The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

 In the middle of the 19th century, as the plantations in Virginia begin to wear out the rich tobacco producing soil, Hiram Walker is born - son of the master, Howell Walker, and grandson of Santi Bess, the slave who is said to have walked into the Goose River with 48 other "tasked" and disappeared only to emerge on the shores of Africa.  Hiram is valued for his seemingly eidetic memory but as the story unfolds an even rarer gift is exposed.  Because of his connection to Howell Walker, Hiram walks a fine line between the "tasked" and the "quality" and often lives in both roles.  There is a lot of history including an encounter with "Moses" Tubman and an unusual exploration of the relationship between the black and white culture of this particular time and place. This novel feels a great deal like The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead but with an even stronger African flavor.  The language is beautiful providing a more misty mythology than jarring magical realism feel.  The cruelty and horror of slavery is mostly revealed through the destruction of the "tasked" family unit which was at the core of slave survival. And - the ending - can't wait for that book group conversation. 

The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger

 The proposal of a public school for the gifted in Crystal, Colorado causes turmoil in the lives of four families.  The wives in the four families have been friends ever since their 5th graders were born and like most families of privilege, are prepared to do whatever is necessary to make sure their children get into the school.  The issues of privilege, competition, and parenting are front and center - mostly shown in their worst light.  It could have been about 100 pages shorter but would stimulate great discussion about privilege, education and the choices we make as parents thinking they are "best" for our kids. Bet you never see the ending coming.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Thurston

 This is a collection of short stories by one of the important voices of the Harlem Renaissance.  I struggled with the vernacular in the beginning but it is worth it to fall into the rhythm of the language, the times and the lives she spotlights.  The title of the book references the act of achieving something the hard way and this is at the core of each of the stories.   Thurston died impoverished and these stories were believed to be lost.  Glad they were found.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

 Apparently Donoghue began her novel in 2018 inspired by the 100th anniversary of the 1918 flu epidemic.  She had no idea how prescient her story would be.  

Julie Power, a nurse midwife, celebrates her 30th birthday in the maternity/fever ward of a Dublin hospital.  Over the length of three days readers experience many "Call the Midwife" moments compounded by the effects of the 1918 flu.  Readers will also recognize the delusional, lack of scientific understanding of the cause and how to treat the deadly disease - should be different today but - hmmmm.  Also working on the ward is Bridie Sweeney, the voice of the horrible poverty and religious restrictions of 1918 Ireland, and Dr. Kathleen Lynn, who is based on an actual figure in the Irish Resistance.  The writing lacks poetry but there is lot's of history, so many similarities and one life profoundly changed. 

The House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi

 Zeba finds herself in an Afghan prison accused of the brutal murder of her abusive husband.  Her American trained lawyer, Yusuf, believes that she might be saved with an insanity defense.  Is she insane ? No - but as she says, "Sometimes if you don't lose your mind a little bit, you'll never survive." The world inside the women's prison is not the horror you might imagine but a society of women preferable to the world outside the prison walls. Neither would you suspect that Zeba, who has suffered as a woman under the yoke of Afghan law, would emerge a heroine.  The story is rich with Afghan tradition and fascinating characters.  And although the book has the structure of a murder mystery, it is really political commentary on the culture and the legal system of Afghanistan.  One of my favorite books this year.

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

From 1933 until 1973, the Eugenics Board of North Carolina, sterilized, with or without permission, over 7000 individuals. Maybe many were young girls just like  Ivy.  She lives with her increasingly ill grandmother and beautiful but mentally challenged 16 year old sister who does not know that she was sterilized after she gave birth to her son two years ago.  They live in a ramshackle home provided by the owner of the tobacco farm where they live and work.  They rely on the benefits coordinated by Jane, a brand new social worker.  When Jane learns that Ivy is also scheduled for a secret sterilization, a practice she questions, she sets in motion events that quickly spin out of control.  It is a story of class, race and above all choice.  All sides of the issues come to play providing great fodder for discussion.

City of light by Lauren Belfer

Buffalo, New York - 1901.  Electricity is stilled viewed as scary magic by some and a possible economic boon by others.  The city is preparing for the Pan American Exposition and there is a environmental controversy brewing about the affect of power generating plants on the free flowing waters of Niagara Falls.  The drama in the story centers around Louisa Barrett.  As head mistress of a well regarded private school for girls, a confirmed spinster, and a significant figure in the intellectual life of the city, Louisa has access to some of the most powerful political and business circles in Buffalo.  But Louisa has secrets to keep - some her own and some of the students she teaches.  The book is 689 pages but there are many different layers to this story - life at the beginning of the 20th century - the role of women - the beginning of the electrical age - so it's a big story to consider and worth the read.

First Impressions by Charlie Lovett

The subtitle is A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love and Jane Austen.  I'm not a Jane Austen fan so it was a bit of a slow start but once the mystery, revealed in parallel and alternating chapters, kicked in, I was hooked.  One story begins in 1796 with a young Jane Austen as the central character.  The other is a contemporary story in the English countryside where the young book lover, Sophie Collingwood, is grieving the loss of her favorite uncle and the further loss of the family's extensive library. The object at the center of attention in both is the one and only copy of a little book written by the Rev. Mansfield, close friend of Jane.  The book was once in the Collingwood library.  In the book was  a story that would grow up to be Pride and Prejudice.  Did Jane Austen steal her most famous novel from her elderly friend and is this mystery somehow connected to her uncle's mysterious death? The fact that Lovett moves so easily between the style of the Victorian novel and contemporary writing was one of my favorite parts of this book - one every bibliophile would enjoy.

The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi

Two stories - Afghanistan in the early 1900's and Afghanistan today - both tales of women who must make difficult decisions to survive.  Rahima is the second of five daughters in a contemporary Afghan family.  To make it possible for someone in this family of women to move freely in town, she becomes Rahim - a bacha posh - a girl who will be treated as a male in society. The entire community joins in the deceit.  She is free to go to school, shop in the market, play soccer with the boys - all freedoms she relishes.  But one of her favorite things is listening to her aunt Khala Shaima tell the story of Bibi Shekiba, her great, great grandmother who risked a great deal to survive in the early twentieth century.  As Rahim's father falls prey to the affects of opium and the family descends into poverty, she must become Ramina again so that she and her two sisters can be married off.  She is 15.  Her younger sister is 13.  The results are tragic. It is Shaima's story that provides Rahima the courage to escape a hopelessly restricted life and a brutal marriage.  It makes one ponder the difference between superficial change and fundamental change - certainly in this culture and just a surely in our own.

Camino Island by John Grisham

I am not a Grisham reader but Kirk suggested I might like this because it is a book about the black market buying and selling of rare books.  Five rare F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts disappear from the Princeton University Library.  The thieves and just about everyone else loose track of the books as they pass through various sketchy hands with big money.  The unnamed company hoping to return the books to the library approach a young novelist with serious writers block to help.  Mercer Mann has serious debt and a family connection to the small town on Camino Island.   The company believes Bruce Cable, quirky but successful owner of Bay Books, has the books.  They offer to payoff Mercer's debt in addition to a significant salary if she will use all her "skills" to get close to Bruce and find a way through his security systems to the books.  It was a relatively bloodless romp and a great ending - not the kind of serious thriller I imagine from Grisham.  You kind of wonder if he wasn't reading a good book while vacationing in a place like Camino Island and just got inspired.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

The Imperfectionists reads like a lot of related stories which center on a dying English language newspaper being published in Rome.  The paper was begun in the 1950's by wealthy American, Cyrus Ott for reasons not revealed until the end. By 2004 it is in the hands of his disinterested grandson Oliver.  Each chapter centers around one individual employed by the paper at one time or another.  As the reader, I found myself often wanting to go back to previous stories to see if I was connecting the dots properly.  It is about the world of journalism, the stories journalists tell and secrets they keep - many about their own lives.   I liked The Rise and Fall of Great Powers better.

The Address by Fiona Davis

Another title for NYC lovers.  The address referenced is the Dakota - one of the most identifiable buildings in New York City.  In 1884, young Sara Smythe leaves England to be the new manager of a new apartment building being designed by Theo Camden.  Over the top in every way, he hopes to draw the rich and famous into what is then almost considered countryside.  In 1985, Bailey Camden has just completed a stint in rehab.  When the design company she had worked for refuses to rehire her, she takes a job coordinating the renovation of her cousin Melinda's apartment in the Dakota.  And so the stories weave back and forth.  There is an inheritance at stake and a murder to solve and so much history.  Great escapist stuff while isolating with COVID-19.

The woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

American Virginia Hall was brought up to marry well and behave. Not likely.  A lover of adventure and great with languages, she aspired to a job in the state department in Europe.  An accident while on holiday in Turkey resulted in the loss of her leg below the knee and she soon found her career offers limited to secretarial positions.  But Europe was in the midst of WW11 and she was not going to safely sit at a desk and watch.  Refusing to accept any limitation from her prosthetic leg (who she names Cuthbert ), her language skills lead the British espionage agency to place her in France and eventually as an organizer for the resistance.  At some points this seemed a very journalistic impersonal telling of the events of the war when it was England alone against Nazi Germany.  When she is the center of the story, when it is her amazing story being examined, it reads much better.  Add it to Hidden Figures, The Woman who Smashed Codes and all the other stories now being told of the contributions that women have made and for some reason just never seem to be part of the bigger history we have learned.

Syria's Secret Library by Mike Thomson

The city of Daraya, Syria was bombed endlessly in the years around 2011.  Feared to be a rebel stronghold, residents lived under a government controlled siege until 2014 when anyone who remained in the city was rounded up, forced unto green buses and moved into refugee camps in the northern part of the country.  During those years of destruction and hunger, a group of young people searched the bombed and abandoned buildings for books.  In a secret underground room they created a library.  The "head librarian" was fourteen.
Why?  In various ways, those young people who risked both the gathering and the reading of books were saying, "You can destroy my home. You can starve my body.  But you cannot own my mind.  You cannot limit my thoughts. You cannot keep me from being the most of me I can be."  The war in Syria has been a travesty against humanity.  The evil that makes war happen always is.  But just as certain are the heroic few who push back against that evil - sometimes with powerful protests and sometime with hidden libraries.
Thomson is a journalist for the BBC who covered the war in Syria and personally knew the individuals and the war in this story.  It deserved telling.

The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker

It is the final years of WW11, and Anton, forced to give up his friars frock, retreats to a small village outside of Stuttgart to atone for a past wrong.  He has answered an ad from a widow left with three children who is looking for a man to care for all of them in wartime.  Elizabeth is clear that she is not interested in another husband although they must be married for proprieties sake.  Anton sees caring for this one family as a way to assuage his guilt.  He long ago committed to celibacy so the arrangement works just fine.  But the evil that is Nazi Germany finds its way to their village and Anton and Elizabeth feel compelled to respond in anyway they can.  Anton risks his life as a messenger for the Red Orchestra resistance.  Elizabeth takes a stand against the man in the village assigned to guarantee the village loyalty to Hitler.  As their involvement becomes more and more complicated, I was prepared to hate the probable ending.  But this is a real story - part of the author's family history - so the ending was brave and good and right after all.

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

A recent accident leaves Virgil with a head injury that affects his memory and his speech which makes his story both reflective and the dialog often internal.  He operates a marginally restored movie theater in a small town on the shores of Lake Superior in northern Minnesota.  The town is just as quirky as the rest of the people who inhabit it.  There is mystery, longing, regret and ultimately love to be pondered in the context of this town as it tries to recover from economic collapse.  The writing is frequently beautiful.  As Virgil recovers, we see the town react as only a small town can - in a way that in fact makes it one of the characters.  If you are looking for action, look elsewhere but if you are in the mood to reflect on his life and maybe your own, there are some lovely passages to guide you.

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris

Ellis Reed is a struggling reporter in the Philly area during the Depression.  He takes a picture of two small boys behind a sign that says "children for sale".  Lilly Palmer, a secretary at the same newspaper, discovers the photo and urges Ellis to write an accompanying story.  The photo is ruined and restaged and, in today's terminology,  goes viral.  Ellis is promoted to a position on a New York paper but both he and Lilly are concerned about the truth of the photo, especially when they learn that the children in the staged photo appear to actually have been sold.  And so we follow the consequences of "fake news".  Can these two make it right?  How much can you stretch the truth until it is in fact a lie?
Of course there is always a backstory - for each of them in fact.  Both Ellis and Lilly are likable which makes the their faltering attempts at doing the right thing matter.  The photo was real - this particular story is fiction - but the reality of the decisions made in the face of bone crushing poverty is all too true. 

Writers and Lovers by Lily King

Thirty-one year old Casey Peabody is a mess.  Her years of eduction have left her with a huge debt which could all be erased if she could just finish the great American novel she knows she is just a few pages from finishing - or maybe a few hundred.  All that education has landed her a waitressing job with a lecherous boss at an elite Harvard club which only serves to peck at that debt but leaves her little time for writing.  On top of all that she has just lost her mother which leads to tearful outbursts at the most inconvenient times.
That being said, Casey shares her story with the satire and wit that reveals her intelligence and spirit. And hanging in Cambridge does provide some opportunity to rub elbows with other writers - some more successful, some less, some good friends and some troubling lovers.
This story lacks the heft of her earlier novel Euphoria but it was nice to revisit this time of life and think about how you survived your own 20's and 30's.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

In 1936 Cussy Mary Carter was the Book Woman for Troublesome Creek, Kentucky.  Every week she would ride on her trusty mule into the hills and hidden hollers to bring written material to individuals beaten by poverty and isolated by geography.  The week old newspapers, rebound novels and self-help scrapbooks Cussy constructed by herself were important to the individuals on her route.  It was a dangerous job for many reasons but Cussy was determined to avoid the sad life all around her and provide a precious few moments that weren't about hunger and cruelty and hopelessness.  At the same time, her blue skin caused some in the town to fear her and others to feel free to humiliate and abuse her.
This tragic and heroic fictional story sheds light on two real histories.  One is of the Kentucky Pack Horse Library Service which was one of the WPA programs designed by President Roosevelt.  In this case the hope was  to employ individuals to bring reading to one of the poorest and least educated parts of Appalachia.  The other is of the "blue people" who also lived in this area.  In the 1800's a man from Cussy, France emigrated to the United States and carried with him the genetic code for congenital methemoglobinemia which decreases the oxygen in the blood giving the skin a blue color. He settled deep in the Kentucky hills where the custom of marrying within the family kept the recessive gene more common than it would otherwise.
 Cussy's story is filled with Appalachian tradition and language and far more good luck than may be believable but she was a brave librarian - it had to turn out OK - really.

The History of Great Things by Elizabeth Crane

This is a conversation (?) between Betsy Crane and her mother Lois.  Betsy appears to be writing a biography of her mother based on Lois's successful career as an opera star.  They seem to be looking in the same mirror but seeing different reflections.  Is Betsy looking for the truth or the best version of her mother?  Does Lois agree on what the best version or the truth is?  Sometimes witty, sometimes brutally honest, sometimes melancholy, they discuss both personal memories and events around those memories.  Not sure if this was just a very strange way to write a memoir or something completely other.

Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams

This is apparently one in a series of books about the Schuyler sisters (not the Hamilton ones).  I am guessing they are all of the light beach read variety but this one has a WWll connection which, I imagine, is why it landed in my reading stack.  Pepper Schuyler is a socialite member of the 1966 Washington D.C. political scene who finds herself pregnant and unwilling to identify the father and therefore out of a job.  To raise money she decides to sell an old Mercedes that has been stored in a family shed.  The buyer is an intriguing woman named Annabelle.  It turns out that this car once belonged to Annabelle and it is her story that makes the novel interesting.  In the 1930's Annabelle was living in France in love with the charming Stefan.  Then he disappeared in the Nazi sweep of European Jews.  Hoping to save Stefan and others, Annabelle married the German General von Kleist.  At different points each of the characters must make a moral choice.  Something or someone will be saved and as a result something or someone will be lost.  Not a Pulitzer contender but a satisfying read anyway.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan

Lydia Smith loves her job at the Bright Ideas Bookstore in Denver.  She even enjoys the irregular regulars she calls BookFrogs that find a welcoming place to huddle in the reading nooks and crannies of the store.  She is particularly fond of the young lost soul Joey who seems to follow her around throughout her day and is often the last person to leave.  It is quite a shock then when they find Joey hanging from the rafter of the top floor of Bright Ideas and even more surprising when she learns that Joey has left the few things he owns to her.  Her discovery of what appear to be secret messages hidden in carefully altered books leads to one mystery but Lydia has a dark history of her own.  The reconnection with Raj, a childhood friend, and her estranged father add to her particular mystery at the center of which is the Hammerman.  Although I was drawn to this book by its title, there is little that is "bright" about it - more a dark tale of what some of us must do to survive,

The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis

In 1928, Clara Darden teaches illustration at the Grand Central School of Art located in the upper floors of opulent Grand Central Station. She aspires to serious art but she is a woman and therefore not taken seriously.  Eventually her illustrations earn her significant wealth but still not the acceptance into the art world she seeks.  Enter Levon Zakarian, fellow staff member and renown artist who recognizes her talent but provides road blocks nontheless. But this is just the back story.
In 1974, Virginia Clay finds that her divorce from her wealthy husband has changed her social position drastically.  She is forced to take a position in the information booth at the greatly diminished Grand Central Station.  As she wonders through the building she spies a painting shoved behind a cabinet. It is signed "Clyde" but it is in the style of Zakarian.  She also notices that the signature "Clyde" bears a striking resemblance to Darden's signature.  And so the mystery unfolds between the lives of these two women.  The other important character in the story is the Grand Central Terminal.  Years ago I took the official tour and the building stands testament to a fascinating history.  Much of that plays out in this story and we all know what happens in 1974. Or maybe you don't.

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell

 Agnes Shanklin was the homely one in the family.  Destined to be single, she was expected to learn a living and take care of her aging parents.  All that changed with WWl and the Great Influenza of 1919.  At the age of 40 she finds herself the sole survivor of her family and the heir to a comfortable amount of money.  Ready for a change, she thinks about the adventure her younger sister had as a missionary in the Middle East.  She plans a Cooks tour and heads for Egypt.  Arriving during the Cairo Peace Conference of 1921,  she encounters Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill who are all embroiled in the carving up of the Middle East.  That part is fascinating history.
Agnes meets the charming German Karl who offers to show her the real Cairo and, although she suspects he is hoping to gain information about her British connections, she falls in love. 
There is a lot more tour guide to the story than I would have liked but the history and the role each historical character plays makes for thoughtful reading and great insight into the situation today.

The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone

In 1916, Elizebeth Smith is hired by the eccentric George Fabyan to prove that Francis Bacon was responsible for the work assigned to William Shakespeare.  At Fabyan's Riverbank compound she meets William Freidman.  While she searches through the absurd clues to the Bacon/Shakespeare conundrum, she reveals herself to be a talented puzzle solver much like William.  Otherwise an unlikely pair, they fall in love and for the next 50 years, become the most significant code breakers in America.  WWll, the Enigma, the Cold War, the beginnings of the NSA, Hoover - name the event or the individual connected with espionage from WWl to the 1960's and they were somehow connected.  The auditorium at Fort Meade was named after William but Elizebeth's contribution has been largely ignored.  This well researched book corrects that situation.  Intriguing history and a worthy subject but I wish it was clearer how they did it. Still classified?

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

This Pulitzer Prize winner is really many small stories - most of lives of quiet desperation - all in the small Maine town where Olive taught math - all a part of her life or the butterfly wings that create the storms that blow us where we go. Many feel like folks you know or folks you are. Folks with secrets or small disappointments or struggling with the fear that their lives are hopelessly off track. Not a lot of sunshine here but there is the sense that the desire to survive can overcome most of the bumps in the road.

A House Among the Trees by Julia Glass

One often thinks of the authors of books for children as the gentle characters that appear in their books.  This is children's literature as a political event.  Author Mort Lear dies and much to everyones surprise leaves his considerable estate to his assistant Tomasina Daulair known as Tommy.  It turns out that there is a history between Lear and Tommy that has nothing to do with personal connections but much to do with the reason for Lear's success.  There is no wife or children to inherit but there are many people in the literary world who were hoping to benefit from his "generosity".  While attempting to sort it all out, the grown-ups are often caught acting as naughty children all of which makes for an odd book from this National Book Award Winner.

Magic hour by Kristin Hannah

When preeminent child psychologist, Dr. Julia Cates finds herself at the wrong end of a scandal, she retreats to her small town family home in the Olympic Rain Forest where her younger sister Ellie is the chief of police.  Not much happens in the sleepy town of Rain Valley until a young girl wanders out of the dense rain forest clinging to a snarling wolf pup.  She cannot speak and there is nothing about her appearance that provides a clue to her origin.  Having arrived hoping to escape notoriety, Cates is instead throw right back into it as news travels of this "wild child."  Determined to find a way into the hidden world of the girl she calls Alice, she eventually accepts the help of  the very private Dr. Max Cerrasin.  But Julia herself has a complicated history with the town and her sister that affects her ability to gain back her reputation and her own self confidence.  The ending seemed a little too wrapped up but a good read nonetheless.

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly

At the close of the 19th century,  Eliza Ferriday, a member of a wealthy, philanthropic New York family became a good friend of Sofya Streshnayva, cousin of the Russian czar when both families spent "the season" in Paris.  In 1914, Europe appears to be on the brink of war so these good friends retreat to their individual countries early.  The "War to end all Wars" and the Russian Revolution throw both families into turmoil.  Their stories continue through 1919 when both women find their way back to Paris: Eliza in search of Sofya and other white Russians escaping persecution and Sofya trying to locate her lost son.  Watching all of this is Eliza's daughter Caroline whose story of following the family tradition is shared in Lilac Girls.  Both novels reveal what can happen when strong, determined women are faced with the challenges of a troubled world.  As in Lilac Girls, the main characters are based on real people whose real stories are hard to believe are not fiction.

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

The year is 1830 and 11 year old George Washington Black is a slave on a sugar plantation in Barbados owned by the Wilde family of England.  Christopher Wilde arrives with the hopes of testing his "cloud-cutter" flying machine and invites "Wash" to be his assistant when he discovers the young boy's incredible drawing skills.  "Tilch" is the first white person who has ever treated Wash as a human being and a fierce loyalty is cemented between the two.  Because of an unfortunate series of events, the two are forced to take off in the hot air balloon in the midst of a storm.   Then the adventures begin -for the next decade - from America to the frozen Arctic to Nova Scotia to Europe.  At first they are together but eventually Wash must make his own way - never letting go of the memory of the friendship that provided his life path. 
Slavery and science - sometimes hard to believe but a well written imagining.

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl

From 1999 to 2009, Reichl was the editor of Gourmet magazine.  This "plum" of a job was something she never imagined to be in her reach.  This latest memoir is a close-up look at an iconic piece of foody history as she makes bold changes and then watches the internet make the magazine superfluous.  Name dropping abounds but Reichl is the same funny, practical person readers met in her earlier memoirs.  Plus - there are great recipes.

There There by Tommy Orange

Gertrude Stein wrote that when she returned home to Oakland, California where she had spent her childhood, "There was no there there."   Using multiple orators, Orange reveals that this is also the plight of the urban Native American.  As this host of characters prepares for a powwow in Oakland, we look back on all the challenges they have experienced.  Some are generic - the poverty, family disagreement.  But others provide insight into the unique sense of isolation experienced by the urban Native American.  Interspersed are narrative essays by the author which were some of my favorite parts.  It is beautifully written but hard to wrap your head around. Particularly the ending.