About the book, from HarperCollins:

“Louise Erdrich’s latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading “with murderous attention,” must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls’ Day 2019 and ends on All Souls’ Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.”

About the Author, Louise Erdrich:

“Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. Love Medicine and LaRose received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore. Her most recent book, The Night Watchman, won the Pulitzer Prize. A ghost lives in her creaky old house.”

Why I selected The Sentence for the November 2022 Giveaway:

• The gnome fell in love with this book-themed book. Who doesn’t love a book about the power of books and reading?
• It’s Native American Heritage Month, and in celebration of indigenous peoples, I am excited to share this book by an Indigenous author. Louise Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.
• Not only is this a book about books, but it’s also about a haunted bookstore!!! Do we all need more ghosts with our books? Yes.
• Set in Minneapolis from November 2019 to November 2020, this book covers a difficult time for our collective society. Although the time period was difficult, there are moments of humor throughout this book – you might find yourself both laughing in some parts, and crying during others.
• However, this story, and its protagonist, do an amazing job reflecting on the challenges we all faced (and continue to face) – and how finding community became (and remains) more important than ever.