An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

Aaliya lives in Beruit.  She knew the city when it was beautiful and when it was destroyed but at 72, she rarely leaves her apartment.  Fluent in multiple languages, she translates great and important novels.  She has done 37 of them - but no one else has ever seen them.  As the reader, we are allowed inside her brilliant, complicated, and humorous mind.  Although she lives alone, she is attuned to the sounds of the city as well as the words of the group of women who live in her apartment building. Often this eavesdropping results in an explosion of commentary and quotations.  It's really a test of the reader's own literary education.  Although a tragedy ultimately reveals and opens her solitary life,  this is really a story of the life of one mind.  Unnecessary? Hmmm?

Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan

Apparently there is a movie about the relationship between CS Lewis and Joy Davidman, the woman who would eventually become his wife.  There is a lot of longing and soul searching along the way.  Both are writers seeking recognition.  Joy has a family which must be undone to begin their life together.  They are interesting people.  Given the times and the role C.S. Lewis played in religious philosophy, there was much to contemplate and sacrifice.  It probably made a good movie.

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

Is this more than an inside view of the life of the members of the New York intelligentsia?   Danielle Minkoff, Marina Thwaite and Julius Clarke, all met at Brown University.  Marina's father, Murray is a social activist, journalist, and opinion maker in the City.  Much to his disappointment, his daughter can't quite get her frivolous novel written.  Her friends are no more successful.  Throw in a few less entitled characters to force some introspection. Whatever - I didn't warm up to any of the characters. Too much whining and shallow sex.  Maybe the plan was to strip away the Emperor's clothes. Nice work. Who cares?

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Dreamers - the thousands of people who make great sacrifices to find a better life in America.  This is the story of one such couple. Jende Jonga and his wife Neni leave Limbe, Cameroon with their young son so they can marry and begin a better life.  They are lucky enough to find good jobs with a wealthy New York City family, Clark and Cindy Edwards.  There is much to think about in the contrasts of these two couples - one willing to do whatever it takes to make their way.  The other living a life of privilege but lacking in meaning.  When the 2008 recession and banking crisis hits,  all their lives will change.  Which family will survive?  Whose dreams will be sacrificed? The author was born in Cameroon but grew up in the United States which no doubt contributes the the authenticity of the story and the probability of the ending.

Lisette's List by Susan Vreeland

Lisette and her husband Andre love their artistic life in Paris in the 1930's.  At first she regrets having to move to a small village in Provence to care for Andre's grandfather, Pascal.  But there is much more to this village and to Pascal.  Once he too lived in Paris and gained a reputation as a framer for the likes of Pisarro and Cezanne and Picasso.  His payment was often one of their paintings which now hang on the walls of his humble home.   As the war approaches the paintings are hidden and Lisette begins a life with Andre at war and Pascal gone.  She discovers great wisdom in the characters in the village and makes a list of vows for her own life.  Eventually she must add to that list "find the paintings."  So many rich stories attached to the paintings.  Such a lovely picture of life in the countryside.  Such a satisfying read.

Illuminations:a novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharratt

I have often found the stories of Hildegard fascinating. They all seemed to center around the idea of this brilliant woman who chose the religious life in order to pursue her intellectual interests.  This is not that story.  This is the mystical Hildegard.  As a young child she is bricked into an anchorage to be the servant for the beautiful, saintly Jutta von Spodheim.  Eventually Hildegard's own visions, poetry, and music place her in the spotlight.  This is the early church at it's most mystical and a very odd life indeed.

My Notorious Life by Kate Manning

Axie Muldoon begins her story as one of the thousands of poor Irish immigrant children sent west on an orphan train.  But the pull to return to her Mam and the plan to reunite her family is too strong so she and the renegade Charlie head back to the slums of NYC.  She is eventually taken in by a "Dr." Evans and his wife, who practices in the "area of female care." What she learns under their tutelage will one day make her Madame DeBeausacq - one of the wealthiest - and most dangerous - women in the city.  She not only becomes adept at delivering babies but also at making sure that there is an alternative to an unwanted pregnancy.  The story spans from the 1860's to the beginning of the 20th century and is loosely based on the life of Ann Trow Lohman who originally earned the title of "most notorious woman in NYC".  Both came under the hammer of the Comstock laws enacted in the late 19th century.  The chance to explore the role of women in this time make this a compelling read.  And the ending is great.

Varina by Charles Frazier

So what do you know about Jefferson Davis other than he was the President of the Confederacy? I am not even sure I ever got past the lists of battles in the Civil War to know what happened to anybody - blue or grey.  And for sure I did not know that Davis had a wife named Varina and that she might have felt the need to escape with her family from Virginia after the war as a criminal.  Frazier brings a wealth of historical research to this book just as he did to Cold Mountain.  Her story is gradually revealed over six days in discussion with a teacher named James Blake who, in 1906, is trying to fill in the hazy memories he has of a childhood when he was known as "Limber Jimmy."  He is convinced that their stories are connected.  Every book of historical fiction is a reminder of how many holes there are in my knowledge of history.  Add this to the list.

Chez Moi by Agnes Desarthe

The title translates literally as "my house" or "home" but the title in the original French is "Eat Me".  Hmmm.  Is this a sensitive book of self revelation or one of whining self indulgence? Myriam has done something she believes to be unforgivable but the customers in her tiny restaurant in Paris are prone to caring and forgiveness even of things they know not of.  The stream of consciousness style will certainly be off putting to many and the characters are few.  A foody would have plenty to think about.  I took it off my shelf simply because it was the shortest book. Not sure how it got there.  Now I wonder, if I knew Myriam would I be one who says, "Who am I to judge?"

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Anna's lives near busy New York City but her only connection with the outside world is through an online chat room for agoraphobics.  She fills her days with her favorite movie genre - film noir - and phone calls to ???.  Oh yes - were Hitchcock alive, he would be making the movie.  Then a family moves in across the street.  They seem friendly - particularly the teenage son.  One day, watching from her window, she sees something terrifying through theirs.  Or does she?  She tries to convince the police of what she saw but things just don't add up.  Reality starts to mix with all those movie plots until it is hard to tell one from the other.  As in all these novels of building psychological terror, it is always fun to discuss just when did you as the reader figure it out.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Really Moriarity is mailing it in with this one.  Nine quirky people at a luxury spa operated by the messianic and sinister Masha.  You might care about the lives and personalities of these people as they are gradually revealed under the most terrifying of conditions - or they might just seem like whiners.  Masha made have had a plan to improve this lot but it doesn't include rest and relaxation.  I kinda thought the whole premise was lame.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

Nora Eldridge is a well liked third grade teacher in a town outside Boston.  She is also angry.  Her dreams of an illustrious art career we’re thwarted by a life of caring for her mom and a choice of the "safe".  She sees herself as the nice almost invisible lady at the end of the hall.  What is her name? That is until the arrival of the Shahid family.  Charming Skandar Shahid is on a fellowship at Harvard and eight year old Reza is in Nora's class which is how Nora meets his mom Sirena - exotic, fiery, and best of all, a fellow artist.  Eventually they decide to share a studio space although their work couldn't be any more different. Nora loves having a artist friend and glows in the warmth of this friendship.  But.  As in many relationships, this one is not viewed equally by the two women and as they move in and out of each other's lives, we learn the source of Nora's anger.  Lots to explore here - thwarted dreams or not.

What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg

This is typical Berg.  Women - their unique emotional glue, the unique lens through which they watch the world, the memories they choose to keep.  Ginny begins her story in an airplane having been called home by her sister to try and reconnect with the mother she has not talked to or seen for 25 years.  When they were young, wild and beautiful Jasmine moved in next door with her teenaged son Wayne.  What starts as a series of friendships, becomes the driving force behind Ginny's sense of abandonment.  As one might suspect early in the story, the perceived reality is not the actual truth.  Berg's books can affect a reader as a worthwhile beach read or a real spark for discussion.  It kind of depends on your own life story.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

This story of a family in WWII Italy is based on real people.  Pino Lella is 17 in 1943 and ready to fight all the wrong minded forces controlling his country.  His family, wanting to save him from certain death, send him into the mountains where he is able to help people escape the Mussolini / Hitler horror.  After an unusual set of events, he finds himself as the driver for one of the important Nazi figures in Italy.  But then it may be that neither of them are who they seem.  At the heart of the story is the unimaginable decisions one must make when trying to survive and make sense of a world gone horribly bizarre.  The real life connections add to the depth of the story.

The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber

In 1922, Margery Williams Bianco became famous for her children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit.  She had an equally gifted daughter, Pamela, who became famous as an artistic child prodigy.  Growing up in Europe in a world filled with literary illuminati, the pressure of her early fame led to depression and strained relationships.  Told in alternating view points from both mother and daughter, it is a fascinating look at both the time and the lives of these two women in a Sylvia Plath-ish kind of way.

Tangerine by Christine Mangan

Think Hitchcock.  Think gothic psychological thriller that happens in 1956.   Alice and Lucy met at Bennington College years before and became inseparable until the mysterious death of Alice's boyfriend.  Alice - always the fragile one - is now married to the slightly obnoxious John whose job has taken them to exotic Tangiers.  Then Lucy appears - uninvited but anxious to renew the friendship.  Then things get really strange - and mysterious.  Getting the drift?  It doesn't take long to figure out who is the most disturbed but even that person is not as disturbing as the ending.

The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? Well maybe others stopped when they were 5 but I am still fascinated by these fantastical creatures.   While attending a meeting where books were being discussed, one of the presenters shared that she had read 200 books in the first 5 months of the year and this was the best. Of course I had to read it.  The subtitle of the book is: A New History of a Lost World.  If Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote about dinosaurs and the people who study them, this would be the book.  Accessible science, surprising history, fascinating details.  Dinosaurs millions of years older than the giants we are familiar with.  Dinosaurs with feathers.  Dinosaurs of many colors.  A pierced, tattooed, rocking out young woman in China who is part of a team making many of these discoveries.  Great stuff.

No Saints in Kanses by Amy Brashear

We picked this up on a lark at the beginning of a road trip to ...Kansas!  It turned out to be just the kind of easy reading to share aloud to each other as we drove.  Sixteen year old Manhattan transplant Carly struggles to find her place in 1969 small town Kansas.  Things turn even uglier when her public defender father is required to represent the two men suspected of murdering the Clutters - a crime made famous in Truman Capote's book, In Cold Blood.  More teen age angst than anything, it was still fun to follow the historical references to Capote, Lee, Kennedy and the tenor of the time.  It was such a good story we actually made a trip to Humbolt - the very, very, very, very, small town where it all happened.  We even had coffee in the Garden City coffee shop in what was once the lobby of the hotel where Capote and Lee stayed while researching for the book. Fun!

We are all Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Rosemary is our narrator.  She begins the story of her unusual family from the middle when she is a student at UC Davis.  She left her academic family in Indiana because she hoped to reconnect with an older brother who many years earlier had abandoned his family for a life as a domestic terrorist opposing the cruel scientific treatment of animals.  But at the center of the story as it unfolds both backward and forward is Fern, Rosemary's "sister".  Certain copies of this book give away the reality of Fern but mine did not and I thought my reading was the better for it so I will not tell you here.  There is much to be said about family in the story, about memory and about what it means to be uniquely human.  It kinda sticks in your mind...can that happen in any other creature?

The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

This WWII survival story centers around 22 year old Emma.  She bakes bread in a small village in Normandy France.  The people are suffering from both from physical brutality and hunger during the German occupation.  She is ordered to bake 12 loaves of bread daily for the Nazi occupiers.  Her acts of resistance begin by adding straw to the flour she is given which allows her to make 14 loaves.  Those two extra secret loaves will not only feed her neighbors but allow her to set up an informal bartering system that allows many of the village needs to be met. Still there is more fear then hope in her daily existence - a sense that no one really cares what happens to the people of France.  There are some beautifully written passages in this story although it often seems to lack the weight of internal struggle found in similar books like The Nightingale .  Still it is well worth the read.

Louisa by Louisa Thomas

The subtitle of this book is "The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams" - that would be John Quincey Adams, third President of the United States.  Her life was indeed extraordinary.  She was British marrying an American from a founding American family.  She lived in Paris and Russia while JQ served in various diplomatic capacities as representative of a country that much of Europe still did not know existed.  She had four live births after multiple pregnancies and only one child out lived her.  She wrote three autobiographies that don't always square with the historical record. There was much to make an exciting story but this book is not that.  There were many interesting historical side trips that were enlightening but seemed impersonal.  I think Thomas missed the boat.  This would have been great historical fiction. Use all that historical research to make Louisa an inside observer to our early, clumsy history. Flesh out the complicated relationship between her and JQ.  She had opinions about the great question of slavery and women's rights so early on.  Historical fiction would have allowed revealing conversations between Louisa and the Grimke sisters or Jefferson or Abigail Adams or even JQ.  Yea - she missed the boat on this one.

The Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith

Sara De Vos is a 17th century artist in Holland.  Both she and her husband belong to the St. Luke's guild of master painters until things go horribly wrong.   In the 1950's, Australian Ellie Shipley  comes to NYC to work on her PhD in art history.  Her speciality is women artists of the Dutch Golden Age but she earns money repairing old paintings for a less than honest antiques dealer.  When she is asked to make a copy of a De Vos painting, she welcomes the challenge to put all she has learned to work.  The copy is perfect except for one minor flaw.  In 2000 in Sidney, Australia, Marty de Groot has come to confront the woman who decades before made a copy of a painting that was  stolen from his wall 50 years ago - a painting that had been in his family for 300 years.  Three lives all connected to one painting.  You may think you now how this story goes but maybe not.  That being said it is really only a bit of a mystery and more a story of discovery.

The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marra

Still in Russia.  Still in Chechnya.  Still crazy good writing.  These  nine stories are connected by characters, a painting and the Siberian landscape.  After the first few pages, I was prepared for another deeply sad, beautifully written deep dive into a dark part of Russian/Ukrainian history.  It took me couple of beats to realize that I was smiling at his sarcastic humor.  This book is funny - dark - but funny. Half way through I created "A Constellation of Vital Characters".  I am really done with his take on Russia but oh so ready to hear more of the voice that writes "We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space." I mean, really.

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Often as I read this novel I thought that this is a story about a family which is like every other family - same sibling rivalry, same disappointed parents, same love-hate connections.  But then this is a Muslin family that emigrated from India that must maneuver the minefield of post 9/11 America.  These are Americanized girls who must choose hijab or no hijab.  Layla, the mother, struggles to preserve the customs of her youth and still celebrate the choice of her eldest daughter Hadia to go away to medical school.  But the central tension is around the youngest child Amar.  From the very beginning, he is the son his sister's dote on but who cannot man up to meet his father's expectations. Just like in Exit West, there is the struggle of every immigrant to preserve their unique identity at the same time they look for a place in their new home.  The tricky part of this book is multiple narrators and the jumpy time line.  Never my favorite.

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

The first sentence in this novel made me think I was in for a fun ride, " In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals".  It never was quite as much fun as I'd hoped.  The parents are theoretically going to Singapore for business.  They are not.  The men are family friends who could be trusted.  They are not.  They are criminals - well one of them is.  Nathaniel tells the story of he and Rachel from his adult perspective, once he learns the truth (?) of his parents.  The "Moth" and the "Pimlico Darter" as the two men are affectionately (?) known are a little dangerous, a lot quirky, and never quite who you think they are.  Is this a spy novel? Just like The English Patient and The Cat's Table, I'm never quite sure what it is I am meant to understand.

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Unsheltered is two stories, two families separated by a century but united by a house.  The post civil war story is based in reality.  Fictional character Thatcher Greenwood has moved with his extended family into a broken down house in Vineland, a real life Utopian community started in New Jersey by Charles Landis.  Greenwood's neighbor is also a real person, Mary Treat, who is a self taught naturalist who often corresponded with the likes of Darwin. Their friendship and a mutual respect for the ideas of evolution strain Greenwood's marriage and his job as a science teacher.  In the contemporary story, Willa Knox and her extended family are living in the same broken down house and slowly climbing down the ladder of success.  Educated and hard working, fate has dealt them more difficulties than they seen able to easily manage.  But it is this family that provides commentary on the current political atmosphere. Trump is never named but the identification couldn't be clearer - quote by quote.  The only positive feeling that one might glean from this novel is that we were able to overcome one miserable era in our history and should be able to do the same with this one.  Or maybe it's a political metaphor - if the house we live in is too broken down, it can leave us feeling unsheltered.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

On April 29, 1986, a fire raged through the main Los Angeles Library.  Million of books were lost and arson was suspected but no one paid much attention because at about the same time Chernobyl and a stock market crash took up all of the media space. Finally Oleans takes a look.  She does explore the life of the suspected arsonist but those anticipating a crime mystery will be disappointed.  This is a total homage to libraries and librarians.  It is also a fascinating look as the library as a social institution from preservers of rare histories to a shelter for the cities poorest residents.  If you love libraries - you will love this book.

The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

I have not seen the movie but about half way through the book, I began to suspect the ending.  Joe and Joan Castleman are on the way to Helsinki where he is to receive an award for his body of writing.  During the flight, Joan processes their relationship - the early passion, the exciting creative years, then the strain of parenthood which isolates them from each other.  Joan is done and knows that divorce is her best answer to this unhappy marriage  but there is more to this story.  There are some great book club discussion generating passages like this, "Everyone knows how women soldier on, how women dream up blueprints, recipes, ideas for a better world, and then sometimes lose them on the way to the crib in the middle of the night, on the way to Stop and Shop, or the bath. They lose them on the way to greasing the path on which their husband and children will ride serenely through life." Now I need to see he movie.

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

The Fifth Risk - after North Korea, Iran, etc - is project management. The Federal Government is complex and the starting point for many things we rely on and may believe are local or even private.  Michael Lewis explores the transition or lack thereof of the Obama administration to the Trump administration.  By law, members of the outgoing administration - all gazillion of them - secretaries and undersecretaries - department heads and those many pay grades below - are required to compose notebooks with all the information needed for the new administration to pick up the ball.  Between the November election and the January inauguration, the new team meets with the old team to ensure a smooth transition.  So what happens when no one shows up?  Lewis deep dives into the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Commerce.  I am not a student of government and much of what I learned surprised me. I would love someone to read this book and convince me - with facts and data, not emotional ranting - that this is not true.  Warning: reading this may make your head explode.

Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

Book number 14 and I still have not tired of the people of Three Pines and want to take the tour - there is a tour.  Gamache is still fighting for all that is right in a world that keeps finding ways to be corrupt and full of evil choices.  I thought Penny might stop writing after the death of her husband who was the inspiration for Armand Gamache. There better be a number 15 because there are a lot of loose ends this time. Start with Still Life although it is not the best.  Go to Three Pines for the mystery. Stay for the characters.

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

I didn't realize until I started reading this (Kellen's Christmas read choice) that it was a "shuvunda" book - a book that was either actually or metaphorically "shoved under "the bed for future reference.  Written in 1939, it was immediately embraced by those who feared that we were headed for another war and spent much of its early years banned.  It is a profound insight into the futility of war as the reader is invited into the mind and imagination of Joe Bolton.  Severely injured in WWI, he cannot move hear, see or speak.  What or who are we if we are just our mind,  our memories, our insights but no way to communicate?  And what if what we have to say, nobody wants to hear.