May Books

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
A beautifully written book that encompasses so much of what is happening in the Middle East, yet does not engulf itself in war, or murder, or terrorism, but instead sets the story within generations of a Palestinian family.  The story begins at a wedding where the dregs of coffee foretell of life filled with sorrow, displacement, and emotional attachments.  Thus the story begins on the newlywed life of Alia and Atef: the many cities in the Middle East that they learn to call 'home' following the 1967 war, the three children they have with all the troubles of parenting that come with them, the winds that blow their family to all parts of the world, the rebellion of the teenage years and the search for identity in adulthood, and the final realization of what it means to be 'Palestinian.' This book does not tell a story of great tension, or mystery, or passion; what it does do is tell the story of a family who survives.  It opened up a hitherto unforeseen part of the Middle East for me and furthered my understanding that every story has multiple perspectives.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Admittedly, this is not my typical genre. Also admittedly,  I am pretty sure I only understand a small percentage of the science. However, I was thoroughly awestruck by the concept of astrophysics, the study of the cosmos, and the hugeness of our universe and beyond.  I would find myself re-reading paragraphs, attempting to understand the ideas behind dark matter, supernovas, the big bang, etc., and eventually realizing that I did not need to comprehend every little detail; it was enough to use the topic to merely open my mind to the awesomeness of our existence. And yes, it was awesome.  Want to learn about where the components of the periodic table first came from or what all the black stuff is amongst the stars? Author Neil deGrasse Tyson, known for his ability to talk science in understandable language, inspired and educated me in a completely new topic.  This would be a pretty cool book for a book group; it would challenge the majority of readers, provoke conversation, and bring up some rather interesting topics.  Break out of that thriller/historical fiction/drama box you've been reading in and explore the cosmos!

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
If you liked Henrietta Lacks, this is the book for you. It is one of those stories that shocks, inspires, and mesmerizes a reader throughout the entire unfolding of a piece of history that cried for a voice. A new industry began as the first world war was born, a company which made clocks with dials that lit up at night due to the radium-laced paint used to paint the numbers.  These dial-painters were all young women, drawn to the job by lucrative pay and the hyped up idea that radium was good for them, that it gave them rosy cheeks and healthy blood.  This was a common, highly publicized belief in America, with tinctures and tonics marketed with the expensive radium chemical additive.  However, within a few years, the insidious march of radiation poisoning decimated the ranks of these shining girls, who glowed at night, developed anemia and sarcomas, and suffered immeasurable pain thanks to the "Lick, Dip, Paint" regimine.  The book follows the lives of some incredibly heroic women and their fight for justice and reparations.  Just when you think the story is over, hang on...the company finds another way to screw them over.  This was a fascinating look back at how OSHA was created, the rise of labor laws, and the heroes who gave up everything, including their lives, to make sure that others did not suffer the same fate as they did.  Absolutely loved the book!

The Leavers byLisa Ko

I am in a bit of a quandary over this book.  On one hand, the plot premise is engaging and topical.  A young Chinese-American boy, Deming, is abandoned by his Chinese mother and adopted by an American couple who re-name him Daniel.  While loving and well-intentioned, these new parents construct a completely unfamiliar new path towards adulthood for Daniel, with unwieldy expectations, a lack of knowledge for his past, and yet a willingness to hang in there during difficult times.  The story flips back and forth in time and character, with both Deming and his mother telling the story of past and present.  The quandary comes in when I think about the characters, both leading and peripheral. None are particularly heroic or likable, yet perhaps that is the author's point? This is a story of immigrants who are poor, who are buffeted by laws, by racism, by economic deprivation, who are merely trying to survive.  The questions I am left with therefore...is it possible to be heroic in these circumstances?  Do we ask too much of our children and of ourselves? Are laws supposed to be retaliatory and punishing, or should laws contain compassion?  This book provokes thought, and that is the point of literature.  I do think this would be a provocative book club choice, as it is a book that does not choose to give answers, but requires us to look at our own selves and our beliefs.  Solid debut outing by Lisa Ko, as is shown by the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.

The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home by Sally Mott Freeman
If you like stories of familial love and loyalty, were gripped by Unbroken and/or Flags of Our Fathers, and are a passionate lover of WWII tales, then this book is for you.  The three Mott brothers, Bill, Benny, and Barton grow up on the Jersey shore with an 'interesting' mother, a deep love for the Navy, and equally challenging childhoods and youths.  When WWII hits, Benny's Naval years place him as head gunner on the storied Enterprise carrier, Bill becomes the head of the map room in FDR's White House, and Barton is encouraged to go to the Philippines with the Navy Supply Corps where he will be 'safe.' Yep, you know where this true story is headed.  Barton is taken prisoner right after Pearl Harbor, and his two older brothers who always protected and cared for him, are frantic to find him.  Interspersed amongst the three stories of the brothers, this narrative follows the many battles of the Pacific, learning details of the shocking human toll at the battles of Saipan and Okinawa, the horrific treatment and movements of the POWs, and the interchange amongst the big boys in the White House. At times a bit long with more specifics than I needed, I still read voraciously, feeling well-educated at the end and quite in awe of the bravery of not only the Mott brothers, but of their Naval brothers in arms.  A first book, well-researched and written by the niece of the Jersey brothers, I do hope this is not her last outing.

The House of Names by Colm Toibin
The author of Brooklyn and Nora Webster takes a turn away from Ireland, all the way back to Greek mythology and the story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and their three children Iphigenia, Electra, and Orestes. This ancient story is ripe for a real page-turner with themes of parental love and betrayal, power and dominance, and thirst for revenge.  However, with all of Toibin's past writing accolades (well-deserved, mind you), he completely misses this time out.  These characters cry out for rich, deep development, to understand the motivation to kill a husband, to revenge a father, to betray everything one knows is good and decent.  Yet, the voices of Clytemnestra and her children remain flat and unemotional. This is a book of telling, not showing; it should have pulled at my heartstrings, but it left me saying 'meh.' And this from a teacher who taught the Odyssey for years and drove her students crazy with Greek mythological connections throughout the school year?! Sorry, but this is a big 'PASS' for me.

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Debut author, legal machinations, death row dilemma...this book called out to me.  Marzano-Lesnevich tells a tale of her own childhood intertwined with her work as a summer associate on a death row case.  Ali grows up in a legal family, both parents as lawyers in New Jersey, in a home riddled with hidden secrets and family dysfunction in some pretty tragic ways.  Molested as a young girl by her grandfather, Ali's family remains silent, 'protecting' all parties and sowing seeds of great trauma as Ali grows into adulthood.  When faced with a young man found guilty of molesting and murdering a six year old boy, Ali feels the need to delve more deeply into the story, testing her long-held beliefs on the injustice and finality of the death penalty.  This story definitely reads more as a memoir than a legal thriller as Ali juxtaposes her own family life with that of Ricky, the convicted felon. It brings up some troubling issues, with scenes that are very difficult to read, yet exposes the need to talk about the aftermath of molestation.  At times, I felt the description waxed on for too long, and details were given that were not relevant to the story; I would have liked the editing to be a bit tighter, to create more tension at times, so that it read more like 'true crime' rather than 'memoir.'  Overall, it is a solid first outing from an author that should definitely continue to write.

April 2.0

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Pulitzer Prize winning author, Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kittredge) is back to what she does best...stringing separate short stories together through similar motifs as well as character connections.  Few authors are so skilled at the sparse, spare writing that has the ability to illuminate so much.  Admittedly, this author could write a grocery list and I would purchase it; I am consistently in awe of her brilliance.  In a nod to her latest book My Name is Lucy Barton, Strout takes the peripheral characters from that short novel and gives them each their own moment of fame, in this case, their own chapter.  We return to Amagash, Illinois, the town of Lucy's birth, reminded once again of the amalgamation of society in the heartland of America:  the desperately poor, trapped by drugs, lack of education, and the disappearance of economic opportunity; the small town well-to-do folks, who have little concept of the 'other' and their needs; the folks who desperately seek love, sometimes finding it, sometimes not; the ones who escaped the small town trap, seeking bigger lives for themselves; and most importantly, we meet Lucy again, finally, in her attempt to return and reconnect with her siblings.  Does it help to have read Lucy Barton? Yes.  Is it necessary?  No.  (However, you should anyway - it is a fabulous book!).  This book illuminates so much of what not only divides our country today, but also what heals our country; it is the story of men and women, adults and children, old and young, and their struggles to find a modicum of happiness in their one brief time on earth.

Beartown by Frederick Backman
The author of the international bestseller, A Man Called Ove, is back! On the surface, Beartown is a novel of a small town where every man, woman, and child is obsessed by hockey, driven to watch, cheer, and kowtow to anyone connected to the rink, and willing to look the other way for both small as well as life-changing offenses.  Yet, hockey only grazes the surface.  This is the story of Amat, the phenom who skates for free while his mother cleans the rink.  It is the story of David, who needs to win and will motivate his boys any way he can.  It is the story of Benji, a player with a huge heart and an even bigger secret.  And it is the story of a family and a girl, whose core belief in their town, in what is true and honorable and right, is shaken to its very core.  All these dynamic characters are drawn together and tested as a terrible tragedy strikes the hockey family, and ultimately the entire town.  This story will sear your heart, force you to question your own actions, and make you cheer for the heroes that emerge.  Backman is back...and this is his most powerful book yet.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
My first thought was...do I really want to read one more WWII book? Haven't I heard it all? After reading Georgia Hunter's debut novel, based on her Jewish family's experiences surviving the Holocaust, the answer to that question is a resounding YES I needed to read another one and NO, I have not heard it all! After learning about her Polish relatives' survival, Hunter does a masterful job of research, weaving a tale of incredible hope and survival.  Covering the war years alone, we see the insular Jewish family of a mother, father, and five children, along with a few spouses as the Nazis slowly and insidiously enter their lives in Radom, Poland. As siblings are spun around the world (Russia, Brazil, Palestine, Italy, America), the war enacts terrible tolls, particularly on the one young grandchild.  At times it was hard to read as it wrung my heart out, yet it is filled with the such great courage and yes, hope.  The familial ties that bind this family together are extraordinary.  The beginning is a bit slow as you try to sort out who all the family members are, but do not give up; the tale of survival and the incredible ending is worth every moment.

The Stolen Child by Lisa Carey
Having just spent a week hiking on the 'Wild Atlantic' coast of Ireland, this was just the book for me.  Purchased in the Dingle bookstore, this book swept me away to a time period sixty years ago, on an island off the coast of Ireland inhabited by a fierce, independent, proud group of people who believe in the miracles of saints, the mischief of fairies, and the existence of changelings.  Twins Emer and Rose both have their own families, but are torn apart by their enormous differences: one loves her husband, one merely settles; one wants to stay forever on the island, one wants to take the offer of of housing on the mainland; one is sweet, loving, and kind while the other is filled with a deep well of sadness, anger, and abandonment.  When an American woman named after the island's saint, Brigid, comes and settles on the island, everyone's life is changed forever.  This book is filled with passion, magic, tension, sorrow, anger, and hope; it was a beautiful journey into Irish folklore as well as the history of the coastal islands.

The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown
The premise sounded promising...17th century England, sister Alice returns home to live with brother  Matthew when her husband dies in London, and finds her brother to be a nutcase when it comes to the occult.  However, I found this book to be a bit of a drag.  It took until half way through to really get into some plot development, as the author dragged the story along, plodding through the background on the family dynamics, the mystery of the brother's facial burns and their old servant, the complexities of their mother's mental and physical illnesses, the sister's hard life and marriage in London, etc. etc. etc.  And quite frankly, I was less than interested in these details as little tension was developed, nor any characters I could sincerely love or hate.  The second half was better, as the brother and sister take the 'show on the road' and ride about the small English villages testing young women for their skills at witchcraft.  Some emotional angst is brought in as the sister struggles with her own morality as she becomes complicit in the trials and deaths of these women.  The author plays with the idea of evil entities taking actual physical form, but does not firmly commit which is disconcerting to the reader.  Is it fantasy?  Is the evil read?  Or is the evil within humanity?  I would have liked more answers. Ultimately, I turned pages quickly in the end just to finish it, not because I was enamored.

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
This book has garnered quite a bit of buzz in the book world so I was excited to finally get to it on my bookshelf.  However, I was a bit under-whelmed.  The plot line is actually quite intriguing, with a bit of a different take on WWII and the Holocaust.  Instead of following the war, we see the aftermath and destruction of Germany, as well as the time period leading up to the declaration of war.  It was interesting in today's times that we are living in, with the rise of nationalism across the Western world, to see the rise of a dictator who subtly and insidiously plays on people's fears until they are willing to follow blindly.  The book is well-written, though at times I would have liked less long paragraphs and a bit more dialogue.  However, my main issue with the book were the three main characters who share the post WWII life in the castle:  Marianne, a privileged German aristocrat, courageous yet morally judgmental and inflexible; Ania, a hard-working mother of two boys with a dark secret; and Benita, an uneducated peasant thrust into a world of aristocracy and intrigue.  I continuously read, hoping to see some development with the three characters yet I was ultimately disappointed.  I found little to like, to applaud, or to feel deeply for in any of these women.  Is it a good story that keeps you reading?  Yes.  Are there great heroes and villains?  Not really.  For a reader like me who loves richly developed characters, I would not recommend it.

April Books

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Do you like a good mystery?  How about history?  How about heroic FBI agents, twisted nasty bad guys, and an honorable tribal culture cheated out of both money and their lives?  The latest book by the best-selling author of The Lost City of Z will not let you down. This was an intriguing time in American history, one of which I had never heard about in either school or the media.  At the inception of a national department of investigation, soon to be known as the FBI, a new young director by the name of J. Edgar Hoover had a pile of crap laid in his lap:  in 1925, down in the Oklahoma area called the Osage hill country, Osage natives were being murdered.  The local and state law enforcement was too enmeshed with the suspects, thus a federal investigative team was needed.  Enter ex-Texas Ranger Tom White to save the day, and what an investigation it was.  The murder of Mollie Burkhart, and subsequently her sister and mother begins this tale of a dark time in our history, of a native tribe whose reservation sat on the richest oilfields in the world, of money stolen from the Osage, of family members, neighbors, friends, and lawyers willing to literally do anything to get their hands on the head rights of these fields, of lawmen who risked and lost their lives to uncover the insidious dark crime against these natives, and even the author, who uncovers hidden truths about new culprits decades after the trials.  I read voraciously, finishing in less than 24 hours, completely engrossed in this true-life crime of passion, prejudice, and broken family trust.  Even when you think it is all solved and what is left to be uncovered, you will find your mouth hanging open at the latest revelations.  This is what I call a 'humdinger' of a book!

The Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers
While I can kinda/sorta read a balance sheet, the financial world is not my forte.  Thus, when the Bernie Madoff scandal hit a few years back, I was horrified by the people who lost their entire life's savings, yet also not completely clear about how something like this could happen.  Randy Susan Meyers (Accidents of Marriage -reviewed Dec. 2014 - excellent book) has fictionalized the Madoff saga, with a greater emphasis on the wife.  We meet Phoebe as a headstrong fifteen year old, born and raised in 1960's Brooklyn, daughter of a loving yet interfering mother, and infatuated with Jake, the boy who dreams big but lies and manipulates to get his way.  As Phoebe's life unfolds, and poor decisions commence, her marriage to Jake takes precedent to all else.  As the decades go by, we see the slow march towards unconscionable wealth, families persuaded to join the 'Club', Jake's special investment fund, Phoebe's involvement with a charitable organization, and the ultimate uncovering of a despicable lie.  Meyers knows how to tell a story, unspooling the lies slowly yet insidiously, grabbing at one's emotions through ideas of loyalty, sexual intimacy, and deep familial bonds, and making one turn pages late into the night.  This book was fascinating to me, a Pacific Northwest resident with little knowledge or attraction to the New York financial world, and the depth of the characters and tension of the story made it extremely hard to put this book down.  Definite winner!


If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
For all you lovers of Shakespeare, teachers of the Bard, and attendees of festivals, this book is for you.  The premise is deliciously different from many other 'thrillers' of today.  Setting the plot at a prestigious arts institute, with the focus on the seven fourth-year actors, debut author M.L. Rio shows off her chops...and this woman knows her Shakespeare!  The story begins when Oliver is just finishing up his decade in prison and the policeman who put him there arrives to make a deal - 'Tell me the real story of that night and I can retire in peace.'  Thus the tale begins of these seven students, their last year together before graduation, the complicated ties amongst both students and teachers, the staging of Julius Caesar,  Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and all the ways these plays interact within their lives.  Of course, it is a tragedy so a dead body and some mystery is involved, but Rio does a masterful job of fully developing each of these seven actors, as well as what motivates their behavior.  Sprinkled generously throughout the book are lines from the Bard's many plays; as a former literature teacher, I loved recognizing some lines, but did not feel bereft if I was stymied.  I do not think you need a thorough grounding in Shakespeare but I do feel you will delight in this book more fully if you also enjoy a bit of the Bard.

The Cutaway by Christina Kovac
Combine a news director, a previous love affair with the head investigator, a scheming law firm, and the mysterious disappearance of a young woman, and a thriller is born.  Debut author Christina Kovac has created a tense, page-turner of a book in her first time out.  She highlights today's struggle to put out factual news and still keep the ratings up through lead character Virginia Knightley who chooses to ignore the management's directions and continues to investigate the disappearance and subsequent murder of a young Georgetown attorney.  Is the attorney's ex-military husband involved, as he struggles with PTSD?  How about the U.S. attorney, rumored to be having an affair with the young woman?  How is Knightley's ex-boyfriend involved, as he runs the investigation?  Is there something more than friendship with the lead anchor? And what is with the law firm where the victim worked?  Kovac forces you to furiously turn pages as you attempt to answer all these questions, giving you a few red herrings to chase down along the way as well as some complicated relationships among the characters to decipher.