William Craft." It is hosted by #LongBeachCityCollege & #LongBeachCityCollegeFoundation along with the #FriendsOfTheLongBeachPublicLibrary’s #BlancheCollinsForum, and the #AfricanAmericanHeritageSociety of Long Beach. FREE PARKING. Details below...