MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2015

My favorite books that I read in 2015:

My Brilliant Friend  by  Elena Ferrante
The Story of a New Name  by  Elena Ferrante
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay  by  Elena Ferrante
The Story of the Lost Child  by  Elena Ferrante
Our Souls at Night  by  Kent Haruf
The Girl on the Train  by  Paula Hawkins
Drinking Diaries  by  Caren Osten Gerszberg
The Lottery  by  Shirley Jackson
Displacement  by  Lucy Knisley
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up  by  Marie Kondo
Station Eleven  by  Emily St. John Mandel
Dept. of Speculation  by  Jenny Offill
Gemma Bovery  by  Posy Simmonds
The Post Office Girl  by  Stefan Zweig

BEST BOOKS I READ IN 2014

FAVORITE BOOKS I READ IN 2014

Since it's now time for Beach Reads, below is a list of the best books I read in 2014.  There's a good mix of short stories, fiction and historical fiction, which is what I really want to read in the summer.  They're listed in alphabetical order, by author.


Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant  by  Chaz Rost   (graphic novel memoir, meaning illustrations)

Dare Me  by  Megan Abbott

The Fever  by  Megan Abbott  (modern-day Salem witch trials)

Burial Rites  by  Hannah Kent  (historical fiction, Iceland)

The Traitor's Wife  by  Kathleen Kent  (early American historical, prequel to The Heretic's Daughter.  Not as captivating as Heretic's Daughter for me, but pretty good, especially if you like historical).

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher  by  Hilary Mantel     (shorts)

Bark  by  Lorrie Moore  (shorts)

Valentines  by  Olaf Olafsson  (shorts)

Euphoria  by  Lily King  (based on Margaret Mead)  (so good)

The Bees  by  Paull Laline

The Divorce Papers  by  Susan Rieger  (partially epistolary)

The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café  by  Alexander McCall Smith

Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon  by  Alexander McCall Smith

MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2013

MY FAVORITE BOOKS THAT I READ LAST YEAR:

The Thing Around Your Neck  by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Longbourn  by  Jo Baker

Ten White Geese  by  Gerbrand Bakker

My Beef with Meat  by  Rip Esselstyn

The Mothers  by  Jennifer Gilmore

Mother Daughter Me  by  Katie Hafner

Being Esther  by  Miriam Karmel

Flight Behavior  by  Barbara Kingsolver

The Dinner  by  Herman Koch

The Good House  by  Ann Leary

The Witness Wore Red  by  Rebecca Musser

The Silver Linings Playbook  by  Matthew Quick

Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole

Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole is a most gorgeous book.  I gave it to my nephew, Douglas, who just turned seven years old.  The most unusual thing about this book is that it's a storybook with no words.  Douglas can now read, but even if he couldn't, this book could still convey the story clearly though the amazing artwork.  Luminous and fine pencil drawings are visually quiet, but succinct in their storytelling.    On a small farm in Civil War Era Virginia, someone incredibly brave is hiding in the barn.  You can guess from the title who it might be, but don't worry, this little history lesson is suitable for small children.   I also like the way the young girl does the right thing, even against the implied wishes of powerful men.  A happy enough ending is perfect for introducing children to literature in a way that shows them one must sometimes use a little bit of their own imagination.   Ages 4-8

 

The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins

I bought this book for my nephew Douglas' upcoming birthday.  This is a cool book for a kid who likes science and nature, or just fun facts.  The author-illustrated artwork is colorful and kind of amazing, with torn-and-cut-paper collages of each different type of beetle.   Kids will learn that one out of every four living things on this planet is a beetle, and why beetles are so interesting.    The fun facts come across in simple and direct language, and even the scientific anatomy of a beetle is easy to understand.  Silhouettes throughout the book are life size, but it's really the colorful pictures that capture the imagination.  As the jacket says, there are beetles that stink, beetles that bite, beetles that walk on water, and squeak and glow, and many more!  Ages 4-8

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

If you're looking for a kid's book that teaches good, important lessons in a non-obvious way, the classic Stellaluna by Janell Cannon is one great option.  Yes, it's about friendship and adaptation, but just as importantly, it also teaches compassion for those who are different from us, for those who are often misunderstood.  Bats are becoming more and more endangered, and they're unfairly stereotyped and associated with things like a fear of the dark, and vampires.  In fact, a single bat can eat between 2000 and 6000 mosquitoes in a single night, they re-seed forests and rainforests, and are the only flying mammal on earth.  The artwork is gorgeous, there are funny moments for children, and we all learn that we're more alike than we are different.

Ten White Geese by Gerbrand Bakker

When I finished this novel, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, but I realized that I had said several times while reading it that it was good, and I looked forward to reading more each night.  And then  I kept thinking about it after it was over.  So, I enjoyed it.  One of the brilliant elements in this book, perhaps the best element, is the inclusion of bits of poetry by The Belle of Amherst, Emily Dickinson.  This book is translated from the Dutch, giving it a European feel that I like.  The main poem begins, "Ample make this bed.  Make this bed with awe; In it wait till judgement break, Excellent and fair."  There's a second verse that's just as good.  I had never heard this poem before, and I checked my own little volume of Dickinson poetry, but it wasn't there.  So right in the beginning, we are given the gift of this exquisite little verse.  When the book opens, we can tell the main character is female and that she's in a rural area of Europe (it turns out to be Wales).  Like Dickinson's poetry, there's a lot of symbolism in this novel, such as a stone circle, black sheep, white geese, and roses.  The farmhouse itself calls forth the past, with its claw-foot bathtub, worn floorboards, fireplaces and wood-burning stove.  Just as Emily Dickinson hid from society, our main character Emilie has run to this place to do the same.  Emilie is a scholar of Dickinson, and so the poetry is infused even into her thoughts.  It's November and the days are getting shorter (time is getting shorter), and the geese are disappearing one by one.  Emilie begins to smell, emanating from herself, the odor of the dead widow who had lived in this farmhouse, and the elegiac nature of all these omens is expressed in another short stanza of Dickinson's:  Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn, Indicative that suns go down. . . (I won't tell you the rest).  Men come and go in Emilie's life, and like most women, she has to fend off a few who are toxic.  She is grieving and experiencing loss, and we know this because she cuts her hair off.  She begins to reject eating animals, and in her new, stripped-down life,  finds her own compassion.  If you're like me, this book will haunt you a little, and things will click into place in your mind later.  Why is she seeing butterflies in December?  If she's so homesick, why doesn't she call home?  This is one of those books that bears a second reading someday.

If you are now intrigued by Emily Dickinson, you may like this other historical fiction novel I read some years ago:  The Sister by Paola Kaufmann.  It delves much more into the poetry and everyday life of the enigmatic Dickinson.

In closing, here's a Dickinson stanza that I would have included in this book:  Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality. . .

My Favorite Books of 2012

Here's a list of my favorite books, out of all the books I read in 2012:

Stiltsville  by  Susanna Daniel
Lizzie's War  by  Tim Farrington
Gone Girl  by  Gillian Flynn
The Newlyweds  by  Nell Freudenberger
The Cellist of Sarajevo  by  Steven Galloway
Still Alice  by  Lisa Genova
Obligate Carnivore  by  Jed Gillen
Arcadia  by  Lauren Groff
The Dog Stars  by  Peter Heller
Open Wound  by  Jason Karlawish
1493  by  Charles C. Mann
Bring Up the Bodies  by  Hilary Mantel
When Tito Loved Clara  by  Jon Michaud
Destiny of the Republic  by  Candice Millard
Americana  by  Hampton Sides
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection  by  Alexander McCall Smith
The Lotus Eaters  by  Tatjana Soli
Wild  by  Cheryl Strayed
The Sex Lives of Cannibals  by  J. Maarten Troost
The Beginner's Goodbye  by  Anne Tyler
A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard  by  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree  by  Kate Wheeler

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Still Alice is one of those different novels.  It's written from the point of view of a woman going through Early Onset Alzheimer's.  Alice is a brilliant Psychology Professor at Harvard, and is only 50 years old when she realizes she's forgetting things--it might be a recipe she's been making for decades, or how to get home.  The cast of characters includes Alice's husband and children, and takes us from diagnosis to deep into the disease.  The author, Lisa Genova, is perhaps the perfect person to have written this book, being that she holds a PhD. in neuroscience from Harvard, and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association.  Genova's expertise  lends this novel both complexity and authenticity.  For example, we learn what Alice's diagnosis means for her children on a genetic level--in other words, what are their chances of getting it?  Also, one of the daughters is undergoing fertility treatments, and so her embryos are tested and selected accordingly.  We watch as Alice's husband John goes through the stages of grief, and like any family member,  we might not always agree with the decisions of the main caretaker.  Most fascinating to me is Alice's exit strategy for when things get really bad.  Will she be cognizant enough to execute her plans?  Lisa Genova says she came to write this novel because her own grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's.   She began to research Alzheimer's to support her Aunts who were caregiving.  Genova wondered what it was like for those with Early Onset, and specifically what it was like for someone relatively young to fail out of their job.  Alice as the main character is someone who thinks for a living.  Some might feel that when Alice is no longer able to think, she will have no value, but Genova says the most important thing she knows about Alzheimer's is that you are more than what you can remember, and the ending of this book reflects that.  Genova found an online support group for those with Early Onset, and asked permission to lurk and learn, and she was welcomed in because the patients said they normally don't get a say, that most decisions and conversation are directed to caretakers and family members.  In this easily-understandable-but-brilliant novel, Genova has given them a wonderful voice.

Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree

Have you ever been curious about Buddhism?  I have.  Having been a rabid Oprah fan, I too read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, highlighting passages as I went.  A few years ago, a book club i was in read You Are Not Here and Other Works of Buddhist Fiction and we had a great discussion about it.  Then i read the charming novel Breakfast With Buddha, just for fun.  Recently, my friend Emily recommended The Tao of Pooh, so I gave that a whirl.  When I was a kid, my adopted Grandma practiced Shinto, complete with a little shrine on the living room wall, where she would place a perfect tangerine as a New Year offering.  She took us to the Byodo-In Temple at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains.  We rang the sacred bell, removed our rubber slippers, lit incense and gazed at the giant golden Buddha.  And I wondered what it was all about . . . and I still wonder sometimes.  Although I remember liking You Are Not Here, I possibly like Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree better overall.  Both are collections of short stories, and both offer some excellent reads within.  There is a short story here and there in each of them that I wasn't fond of, but overall, I enjoyed them.  There is something alluring about the idea of Buddhism; the peace of acceptance, the heightened consciousness, the basic tenet of ahimsa (doing no harm), and living simply while allowing others to simply live.   Although I'm not a Buddhist, I am having fun dipping my toes in the awakened waters of Buddhist fiction, and you can too!

Arcadia by Lauren Groff

Some novels allow you to step into a different time and place, and more-fully inhabit it than other books do.  Arcadia  by  Lauren Groff is one such read.   Not since reading the excellent Drop City  by  T. C. Boyle, have I felt like a voyeur at a hippie commune.  Arcadia is a crumbling mansion in the 1970's countryside of New York state, where a small group of idealistic hippies set out to create their own Utopian society.  They are The Free People, and they wish to harm no one.  Unfortunately, they also wish to welcome everyone, and that is their eventual downfall.  But in between the beginning and the end of this long, strange trip, there are moments of peace and love.  The women are strong and lovely, and there are a few able and willing men.  But most of all, there is Bit, a tiny boy with a huge heart.  We see this insular world through Bit's eyes, and so we are at the heart of the story.  There are a few strong metaphors to classic fairy tales in this novel, but I didn't find them too overdone when seen from little Bit's point of view.   There is a hint of cult mentality but not in the sinister way seen in the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene (although it was an excellent movie).  As Bit grows up, we see the lasting effects that the dream of Arcadia has on him, his family and the girl he loves.

So, put some flowers in your hair, drop out and listen to some Canned Heat, or read this amazing book.

MY FAVORITE BOOKS THAT I READ IN 2011

For some years now, I've compiled a list of my favorite books that I read in the previous 12 months.  I tuck this list into Christmas cards and my hairdresser posts it on her salon wall and copies it for customers, some of whom ask for it each year.  Here's my list for 2011:

The Taliban Shuffle  by  Kimberly Barker
Caleb's Crossing  by  Geraldine Brooks
Crazy Sexy Diet  by  Kris Carr
Little Bee  by  Chris Cleave
Girls in White Dresses  by  Jennifer Close
The Marriage Plot  by  Jeffrey Eugenides
The Whistling Season  by  Ivan Doig
Room  by  Emma Donoghue
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down  by  Anne Fadiman
Freedom  by  Jonathan Franzen
The Veganist  by  Kathy Freston
Little Princes  by  Conor Grennan
The Litigators  by  John Grisham
Turn of Mind  by  Alice LaPlante
The White  by  Deborah Larsen
In the Garden of Beasts  by  Erik Larson
An Object of Beauty  by  Steve Martin
Emily, Alone  by  Stewart O'Nan
Swim Back to Me  by  Ann Packer
State of Wonder  by  Anne Patchett
Wench  by  Valdez Dolen Perkins
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by  Rebecca Skloot
The Art of Racing in the Rain  by  Garth Stein

The White by Deborah Larsen

Some little books are gems; where the author packs a bright, dense world between its pages.  One book like that is "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress."  Another book like that is "The White" by Deborah Larsen.  Wholly American, with prose as spare as a Shaker rocking chair, this recounting of a true story brought me effortlessly back to 1758 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Sixteen-year-old Mary Jemison was captured with her family by a Shawnee-and-French raiding party during the French and Indian War.  When Mary was 81 years old, she told her life story to a white minister, James Seaver, and so there is a detailed record of her long life with the Seneca Nation.  Deborah Larsen extrapolates from this in The White, allowing us to step into Mary Jemison's moccasins and see how it might have been.  Larsen took Seaver's flowery pre-Victorian language and broke it down to a more-real essence.  She tells this story in a new way, imbuing it with feeling and depth despite her bare-bones language.  Professor Larsen also did a lot of research for this book and so even the crops and trees and plants ring true, as do the Seneca traditions Mary must have embraced.  Mary's Native-American name was De-he-wa-mis, which can mean pretty, handsome, pleasant and good.  It can also mean "two falling voices" and this is the apt translation Larsen chose.  I didn't want this book to end.  The author, Professor Deborah Larsen, is also a poet, and this shows in her gorgeous interpretation of this fascinating story.  For younger readers, there is also another fictionalized account of Mary Jemison's life; "Indian Captive" by Lois Lenski (but I have not read this one).  Deborah Larsen also wrote a book of poetry; Stitching Porcelain, and a memoir; The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story.  Deborah Larsen-Cowan has also been published in The Nation, The Yale Review, The Quarterly, Oxford Magazine, and The New Yorker, and has been reviewed by NPR, and interviewed on the Diane Rehm show.

Open Wound by Jason Karlawish

I love historical fiction, and so I really enjoyed this new novel based on a true story. The book opens on Mackinac Island in the year 1822.  Mackinac Island (pronounced mackinaw) was a Native American settlement of the Ojibwe peoples since prehistoric times, but was then occupied by the British during the American Revolutionary War.  Being a tiny island strategically located between the peninsulas of upper and lower Michigan, Mackinac was overrun by two of man's most horrible creations; the fur industry, and war (the French and Indian War,  and the War of 1812).

Enter Dr. William Beaumont, a surgeon in the U.S. Army, based alongside The American Fur Company.  Beaumont seems to be admirable; hardworking, meticulous, and a modest drinker.   The previous doctor at this frontier outpost was addicted to both drink and opium, so Beaumont (in comparison) brought great measures of hygiene and competence to this wilderness.  Time spent as an assistant surgeon in the War of 1812, and specifically, the Battle of Plattsburgh, have made him an expert surgeon. But curled within Beaumont lies a bud of ambition that threatens to blossom into a terrible flower.   Then, a shotgun accident involving a young French trapper calls upon all of Beaumont's surgical skills.  This sudden collision of Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin is almost like a koan or a parable, with the outcome depending upon the wisdom and integrity of those involved.  Despite the medical nature of this read, it is not dry.  Instead, we're brought back to a fascinating time in U.S. history, and the story does move along at a decent clip.  As a bonus, I found the writing to be keenly brilliant and elegant.

In Open Wound, author Jason Karlawish does a good job of staying objective, despite the actions of the doctor at the risk of the patient's health.  Reading this made me think about the larger questions in life.  What is violence?  How can Free Will be exploited?  There are complicated natures of debt in this story, and equally complex payment structures.  This would be a good novel for book club discussions due to the many ethical and moral issues that abound in this good read, and in medicine itself.

As a Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at an American university, Jason Karlawish is perhaps the perfect person to have written this intriguing story.  Here is a youtube video with the author talking about this book.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

I did not want to read "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman, but it came up for book club at our local library.  Well, I could not put it down, and it blew my mind.  It's a non-fiction account of not only a single Hmong family, but also of how the Hmong came to America.  Along the way, we learn about the rich Hmong culture, which is partially based in ancient legends, bad spirits, and unfortunate animal sacrifice.  Once this culture hits the United States, that's where things begin to break down.  For example, when a Hmong is born, their placenta is buried in a special place under their ancestral home.  When they die, this placenta is their garment in the next world.  Their spirit must retrace all their steps back to this garment, and then run a dangerous gauntlet to a peaceful place of rebirth.  If their soul cannot find this garment, it's condemned to wander eternity naked and alone.  But for a moment, let's go back to how the Hmong came to America.   In Laos, there are different cultures as you move into higher elevations, including the Lao, the Karen, the Khmu and Mien peoples.  "At the highest altitudes, between 1,000 and 2,000 meters, if it is possible, live the Hmong."  These remote locations helped keep their ethnic identity very pure, despite their lack of a unifying literacy.  They rarely visited the plains, which they called the Land of Leeches.  At the end of the 18th century, the British East India Company introduced opium to China, and since then, the Hmong have been master opium growers, "drawn into this international trade they neither created nor controlled."  Fast forward to the Vietnam War.  For geographical reasons, the U.S. provided covert army training in Laos since 1955, and President Eisenhower considered the situation in Laos to be the most important problem facing the U.S.  Then, in 1961, at the Geneva Conference, the U.S. and ten other nations signed an Accord agreeing to the neutrality of Laos.  So what did the U.S. do to control this area without sending in U.S. troops that would violate this accord?  We got the Hmong to fight for us by proxy, and we promised them a safe place to live if they would do it.  And so, this charming and "non-violent" (by normal standards) people fought.  At first, they would fire over the enemies' heads or throw away their weapons.  They were murdered and napalmed for eight years, and had to uproot 90% of their villages and run, and run, and run.  And we-the-people didn't know about it because the CIA forbid journalists from going into this geographical area.  And then the U.S. airlifted thousands of Hmong out to the U.S.  Oh, and then the U.S. also left thousands of Hmong on the tarmac to die, waiting for other planes that never came.  Flash forward to the 1980's.  Here is a people who are totally shell-shocked, clinging to the fragments of their culture, and pooling their welfare checks to buy animals to sacrifice, in an effort to fix things.  Due to PTSD and lack of English Language skills, if they have a simple car accident (for example) and are arrested, they are expecting to be executed.  And all they know how to do is fight guerrilla style, and grow opium.  In 1982, a Hmong girl by the name of Lia Lee is born in Merced, California, and they immediately incinerate her placenta, her garment for the afterlife.  And here is where our story really begins.  A story of the collision of two cultures, and misunderstandings, and heroism and compassion, and sacrifice.  And, it's fascinating.  What if you believed that each person has a finite amount of blood in their body, and then the doctors keep coming in and taking blood from your child?  What if you try to grow crops in the living room of your apartment in urban California?  Or, on the other side of the coin, what if you are two dedicated and caring doctors who spend years trying to save the life of a child that is being raised in a culture you cannot really fathom or communicate effectively with?  As I read this book, I just kept saying, "What!"  This book is very well written and is now on my "must read" list.  Anne Fadiman started out just writing an article about this little girl, but when the article got rejected, she then spent the next eight years writing this amazing book because she could not get this story out her mind and her heart.  Fadiman manages to show the many characters in an objective light, and reveals the incredible compassion and heroism on both sides of this story.  I've heard it said that there are now shamans at the Merced County Hospital, but after reading this book, I know stranger things have happened.  Highly recommended.

Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

Supposedly, this book by Stewart O'Nan is a reprisal of an earlier novel of his (Wish You Were Here).  I didn't know this until I began writing this review.    However, this quiet novel, Emily, Alone is very good all by itself.

I also liked another novel by O'Nan; Last Night at the Lobster, which I read a couple of years ago, and it was a good introduction to his better writing, which is understated but elegant.  In these two books there are no car crashes, murders, or other shocking events.  Maybe there's a snowstorm here and there, but you know what I mean.  Both Emily and Lobster are sort of about the ordinary moments of life.  But enough about Lobster; we're here to talk about Emily.  Emily is a 78-year-old widow and this is about how she navigates through life as such.  Her husband Henry is 8 years gone, and her best friend more recently departed.  Her children do not live nearby.  The everyday challenges are sometimes troubling.  Like, how do you get a big old boat of a car through the steep streets of Pittsburgh, and then actually park it?   Luckily, Emily's sister in-law Arlene lives nearby and these two plucky women help each other through the sometimes-daunting days.  The irony of this is that they were never crazy about each other in their younger days.   What I love about Emily is her effort to keep going with dignity and pleasure, despite the hardships of age.  She works at it and organizes her days to stave off boredom and loneliness.  Her affairs are in order, down to the letter.  She does difficult crosswords, cares for her old dog Rufus and listens to classical music on the radio.  She goes to Eat'n Park for the breakfast buffet with Arlene when they have a two-for-one coupon.  They go to funerals and Emily feels her mortality every day.  She contemplates the past and hopes she never falls and breaks a hip.  She rues the lack of communication from her grown children, and the lack of thank-you cards from her grandchildren--she frets but keeps it mostly to herself.  She tries to hang on to the vestiges of courtesy that were so important in her youth.  In these quiet moments, she has grace.  I read this with interest because, after all, we're all getting older.  Emily gives us a little glimpse of what's coming, if we're lucky.  I was really impressed that a man could write so beautifully from the point of view of a woman.  Author Stewart O'Nan is an avid Red Sox fan, and even wrote a book about the 2004 season with his friend and fellow author, Stephen King.  You can find audio interviews online and on itunes.

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close

Girls in White Dresses

I guess some would call this chick lit, but I hesitate because when men write good books, they don't call them "guy lit."  Actually I was thinking of putting a category on this blog called "Guy Books," but that's another story.  Here, we have a group of girlfriends who are like a cloud; constantly changing and floating around.  Sometimes peripheral characters have little vignettes, but somebody from the core group is always there.  These characters are so fleshed out that they seem alive.  This writing is so detailed without being tedious, that your synapses are gathering information in almost the same way you do in a live conversation with someone.  I just read The Family Fang on Kindle (despite all the publisher hype, that was ten bucks wasted), and the Fang family are like paper dolls compared with the characters in this book, and the writing was childish.  I'll state here that I listened to the AUDIO version of Girls in White Dresses.  It was so well read with little accents, nuances and inflections, that despite the wealth of female characters, it was not confusing.  Lauren was one of my favorite characters, and toward the middle and end of the book, I was laughing out loud.  If you can remember what it was like to be a young, single woman living in a city with your girlfriends, you will adore this book.  And I'd recommend it to anyone who just wouldn't mind stepping into that world for a bit, in the same way we do when we read books set in other countries.   Through the relationships (and lack thereof) and many hangovers, they stay friends, but this book is not sticky sweet.  I don't know if the humor will transcend reading the written form, but I hope so.  This is on free library download through Overdrive, so you can slap it on your MP3.  This is not the vapid chick lit that kills so many trees, but something elevated above that.  No crazy plot, no cute gimmicks, no big catastrophes, just realistic writing.  I'll be looking for any future novels by Jennifer Close.

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

Since I enjoyed the book The Heretic's Daughter, I thought there was a good chance I'd like this one too.  And I did. This was a great summer read for me; it really took me out of my element and to another place and time. The setting is the island of Martha's Vineyard in the 1600's. White settlers had arrived in 1641, and, while conning Native Americans out of lands, were hacking homes out of the wilderness, trampling on the clam beds, burning the forests, and infesting the native Wampanoag Tribe with deadly diseases, all in the name of God.   Although the book is called Caleb's Crossing, Bethia (beth-eye-ah) is our narrator; a comely 16-year-old girl, and this re-telling is from her journal.  The author, Geraldine Brooks, went to live on Martha's Vineyard in 2006, and became evermore fascinated by the Native-American and Early-American history.  This is her fictionalized account of Caleb, the first Native American to ever graduate from Harvard (in 1665), as seen through the eyes of a Puritan girl.  Bethia has a brilliant mind, especially in contrast with her brother, Makepeace, who obviously has some sort of learning disability.  Makepeace takes his frustration out on his sister, and she must endure it.  For me, Bethia in this book is a symbol of how women were made to kneel under the oppressive thumb of Puritan male society.  We feel it especially keenly because Bethia is so smart and kind and open.  There's a bit of The Scarlet Letter in this book (literally), although we can hold out more hope for Bethia than we ever could for poor Hester Prynne.  As for the pure and handsome Caleb, he was a real person.  In this book, he strives to save his people by adapting to the Puritan culture.  As Bethia eavesdrops in on Harvard lectures from an open vent while working in the buttery, her thirst for knowledge only grows.  She spends a good deal of her young life coveting the education that is wasted on her brother.  And she absorbs the complicated Wampanoag dialect through her great friendship with Caleb.  She must often pretend she doesn't understand what's going on, and when she does speak her mind, she is made to regret it.  Her frustration is palpable.  So great is her quest for understanding all things that at one point, she covertly drinks an hallucinogenic potion while visiting a local Tribe with her evangelical father.  Any female, young or old, can get a glimpse of what it would be like to endure the harsh living conditions and societal mores of the Puritan culture, but this is perhaps not the most important part of this book.  It's the love that Bethia feels for those around her, and her willingness to sacrifice everything for them, while still managing to keep her faith.  I don't want to put too much detail here because I read this book knowing hardly anything about it, and that's part of the fun.  Like Bethia, we can step onto the liberating path toward the beach, and find something unknown and wonderful, including friendship and love.  I have adored other books of Geraldine Brooks', including Year of Wonders, and her brilliant non-fiction book Nine Parts of Desire.  With all her novels that feature American history, I was surprised to learn that Geraldine Brooks is from Australia.  She won the Pulitzer for her book March, which is about the American Civil War as seen from inside "Little Women."  I'll end by saying that I've possibly made Caleb's Crossing out to be too dark, and it's really not.  It's moody, Puritanical feel was appropriate, and it was a fun read and I would even recommend it as a Young Adult novel, especially for girls.   There is a bit of romance in this book, but in today's world, it's very chastely done.  Thumbs up.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

If Erik Larson never wrote another book, it wouldn't matter, because The Devil In The White City is so damn good.  This is  not only a page-turner/murder mystery, it's also a non-fiction, historical account of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  And, it reads like fiction.  The first time I read this book, it started out slow for me.  Not so this time, perhaps because I already knew it was going to get better as it went along.   Larson brings an entire era to life here, and this Gilded Age was packed with new inventions and discoveries.  This book will place you in the forefront of American Architecture and also Landscape Architecture.  Eiffel had created his famous Tower and the pressure was on for the Chicago World's Fair to compete with his graceful monument.  If all this isn't enough for you, there's a chilling thread of heinous crime that runs through this book like a dark river, perpetrated by a serial killer who's every bit as charming and deadly as Ted Bundy.  You'll wonder why you've never heard of this person, who's right up there with his contemporary, Jack the Ripper.  And I loved the detective who plodded along and doggedly closed in on the murderer, without the benefits of modern technology.  This Fair was a junction where all kinds of famous people came and went, everyone from Susan B. Anthony to Buffalo Bill.  And in with all the calamity are the inventions that were introduced at this fair.  Think peanut butter and Cracker Jacks, the Ferris wheel and electric boats.  Entire tribes of people were brought over for this fair, from the Middle East and Africa.  Union standards were changed forever, and so were the many laborers who toiled (and sometimes died) for two years to make this grandiose vision a reality.  You'll be up in the swank offices of the elite in the world's first skyscrapers, and down at the gates of Hell in the infamous meatpacking stockyards.  The Chicago World's Fair, also known as The World's Columbian Expedition occurred just 13 years prior to the publishing of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."  Chicago was a paradox; an epicenter of wealth and developing culture fueled by an abattoir.  And the "White City" created by the fair was so beautiful that some fainted upon seeing it.  This spectacle brought work and excitement to the city, and also many young women looking for employment and lodging.  With all the city embroiled in the affairs of The Fair, the killer found the crowds and bustle the perfect distracting environment for his activities.  Reading this book was not only a very entertaining history lesson, but also just a good read!

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig

This is a somewhat sweet, old fashioned story.  We start out in 1950 with Paul Milliron, a school superintendent charged with the duty of closing down the old one-room schoolhouses out in the countryside of Eastern Montana.  As Paul worries over this onerous task, he flashes back in time to when he was a 13-year-old boy, and just such a schoolhouse meant the world to him.  His mother had died not too long ago, and his father Oliver was now raising Paul and his two brothers on their homestead.  Oliver, overwhelmed with raising his three sons alone and running a dryland ranch,  spies an advertisement in the newspaper.  A housekeeper looking for work has written a witty ad that starts with "Can't cook, won't bite."  They of course hire the writer of this ad, Rose.  Rose is full of surprises, beginning right from the moment she steps off the train, resplendent in a satin dress.  Rose has inexplicably brought along her brother Morrie, who eventually becomes the sole teacher of the one-room schoolhouse.  This book is really the adventure of childhood in the turn-of-the-century West, complete with horse races, revival meetings, Sunday suppers with the family and hunting for Indian arrowheads.  Rose and Morrie bring flash and excitement to the Milliron family, arriving in tandem with Halley's Comet.  Paul is mature for his age and perhaps this is why he's asked to keep secrets that trouble his dreams at night.  He literally learns a new language, helps his Dad navigate being a widow, mentors his younger brothers and comes of age in doing so.  The only parts I thought were overdone were Paul's nightmares; a little would have gone a long way on that front.  But if you want to saddle up and ride back to 1909 Montana, to a simpler place and time, this might be the book for you.   If you end up liking this book or this genre, I also recommend Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck.  Also, the PBS docu/reality series Frontier House (available on netflix).  And, The Wilder Life, Wendy McClure's memoir of trying to understand her childhood obsession with The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.   Finally, for a starker look at life on a Montana dryland ranch (this one is set in the 1940's), Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker.