Author; (Fiction or Non-fiction)
Title, Year of Publication, # of pages
[similar format is fine]
Brief summary of the book, and any reason you have for suggesting it, anything that will entice others to want to read the book. OK to copy and paste reviews, but just the salient parts -- long reviews are less likely to be read. Please give review source. If you don't have all the information, just submit what you have.
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from Heidi Louwaert
Non-Fiction
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara’s compelling investigation of the “Golden State Killer,” who terrorized northern California from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, is one of the best true crime books to come along in a decade. It’s the story of two obsessions: McNamara’s obsession with the criminal, and whatever abhorrent obsession drove him to commit a series of horrific rapes and murders over ten years. The author, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, describes the crimes and examines clues in an effort to uncover his identity. Occasionally, she challenges convention by inserting herself into the narrative (at one point, she even writes directly to the Golden State Killer), and the book acquires even more personal weight when one takes into account the fact that McNamara, at the age of 46, died while writing it. 352 pages available in all formats
Becoming Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same. 428 pages available in all formats
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham is the true-crime story profiling Ron Williamson, a mentally ill man who, along with his friend Dennis Fritz, was wrongly convicted in the 1982 rape and murder of cocktail waitress Debbie Sue Carter. Grisham was hardly the first reporter on the case, but his best seller put a tale of egregious judicial corruption in sleepy Ada, Okla., back in the news. 368 pages available in all formats
Educated - Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.
Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it. 352 pages available in all formats
Fiction
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is the story of sixteen-year-old Starr who lives in two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. 464 pages available in all formats
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner features Romy Hall at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the deadpan absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision. 352 pages available in all formats
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
They killed my mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise.
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. 544 pages available in all formats
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. 544 pages available in all formats
The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke
The shocking death of a young woman leads Detective Dave Robicheaux into the dark corners of Hollywood, the mafia, and the backwoods of Louisiana in this gripping mystery from “modern master” (Publishers Weekly) James Lee Burke. 464 pages available in all formats (This is one of Heidi’s favorite detectives)
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From Janice Cervantes
NON FICTION
Spilled Milk K.L. Randis 244 pages
Spilled Milk makes you think how you would treat someone who is in need or a survivor of abuse. This book highlights how the system failed this poor girl and her family and makes you think what you would do to help someone in this horrible situation
Sunny's Nights Tim Sultan 288 pages
The best way to describe this book is a biography of a bar and the bar owner. The fact that both are extremely interesting make this a really terrific read .The author stumbles upon what appears to be a dive bar but discovers so much more. A tribute to the bar, the multi-faceted owner, the Red Hook that was and ultimately friendship.
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace Jeff Hobbs 432 pages
An instant New York Times best seller, named best book of the year by New York Times Book Review, Amazon and Entertainment Weekly among other,s, this celebrated account of a young African American man who escaped Newark, New Jersy to attend Yale , but still faced the dangers of the streets, when he returned.
I Love Yous Are For White People Lac Su 272 pages
One would hope that fleeing Vietnam amidst gun fire in a boat with 300 other people and ending up in America, your life would be easier from there on end. Unfortunately, this was not the case for Lac Su, whose childhood and teenage years were filled with looking for acceptance and belonging while avoiding his easily-angered father and his culture.
FICTION
Lilac Girls Martha Hall Kelly 512 pages
Inspired by actual events and real people, Martha Hall Kelly as woven together stories of three women during World War II that reveal the bravery, cowardice and cruelty of those days.
(review by Lisa See)
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto Mitch Albom 368 pages
Narrated by the voice of music itself, this story follows Frankie Presto, a war orphan, born in a burning church, raised by a blind guitar teacher in Spain and gifted with a talent to change peoples lives using six mysterious blue strings. Frankie navigates the musical landscape of the twentieth century, from the 1950's jazz scene to the Grand Old Opry to Elvis mania and Woodstock
Woman In Red Eileen Goudge 368 pages
Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for he attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her son. Now she's returned home to Grey's Island to reconnect to the son she left behind. Her boy, Jeremy,, now a sullen teenage, is wrongfully accused of rape and mother and son are thrown together in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence.
from Andrea Brambila
Heather Morris (Fiction)
The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel, 2018, 288 pages
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
Luis Alberto Urrea (Fiction)
The House of Broken Angels, 2018, 336 pages
In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies, transforming the weekend into a farewell doubleheader. Among the guests is Big Angel's half brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life.
"Epic . . . Rambunctious . . . Highly entertaining . . . Sorrowful and funny . . . Cheerfully profane .
. . The quips and jokes come fast through a poignant novel that is very much about time itself . .. A powerful rendering of a Mexican-American family that is also an American family."― New York Times Book Review
Douglas Preston (Non-Fiction)
The Lost City of the Monkey God, 2017, 336 pages
Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die.
Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness, author Douglas
Preston and a team of scientists battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable- disease.
Helene Stapinski (Memoir)
Five-Finger Discount, 2002, 258 pages
With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Five-Finger Discount recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In
the memoir Mary Karr calls “a page-turner,” Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City—a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight—with the tales that have swirled around her relatives for decades. Navigating a childhood of toxic waste and tough love, Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale at once heartbreaking and hysterically funny.
Robin DiAngelo (Nonfiction)
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, 2018, 192 pages
In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
Ibi Zoboi (Fiction)
Pride, 2018, 304 pages
Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.
When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.
In a timely update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, critically acclaimed author Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic.
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from Beverly Lau
from Beverly Lau
FICTION
The Salt Path
by Raynor Winn, 2018, 288 pages
A couple makes a decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
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The Silent Hours
by Cesca Major, 2015, 320 pages
An epic, sweeping tale of love and loss inspired by heartrending true events in the Unoccupied Zone of wartime France. The Silent Hours follows three people whose lives are bound together, before war tears them apart. Beautifully wrought, utterly compelling and with a shocking true story at its core, The Silent Hours is an unforgettable portrayal of love and loss.
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Daisy Jones & the Six
by Taylor Reid Jenkins, 2019, 368 pages
Tells the story of the rise and fall of a fictional 70’s rock and roll band. It’s got a VH1’s Behind the Music feel to it since it’s told as an “oral history” from a pastiche of perspectives, and it’s a fun and accessible book.
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Maybe in Another Life
by Taylor Jenkins Reid, 2015, 342 pages
A breathtaking new novel about a young woman whose fate hinges on the choice she makes after bumping into an old flame; in alternating chapters, we see two possible scenarios unfold—with stunningly different results. (Basically: Sliding Doors in book form.)
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The Testaments
by Margaret Atwood, 2019, 432 pages
Publication date: September 10, 2019
In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades. It picks up 15 years after the end of the original.
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Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens, 2018, 384 pages
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
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NON-FICTION
This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
This is a first-hand account of life as a junior doctor in the NHS in all its joy, pain, sacrifice and maddening bureaucracy, and a love letter to those who might at any moment be holding our lives in their hands.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown, 2013, 416 pages
Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal. The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant.
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from Robert Council
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from Ann Parks-Council
Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal. The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant.
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from Robert Council
Delia Owens; Fiction
Where The Crawdads Sing; 2018, 379 pages
The story is set in the 1950s and revolves around a young woman named Kya Clark, who is from extremely rural North Carolina. Known by others as the Marsh Girl, she lives alone in nature—but the draw of other people, and specifically love, brings her into contact with the greater world. This novel has a mystery at its core, but it can be read on a variety of levels.
Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind; 2015, 469 pages
Tackling evolutionary concepts from a historian’s perspective, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, describes human development through a framework of three not-necessarily-orthodox “Revolutions”: the Cognitive, the Agricultural, and the Scientific. Though the concepts are unusual and sometimes heavy (as is the book, literally) Harari’s deft prose and wry, subversive humor make quick work of material prone to academic tedium. Throughout, Harari returns frequently to another question: Does all this progress make us happier, our lives easier? The answer might disappoint you. --Jon Foro
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women, 2019, 384 pages
This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a world turned upside down, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce and unforgettable female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.
A.J. Finn
The Woman in the Window: A Novel; 2018, 448 pages
For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, published in forty-one languages around the world and in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.
What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.
Shobha Rao
Girls Burn Brighter; 2018, 320 pages
Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them: they are poor, they are ambitious, and they are girls. After her mother’s death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to care for her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match. So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond arranged marriage. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend
Tayari Jones
An American Marriage; 2019, 336 pages
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.
Tana French
The Witch Elm; 218, 528 pages
Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life - he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.
A spellbinding standalone from one of the best suspense writers working today, The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are.
A spellbinding standalone from one of the best suspense writers working today, The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are.
Alex Michaelides
The Silent Patient; 2019, 336 pages
The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband―and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.
Kristina McMorris
Sold on a Monday; 352 pages
2 CHILDREN FOR SALE
The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any mother facing impossible choices.
The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any mother facing impossible choices.
Sarah Blake
The Guest Book; 2019, 496 pages
A lifetime of secrets. A history untold.
No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir.
It shows the untold secrets we inherit and pass on, unknowingly echoing our parents and grandparents.
William Kent Krueger
Ordinary Grace; 2014, 336 pages
That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.”
But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.
FTold from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him.
FTold from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him.
David Sedaris
Calypso; 218, 272 pages
This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet--and it just might be his very best. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.
Patrick Radden Keefe
Say Nothing; 2019, A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
A stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.. Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish
"A masterful history of the Troubles. . . Extraordinary. . .As in the most ingenious crime stories, Keefe unveils a revelation — lying, so to speak, in plain sight."—Maureen Corrigan, NPR
Jodi Picoult
Small great things; 2018, 480 pages
Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things is about racism, choice, fear, and hope. The novel is based on the true story of a labor and delivery nurse who was prohibited from caring for a newborn because the father requested that no African-American nurses tend to his baby. The topic of race in America is difficult to talk about, but in in an honest and revealing way Picoult allows readers to draw their own conclusions about how we see ourselves and others in the world.
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
The Wife Between Us; 2018, 352 pages
"The best domestic suspense novel since Gone Girl." ―In Touch Weekly
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
Read between the lies.
Andrew Sean Greer
Less; 2018, 272 pages
Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
An Anonymous Girl; 2019, 384
Looking to earn some easy cash, Jessica Farris agrees to be a test subject in a psychological study about ethics and morality. But as the study moves from the exam room to the real world, the line between what is real and what is one of Dr Shields’s experiments blurs.
Caught in a web of attraction, deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.
John Carreyrou
Bad Blood: secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup; 2018, 352 pages
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.
Martha Hall Kelly
Lilac Girls; 2017, 512 pages
Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this remarkable debut novel reveals the power of unsung women to change history in their quest for love, freedom, and second chances.
The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.
from Ann Parks-Council
Author: Lori Gottlieb Non Fiction
Title: Maybe You Should Talk to someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist and Our Lives Revealed
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Year: 2019 Number of Pages: 432
4.5 Stars out of 5 on Amazon and My Friends Loved It!
“Warm, funny engaging (no poker face clinician here) Lori Gottlieb’s memoir not only gives us an unvarnished look at her patients’ lives, but also her own. The result is the most relatable portrait of a therapist I’ve yet encountered” Susannah Cahola, author and reviewer.
Author: Daniel Mendelsohn Non Fiction
Title: An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic
Publisher: Knopf Year: 2017 Number of Pages: 320
4.5 Stars out of 5 on Amazon and My Friends Loved It! Named Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Library Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, A Kirkus Best Memoir of 2017.
This is a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading and reliving Homer’s epic masterpiece.
Author: Bryan Stevenson Non Fiction
Title: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Publisher: Speigel and Grou Year: 2014 Number of Pages: 352
5 Stars out of 5 on Amazon (3,500 reviews)
Just Mercy demonstrates as powerfully as any book on criminal justice the extent to which brutality, unfairness and racial bias continue to infect criminal law in the USA. The author also recounts instances of human compassion, understanding, mercy and justice that offer hope. (From the NY Review of Books)
Author: Peter Martin Non Fiction
Title: The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight Over the English Language
Publisher: Princeton Year: 2019 Number of Pages: 328
The public fervor in the early American republic called for the creation of a definitive national dictionary. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers all vying for dictionary supremacy. Peter Martin tells the human story of intense rivalry between Noah Webster and Joseph Worcester and the role of the Merriam brothers.
Author: Amor Towles Fiction
Title: A Gentleman in Moscow
Publisher: Viking Year: 2016 Number of Pages: 480
4.5 stars out of 5 on Amazon and my friends loved it!
The novel tells the fantastical tale of a Russian Count who led an opulent life prior to the revolution. He is sentenced to live in the world renowned hotel for the rest of his days in lieu of being shot. He befriends and interacts with staff and guest who are unique and lovable as the Count.
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From Teri Titus
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From Teri Titus
Patti Callahan; Fic
Becoming Mrs. Lewis (2018) 405p
From Library Journal: … Callahan (Where the River Runs) crafts a masterpiece that details the friendship and ultimate romance between the real Joy Davidman (1915–60) and C. S. Lewis (1898–1963). Readers may be familiar with Lewis's "Narnia" books, but this historical novel of a love based on friendship and faith will not disappoint. The story cocoons readers in the world of the 1950s where women had almost no voice, but Davidman found hers, and romance besides. VERDICT Fans of Karen White and Mary Alice Monroe will enjoy this book. Callahan's writing is riveting and her characters spring to life to create a magical and literary experience that won't be soon forgotten.
I saw & enjoyed ‘Shadowlands’ on PBS some years ago, so this title caught my eye.
Joanna Cannon; Fic
Three Things About Elsie (2018) 372p
From Library Journal: Longlisted for the British Women's Prize for Fiction, Cannon's second novel (after Trouble with Goats and Sheep) is mostly a contemplation by octogenarian Florence as she waits for someone to notice she has fallen in her room at the Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. …. VERDICT Older characters are beginning to get their own literature, and Cannon's title is a positive addition that should resonate with elderly citizens and their caretakers everywhere.
I so enjoyed the author’s first novel, and her second promises to be equally engaging. As the population is aging, it follows, or should, that there will be novels with older protagonists .
Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar; Fic
Map of Salt and Stars (2018) 361p
From Kirkus Reviews: The story of a contemporary girl's flight into exile from the Syrian civil war is deepened by the parallel tale of a 12th-century girl whose journey of discovery covers the same geography in Syrian-American writer Joukhadar's ambitious debut. The poem in the shape of Syria that opens this novel—"O / beloved, you are / dying of a broken heart"—sets the tone of deep-rooted melancholy for the story that follows. Twelve-year-old Nour was born and raised in Manhattan by immigrant parents, her mother a cartographer and her father a bridge designer. Shortly after her father's death from cancer in 2011, her mother moves Nour and her two older sisters, Huda and Zahra, to Homs, Syria, where they have relatives to help out…. Joukhadar plunges the Western reader full force into the refugee world with sensual imagery that is immediate, intense, and at times overwhelming.
With the ongoing unrest and warfare in the Middle East, I’d like to know more about the cultures there.
Christine Mangan; Fic
Tangerine (2018) 388p
From Library Journal: Obsession intersects two love triangles in this tale of devotion gone wrong. Twisted passion, perceived betrayal, and a fight for survival are written into the exotic, colorful, and dangerous backdrop of 1950s Tangier, Morocco. Alice Shipley and Lucy Mason are introverted college roommates who quickly become best friends. But when Alice finds romance with Tom, odd things happen, ending with a car accident that tears their lives apart.
Deliciously noirish, think Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels, with an exotic setting makes this compulsive reading. George Clooney's Smokehouse Pictures bought the film rights, with Scarlett Johansson set to star. No wonder this debut is getting a 200,000-copy first printing.
Michael Palin; Fic
Hemingway’s Chair (1995) 280p
From publisher: A renowned British comedian and travel writer pens his first novel about a mild-mannered postmaster obsessed with Ernest Hemingway, who must decide whether to fight like his hero's characters or acquiesce when his local office goes high tech.
I picked this up at a library book sale because I’ve enjoyed Michael Palin’s various travel programs, and the addition of Hemingway made the book all the more alluring …. Even though it is not about travel ….
Sarah Selecky; Fic
Radiant Shimmering Light (2018) 358p
From publisher: A nuanced satire--both hilarious and disconcerting--that probes the blurred lines between empowerment, spirituality, and consumerism in our online lives. Lilian Quick is 40, single, and childless, working as a pet portrait artist. She paints the colored light only she can see, but animal aura portraits are a niche market at best.
From Kirkus Reviews: … But Selecky refuses to work strictly in tropes. What begins as a killer satire opens up to some messy ideas: Spiritual teachings can be mostly bunk but partly useful. Women are easy marks but that's because they are rightfully hungry for empowerment. And Lilian herself has strange and lovely depths that she manages to plumb thanks to—or in spite of—the work. A funny, tender, gimlet-eyed dive into the cult of self-improvement.
Sounds like a fun read ….
Beatriz Williams; Fic
Golden Hour (2019) 468p
From Publisher’s Weekly: The stories of two remarkable women a generation apart are cleverly intertwined in Williams's sweeping family saga. In 1941, Lulu Randolph, a 25-year-old widowed American journalist, is in Nassau, Bahamas, to write society articles about the duke and duchess of Windsor, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. The duke—as governor of this island paradise with a dark side—and the duchess are portrayed as sometimes helping, but often contributing to, its problems of social inequality, racial tension, and corruption; they could also be complicit in the murder of gold mine owner Harry Oakes, and there are whispers of their Nazi sympathies. … Past and present come together when a complicated family history becomes known to all. Williams (The Summer Wives) illuminates the story with exotic locales and bygone ambience, and seduces with the irresistible Windsors. Readers will appreciate the wartime espionage that keeps the suspense high.
There has been a lot of speculation regarding the Duke & Duchess of Windsor -- this sounds like an interesting approach, and the setting should be fun to read about.
Jessica Bruder; Non-Fic
Nomadland. (2017) 273p
From publisher: The author chronicles her time embedded in a pool of transient older Americans who have taken to the road in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads, migrant laborers who call themselves "workampers."
From Kirkus Reviews: … Though very little about Bruder's excellent journalistic account offers hope for the future, an ersatz hope radiates from within Nomadland: that hard work and persistence will lead to more stable situations. Engaging, highly relevant immersion journalism.
Shoreline Drive in downtown Mountain View is always lined with campers and trailers; I’d always assumed these were Google or other tech workers …. Now I’m not so sure ….
Mark Kurlansky; Non-Fic
Milk! (2018) 384p
From Kirkus Reviews: A wide-ranging history of a surprisingly controversial form of nourishment. Milk, from humans and a variety of animals, is the subject of the latest enthusiastic investigation by the prolific Kurlansky, winner of the James Beard Award and Bon Appetit's Food Writer of the Year Award, among other accolades. For 10,000 years, milk has been "the most argued-over food in human history," the author asserts, with experts opining about whether milk was fit for human consumption, whether babies should be breast-fed (and by whom—their own mothers or wet nurses), which mammal produced the best milk, whether milk should be pasteurized and homogenized, how cows should be raised and milked, and what effects such interventions as hormones, antibiotics, and genetically modified crops have on the milk we consume. … Chock-full of fascinating details and more than 100 recipes.
I quite enjoyed the author’s Cod and Salt and look forward to this title.
Michael Pullara; Non-Fic
Spy who was Left Behind (2018) 336p
From Library Journal: The transition to a post-Soviet world was difficult for former republics, including the present-day country of Georgia. In 1993, CIA operative Fred Woodruff (1947–93) was a casualty of this upheaval. In his debut book, lawyer Pullara, motivated by the pursuit of justice, along with a personal relationship with the decedent, embarked on a journey involving an extensive paper trail and political cover-ups. The author describes Georgia in the 1990s as a corrupt state that was also being courted by the United States as a pro-Western ally. Key questions surrounding Woodruff's murder are considered, including Georgia's sudden determination that the crime was not political, as well as a possible link between the killing and the arrest of CIA officer–turned–KGB mole Aldrich Ames on charges of espionage. … VERDICT This book should captivate readers interested in a true murder mystery that reads like a spy novel.
Sounds fascinating!
Bob Woodward; Non-Fic
Fear; Trump in the White House (2018) 420p
From publisher: With authoritative reporting honed through eight presidencies from Nixon to Obama, author Bob Woodward reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump's White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. The focus is on the explosive debates and the decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence. Fear is the most intimate portrait of a sitting president ever published during the president's first years in office.
I have some ambivalence about suggesting this title -- do I really want to spend time reading about Trump? But it is by Bob Woodward ….
