One Bay One Book is a year-long conversation connecting Bay Area readers through discussions, events, and informal conversations centered around a single title and its themes.
Join the conversation! A limited number of sets of The Book of V. are available free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis through the Library’s Book Club in a Box program. For more information about One Bay One Book, write to noa@jewishlearning.works.
The 2020–21 selection is The Book of V. by Anna Solomon.
Read reviews at the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus.
The Book of V. by Anna Solomon
“A sinuous, thoughtful braid of women’s unceasing struggles for liberty and identity.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Engrossing, highly readable…The Book of V. is a meditation on female power and powerlessness, the stories told about women and the ones we tell about and to ourselves.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Fresh and tantalizing, with fascinating intergenerational discussions about desire, duty, family, and feminism.” —Publishers Weekly
“[A] multifaceted masterwork…The Book of V. radiates a dynamism that invites rereads and generously keeps giving.” —The Washington Post
In this new novel, rooted in the Book of Esther, three characters’ stories in different time periods overlap and ultimately collide. Lily is a young wife and mother in contemporary Brooklyn, and Vee is the wife of an ambitious young Senator in Washington, D.C. during the early 1970s. Their narratives are interspersed with an imaginative account of the stories of Vashti and Esther, illuminating how women’s lives have and have not changed over thousands of years.
Anna Solomon
Anna Solomon is the author of three novels—The Book of V., Leaving Lucy Pear, and The Little Bride—and a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize. Her short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, Tablet, and elsewhere. Prior to becoming a novelist, she worked as an award-winning journalist for National Public Radio’s environmental news program Living on Earth. A graduate of Brown University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she teaches writing at Barnard College, Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing, and the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center. Born and raised in Gloucester, Massachusetts, she lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.
