The Girl who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes

One grand home on Orcas Island; one beautifully embroidered silk sleeve hidden under a stair; two stories told a century apart fated to come together in the end.  The first story is Mei Lein's.  In 1886, the Chinese Exclusion Act forces Mei Lein and her family to board a freighter with the rest of the Chinese population of Seattle. They believe they are being taken back to China.  When she accidentally learns that they are all to be killed, her father pushes her overboard and tells her to swim to nearby Orcas Island.  The second story belongs to Inara Erickson, great great great granddaughter of shipping magnate Duncan Campbell (See where this is going?).  The family estate on Orcas Island has been left to her by a maiden aunt.  Her family expects her to sell but she is determined to renovate and make it a destination hotel.  When she finds the mysterious sleeve under a staircase, she begins to do research into how it came to be there.  And so the two stories stories eventually weave into one.
The author considers herself a writer of romance so there is a bit of that contrived chick lit feel.  On the other hand, I find that historical fiction is the impetus to research all that regrettable history left out of our history books.

And every morning the way home gets longer and longer by Frerick Backman

Grandpa's grasp on his memories grows dimmer and dimmer.  He fears the day he will not recognize the people he loves.  And so he talks to his grandson Noah - about his life, about Grandma, and often about Ted, his son and Noah's father.  This is more the last moments of memory than the first moments of the disappearing.  Grandpa is much more at ease with Noah than he ever seemed to be with Ted but it is clear that even the uncomfortable memories are ones of caring for one another.  A novella which is touching without being sappy.

Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig

Until he was eleven, Donal Cameron lived an idyllic life.  Free to roam much of the Double W ranch where the grandmother who raised him was the cook, he loved all aspects of ranch life.  But in 1951 Grandma had to spend some time in the hospital.  He was sent on "the dog" (aka Greyhound Bus) to stay with Grandma's sister Kate in Wisconsin.  That is adventure #1. Donal just cannot abide her tyrannical nature and soon there are so many conflicts that he is sent packing.  Traveling with him is Herman the German, Kate's husband (sort of), who has also had enough of Kate's nasty temper.  So it is back on "the dog" and off to adventures #2,3... - some planned - some not.   Doig draws inspiration from a bus trip he took as a child to write what would turn out to be his final tribute to his beloved Montana and the quirky characters that peopled his imagination as much as they did his past.  Folksy, hopeful, - typical Doig.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Pulitzer and National Book Award Winner - and probably many more.  It is both historical fiction about America at it's worst and a little bit of magical realism that allows Whitehead to play loose with time and metaphor.  Both disturbing and hopeful.  As a child, Cora lives in a antebellum cotton plantation in Georgia.  Abandoned by a mother who fled north, scorned by many of her fellow slaves and selected for frequent abuse by a sadistic "master", she escapes at the age of fifteen.  The underground railroad that carries her north is an actual system of tracks and engines and stations deep underground.  At each stop in her journey, she becomes a leading character in the long history of cruelty.  Lynchings, eugenics, slaughter of whole black communities, occasions of freedom that quickly turn dark - they are all there.  Cora draws strength from her anger at the people who have abandoned and abused her.  She knows she is meant to be free.  There are many thought provoking passages about the notion of prejudice and "manifest destiny" as well as insights into the slave experience. It is a hard history to acknowledge made even sadder by the fact that it sometimes feels more current than historical.

My Mrs. Brown by William Norwich

Sixty-six year old Emilia Brown knows that she will never be like the grand dame of Ashville,  R.I., Mrs. Groton.  When Mrs. Groton dies, Emilia is first to sign up to help catalog items for the estate sale.  When she comes across a simple, elegant, "little black dress", she becomes obsessed with the idea of owning one just like it - just one beautiful dress in her plain, ordinary, cotton dress life.  Not everyone thinks of Mrs. Brown as ordinary.  She has always been the neighbor and friend Alice could count on.  She was just the sense of comfort famous model Florida James needed when she took a break to study at the local college.  Even Rachel Ames, Mrs. Groton's personal assistant knows there is something special about her.  Mrs. Brown heads to NYC after saving the money for the dress but things do not go as planned.  This is a sweet, old-fashioned story with characters you wished lived next door.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

I did see the movie first - twice - and loved it.  And while this book corrects some of the details that were changed in the movie, the sense of the history these events represent is the same.  The journalistic style of the book makes it a little dense for an easy read.  It does not read like a Hollywood script.  However while watching the movie, I often asked myself, "Is this true?"  This book answers all those question.  So glad this story was told.

a piece of the world by Christina Baker Kline

Almost everyone is familiar with the painting Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth.  A young woman lying in the grass (Is she able to walk?) gazing at an old house in the distance (Is it hers?).  The painting was intended to create thoughts and questions in our minds but there was a real Christina.  A young woman who struggled with physical challenges and life choices.  Wyeth knew her.  She was the inspiration for the painting.  Kline has added fiction to fact to create what that experience might have meant to both of them.  This fictional memoir may not answer all the questions raised by this enigmatic painting but it may change the way you see the woman in it. 

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Jiles is known as a poet and a memoirist and draws on both talents to tell this story of an unlikely friendship in Texas in 1870. Captain Kidd earned his rank in the Civil War but at the age of 70 he earns his living reading the news to small towns around Texas.  When he is asked to return a ten year old girl, Johanna, who was captured by the Kiowa four years earlier, he isn't sure he is up to the long journey from Wichita Falls to San Antonio.  Although there are many adventures along the way, the bigger story is Kidd's understanding of Johanna and the many children like her.  Conventional wisdom then said that captives like Johanna were brutally treated by "savages" but Kidd sees something very different.  Johanna is a clever, free spirit and as they begin to form a bond, Kidd begins to think that returning her to her rigid aunt and uncle might not be what is best.  Jiles did a lot of research on both the times and the real truth of captive children.  The story rings so true and the idea of a time when the news would only be shared by a rich voice bringing news from places the listeners could only imagine sounds so much better then the information overload of today.

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

The subtitle of this book is "A Friendship that Changed our Minds.  The Friendship is between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky - two brilliant research psychologist who explored the fact that the human mind is prone to irrationality.  It turns out there are many ways that true logic fails us.  They called all the ways that assumptions we make lead us astray "heuristics".  These are things like the "halo affect" - we generalize one good quality of a person to include all aspects of that person - even qualities that aren't there.  Or "representativeness" where we see a cohesive story where there is really randomness.  Sometimes we can avoid this wrong mindedness and sometimes we can't.  This knowledge had application in government, sports, the military and eventually economics.  There were times when these two men thought as one but as Tversky's personality brought him greater recognition it caused a strain in their friendship.  In 1996, Tversky died of cancer so he was unable to share the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics which Kahneman received for the body of work they had done together.  This is a math and psychology nerds delight but anyone would benefit from seeing how often we are tricked and want to explore what we can do to undo our wrong thinking.  Good luck with that.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

It's a mystery. Lo is sent on assignment to cover a new kind of luxury cruise ship for a travel magazine.  She has just had her apartment robbed.  She is a bit paranoid, and a lot dramatic.  She thinks the whole luxury ship thing might be just a bit off.  It gets even worse when she believes a woman that no one else on the ship seems to believe exists falls overboard.  It's a mystery

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

Lillian Boxfish is in her eighties.  Born in the beginning of the 20th century, she is ready to ring in the new year in 1985.  She is alone but she loves to walk and she loves the city.  Snug in her fur coat, she leaves her Murray Hill apartment for the short walk to her favorite NYC restaurant.  Offended to learn that the elderly owner is leaving the business, she picks up her coat and walks.  As she strolls through Midtown Manhattan and the East and West Villages, the reader is introduced to various characters that share "her city".  Each person and place she encounters reminds her of the various phases of her life - a marriage that ended - a son who now lives in Maine - but most of all the amazing career she had as a member of the advertising staff at Macy's.  It turns out that this story is based on a real person but it is as much a celebration of the city as it is a recognition of an independent, accomplished life.