“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston NOW AVAILABLE AT deadtreedreams.com

Janie Crawford comes walking back into her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, while the whole town gossips about where she’s been. She sits down on the porch with her best friend, Pheoby, and tells her everything. What follows is the story of a woman searching for a love and a life that are truly her own. Her journey runs from her grandmother’s careful plans, through two marriages that try to fit her into somebody else’s idea of a wife, to the rich, wild muck of the Florida Everglades.

What makes this book a must-read is the voice. Hurston writes the talk of her characters just as it sounds, full of humor, music and folk wisdom, and then turns around and gives you prose so beautiful you’ll stop and read it twice. Janie’s awakening under a blossoming pear tree is one of the loveliest passages in American literature.

It’s hard to believe that Hurston wrote it in just seven weeks in Haiti, or that it was nearly forgotten for decades. Alice Walker went looking for Hurston in the 1970s and helped bring her back to readers. Today Time counts it among the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.

Come pick it up at Dead Tree Dreams. Janie’s story is waiting on the porch for you.