Through the lens of leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, Fessler explores harmful myths about disease that can impair public health. Her fascinating book details the first national leprosarium—built on an old plantation in rural Carville, Louisiana—reporting that the first patients were often forcibly removed from their families and confined to the grounds once they arrived. The stigma surrounding this almost non-contagious disease seems to come from the Bible, which deems leprosy a “sign of an ‘unclean’ soul and a symptom of sin. "
From the front cover to the last page--I loved this book! Maisy Card’s debut novel is a series of interconnected stories about a family that can trace its oldest ancestor to a slave, Florence, on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Florence is hanged for trying to poison her master. In 2020, some of the descendants have settled in Brooklyn, one even marries a descendent of the old master. There aren’t ghosts on every page but they do make appearances and the past and the present are clearly connected.
Leaving the Episcopal priesthood and turning to teaching at Piedmont College in Georgia, Barbara Brown Taylor examines the world’s religions with her sheltered and mostly Christian students. She writes of her field trips to mosques, synagogues, Hindu and Buddhist temples in nearby Atlanta. Borrowing the parts of other religions that speak to her, she crafts a beautifully written and deeply profound examination of her own faith.
