Lawrence's Staff Picks


Showing 1 - 8 of 8  There are a total of 61 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Devil in the grove"
Star rating for Devil in the grove
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Chronicles a little-known court case in which Thurgood Marshall successfully saved a black citrus worker from the electric chair after the worker was accused of raping a white woman with three other black men. In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming with cheap Jim Crow labor. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, vicious Sheriff McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves....
Book cover for "Jesus and John Wayne"
Star rating for Jesus and John Wayne
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"A scholar of American Christianity answers perhaps the most bewildering question of our time: Why are evangelicals "the Donald's" most fervent supporters? Donald Trump is a libertine who lacks even basic knowledge of the Christian faith. Yet in 2016 he won 81 percent of the white evangelical vote, and continues to rely on white evangelicals as his base of support. While we assume the religious right has pragmatic reasons for backing Trump, in truth...
Book cover for "The last kings of Shanghai"
Star rating for The last kings of Shanghai
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Shanghai, 1936. The Cathay Hotel, located on the city's famous waterfront, is one of the most glamorous in the world. Built by Victor Sassoon--billionaire playboy and scion of the Sassoon dynasty--the hotel hosts a who's who of global celebrities: Noel Coward...
Book cover for "Mansfield Park"
Star rating for Mansfield Park
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation."
Book cover for "The nickel boys"
Star rating for The nickel boys
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Follows the experiences of two African-American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
Book cover for "The priory of the orange tree"
Star rating for The priory of the orange tree
Series:
Roots of chaos volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly...
Book cover for "Sea of Tranquility"
Star rating for Sea of Tranquility
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
The "author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from an island off Vancouver in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and planets"--
Book cover for "Things fall apart"
Star rating for Things fall apart
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
The contemporary African writer's classic novel depicting the destruction of traditional tribal life by the white man.