The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton

 Five women meet in a park in Palo Alto to watch their children play.  All are educated but are in Palo Alto because of their high achieving husbands.  They talk - about many things and some things they keep secret.  Eventually they talk about books and, through books, more about themselves. Their Wednesday meetings take on necessary importance.  And when they realize how unsatisfying some of their reading is, they talk about writing.  With writing is more sharing and more acknowledgement of their own possible achievements.  And so it goes.  Chicklit perhaps but I bet it would initiate plenty of book group conversation.

Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner

 Our book group chose this because of the local connection but it has turned out to be a hit across the country.  Michelle grew up in Eugene the daughter of a white father and a Korean mother.  She did not make life easy for her parents and struggled with her mixed heritage.  Following her mother's death, Michelle wrote this memoir to explore that difficult relationship and to honor her Korean connection.  Now a recognized indie musician in a band called Japanese Breakfast, she is not afraid to expose all her flaws.  In the end her story is an example of the way we can break through our past mistakes, start over, and embrace all that we are. 

Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen

I think my book group chose this book of short stories to gain some insight into contemporary China.  Well, I'm not sure what I am taking away from these 10 stories.  They certainly don't play to stereotype.  Most don't even really end.  Some hint at magical realism and some just left me with a dissatisfied sense of understanding.  Chen is a journalist and it does seem like she went looking for a story, reported what she saw and then just decided, "there. done."  I guess maybe she is saying, "We are a large, diverse country and not what the west expects."  If pulling back the curtain was her intent, I am still not sure what it is I am meant to see. 

The Last Bookshop in London by Madelin Martin

 In 1939, young Grace Bennett and her best friend Viv want nothing more than to leave the quiet streets of Norfolk for the excitement of London.  Both dream of working at Harrod's but without recommendations from a previous employer, that can't happen.  Viv is not above a little white lie and fakes a letter which lands her a coveted job on Harrod's shopping floor.  Grace, instead, must rely on the generosity of her mother's friend and temporarily work as an assistant to the curmudgeonly Mr. Evans,` owner of Primrose Hill Books.  Tucked away on a side street, far away from stylish Paternoster Row where multiple bookstores looked out on each other, the shop is dusty and disorganized. With little interest in reading, Grace hopes she can survive her 6 months of employment with enough skill that she will earn her a good  recommendation and be off to join Viv.  But the war and the blitz and Grace's own journey to self discovery change all that. A warm fuzzy tribute to the power of reading and small book stores everywhere.

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

 In 1862 Marie Blackbird sewed seeds into the hem of her skirt. Whatever might happen with the approaching soldiers, she knew she would need to grow the food to sustain her family. In 2002, Rosalie Iron Wing struggles to find her way back to her Dakhota roots.  The emptiness she carries is the result of choices she has made to survive, choices that separated her both from her past and possibility of the future she hoped to share with her son.  In between the lives of the two women is a family story of stolen lands, kidnapped children, and brutal educational practices. As much as this is the history of a Native American family, it is also a warning about the loss of the native farming tradition, of forgetting to cherish the earth that sustains us and the mistakes we make when faced with the promise of wealth.

The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict

 Mileva Mirec was born with a hip defect that made her limp.  Convinced that this made her unattractive and unsuitable for marriage, she threw herself into the study of the mathematics and physics she loved.  Luckily her father supported her studies.  Even luckier she met a young brilliant physicist who seemed to find her mind attractive enough to propose marriage.  His name was Albert Einstein.  Unfortunately Mileva was expected to step back from her studies to raise their children.  However she never stopped grappling with the tricky questions that Albert shared.  As their marriage unravels,  a trip on a train causes her to provide a specific perspective on one of those problems.  Mileva disappears into obscurity.  Albert develops his Theory of Relativity but whose idea was it really?

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

 So here's a bit of history I didn't know.  During the Revolutionary War, the British promised freedom to any slave who would help them defeat the colonists.  Unfortunately the British lost but before there was any kind of USA and before the Red Coats headed back to England, they tried to make good on their promise.  They collected the names of any Negro who could show that they had helped and put those identified on ships to Nova Scotia with promises of free land. This record became the real "Book of Negroes."  Pages of this book can be found in museums in Canada, England and our National Archives Public Records Office.  The promise of free land was not so real.  

This is the story of Aminata Diallo who could` have been one of the names in that book.  But her story starts much earlier.  As an 11 year old girl, in 1745, she is taken from her village and marched to the West Coast of Africa where she joined hundreds of others on a ship bound for the Americas. Her mother had trained her to deliver babies and her father had taught her to read some of the Koran but neither parent survived to make the horrible journey across the Atlantic.  For various reasons, Aminata has some freedom to move about the ship and, as she does, those who are chained together call out their names to her.  As she moves back and forth, she calls them back proving that she will remember.  It is a belief in many of the West African cultures that you die twice.  Once when your body dies and again when your name is no longer spoken. This struggle to remember is one of my favorite parts of the book.

Hill wisely starts the book with Aminata's adult story so you know she not only survives but has obtained a position of some importance.  Knowing this made the heart braking story of her life possible to read.  This is one of the best personal slave stories I have ever read.  I hope that the strong and brilliant ways she manages to make her way to freedom were just as possible as the horrible side of slavery was true.  And that we will remember.

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

 When slavery ended many people went in search of family members that were sold off long ago.  Ads were placed in the Southwestern Christian Advocate giving names, dates and places related to those who were lost.  These real ads from this real paper were read aloud in black churches at the time hoping to reconnect these families.  It is these ads that form the basis of this story.  

In 1885, Hannie, a freed slave, gets into a whole mess of trouble with two young women connected to her former master's household.  Hannie is in search of anyone who is possession of three blue beads similar to the ones she wears around her neck. She also hopes to help Lavinia and Juneau Jane find the truth of their inheritance.  In 1985, Benny Silva finds herself teaching in rural Louisiana searching for anything that will excite and engage her mostly poor students. So much history to discover as the stories work their way toward each other.  So much culture to explore.  Not sure how real the ending is but it is definitely sigh worthy.

The Lost Book of the Grail by Charlie Lovett

Arthurian legend; British history; questions of faith; contemporary mystery; even a love story - what's not to like?  In 2016, Professor Arthur Prescott is happiest in the library of Barchester Cathedral among medieval texts and his own Penguin copies of P.G. Wodehouse.  But our story really starts in A.D. 560 in the ruins of St. Ewolda Monastery.  Barchester and Ewolda are figments of Lovett's imagination but the story hangs on many real people and events in British and literary history.  Pure escapist fun for anyone who believes in the magic of books and libraries ... and maybe the grail.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

 In 1905 J. Pierpont Morgan was one of the wealthiest men in the world.  He was also passionate about collecting art and rare books.  He had already completed the grand structure necessary to hold the collection. He just needed the right person to be his personal librarian.  Meanwhile his nephew Junius Morgan, an honorary staff member of the Princeton University library,  had taken notice of a young librarian, Belle de Costa Greene and arranged for her interview at the Morgan Library. The rest is history.  With the brilliant Belle at the helm, the Morgan Library went on become the repository of an amazing art and rare book collection.  But Belle's success came at great personal cost for she must keep secret the truth of who she really is.  Belle's story and the history surrounding her life are both disturbing and fascinating.  I especially respect Benedict's choice to include Murray in the writing to make it all the more authentic. One of my favorites this year.

The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

In 1592, a group of literary types including Christopher Marlowe and bookseller Bartholomew Harbottle gather at an alehouse discussing, among other things, the unlikely success of an upstart named Will Shakespeare.  In 1983, Peter Byerly finds himself working in the special collections room of Ridgefield University Library.  At his first touch of a first edition quarto printing of Hamlet, he is hooked.  He will find passion for two things there; the lovely Amanda and the world of old books.In 1995, Peter, now a successful book collector is living in the Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye in a cottage he had hoped to share with Amanda.  He is invited into the library of a local land owner to assess some items in that collection and what he finds sends him on a journey across the centuries.

In alternating chapters, murder is committed, forgeries are discovered,  and family feuds are revealed - all in the name of rare books.  This well researched work of fiction will leave the avid bibliophile either questioning or convinced of the existence of a great writer named Shakespeare.  Even if the thought of discovering the "Holy Grail" of antiquarian book collecting isn't on your bucket list, the fast paced mystery will be entertaining enough.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates

 Subtitle: the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need.  At some point way too late in the game, this very bright man realized a climate connection to all his efforts on world health and education and began doing the reading and research.  Kudos to the simple clear presentation of all that.  His solution to the problem - more R&D to find a way to remove the carbon we must continue to release if society is to continue to progress.  He does acknowledge that his lifestyle creates a large carbon footprint which he then hopes to balance with large offset donations to these projects.  Offsets always feels like the logic of indulgences in the early church - not really a solution.  I wish it were more hopeful.  

Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict

Two young women named Clara Kelley left Ireland in 1862 for America. They never met but both were headed to Pittsburgh. One planned to stay with relatives until she could find a job and send money home to her desperately poor family.  The other already had a job offer as a ladies maid to the mother of Andrew Carnegie. One Clara died aboard the ship and the other assumed the job at the Carnegie household in her place.  Clara had no experience with this kind of wealth but her father had made sure she was well read which gave her enough imagined experience to step into this role.  It was her cleverness, independence and great curiosity that made her so attractive to the young Andrew.  As their friendship grew they learned much from each other which sent both down paths they has not anticipated.  Clara was not a real person but Benedict imagines the kind of interactions that would have caused one of the most ruthless giants of the gilded age, the real Andrew Carnegie, to give away his fortune mostly to promote education.  Maybe, maybe not. Either way it is a new lens for that time.
 

The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain

 This story of three good friends begins with a suicide. There seems to be no real reason why Noelle, a respected midwife, would take her own life.  The other two friends, Tara and Emerson, are determined to figure out why.  Their only clue, an unfinished note to someone named Anna saying, "...I'm so sorry..."  What did Noelle intend to confess?  What secret was she keeping?  The closer they get to the truth they must consider, "What would you do for a friend?"  An engaging read - something you might want to talk about after reading it at the beach.

Circe by Madeline Miller

Mythology as you never read it before. I knew nothing about Greek mythology so in the beginning I struggled trying to keep all the names straight. I even made a chart.  I eventually just fell into the questions of mortality, power, and belief.  What a fascinating story! Had an opportunity to attend a zoom presentation by the author - brilliant, funny, intense, convinced that the stories are still relevant. I agree.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell.

 This is a story of how a great loss resounds through literary history.  Hamnet was Shakespeare's son.  The father son relationship was frayed.  11 year old Hamnet was left to be the "man of the family" back home while Shakespeare lived the life of an honored playwright in London.  The relationship between Shakespeare and Anne/Agnes alternates between great love,  admiration for her strength and independence, and abandonment.  It was the time of the plague, of constant struggle and great tragedy.  If we are to accept O'Farrell's history, the tragedy of Hamlet was a way for Shakespeare to honor that son and acknowledge the debt he owed his wife.  I struggled with the omniscient narrator at first but once Anne took over as the primary voice, I was thoroughly caught up in the story.  Guess we will never tire of the Shakespeare mystery.

The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies

This is really four separate stories all related to the Chinese-American experience. The first is told against the background of the gold rush and the building of the transcontinental railroad.  Ah Ling leaves his impoverished life in China for the "Gold Mountain"and becomes a servant to a wealthy man. The second story follows the career of Anna Mae Wong, a movie star who, although a great beauty, struggled to overcome racial barriers to her career.  The racially motivated  beating of Vincent Chin is the core of the third story. This story happened in our life time.  Did we notice?   Finally a young couple goes to China to adopt a baby girl and struggle with what it means to be hyphenated.  All explore the Chinese-American experience in various decades.  All are based are real stories.  There are positive moments but mostly the stories raise many questions about identity and the roots of prejudice.

One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker

 If you love early pioneer stories, this is for you.  Two families must face a brutal winter in 1876 Wyoming.  Two women left alone to survive through a tragic event that makes them enemies when they desperately need to be friends.  Cora is a gentlewoman from the east who relied on the skills of her husband Earnest to make life bearable on their farm but he is in prison for murder.  Stoic Nettie Mae had worked the fields along side her unloving husband, but he was Earnest's victim.  It is Cora's daughter Beulah and Nettie Mae's son Clyde who will find a way through the families' dark histories into an understanding of the land and their own strengths.

A Soldier if the Great War by Mark Helprin

 Septuagenarian Alessandro Giuliani is on a journey to visit his granddaughter. He begins by bus but continues on foot when a young man is denied entry on the bus and the two decide to walk together.  Walking is good because he has a long story to tell to his young companion. One that begins with a patrician Roman family and follows through the twists and turns of WWl.  Lyrical, philosophical, wise, and 804 pages long it requires time to read and to ponder.  War - great or a fool's errand?  Allessandro introduces us to people and events both heroic and bizarre so you have plenty of opportunity to change your mind. Settle in and be transported.

A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

 Violet Speedwell is a "surplus woman", one of many women with no special attributes to make them marriageable to the few men left after the devastation to the English male population in WWl.  Resentful at being dependent on her dysfunctional family, she escapes to the town of Winchester to be a typist.  It is a job she enjoys but does not find fulfilling. Then she learns of the Winchester Cathedral Broderers - a group of volunteer women who create the elaborately embroidered cushions and kneelers for the cathedral.   Here she finds other women who challenge the conventions of the time and stitch by stitch, she alters the fabric and the story of her life. Chevalier does a great job of putting you in the time and place of Violet's story so you can feel genuinely happy for her at the end.

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

 I can't remember the last time I picked up what I thought would be a good historical fiction beach read and found myself at the end so wanting to discuss the book.  The Milton banking family - NY blue bloods, Mayflower WASPs, makers and power brokers of the world - once upon a time.  In that perfect time, they sail past a grand white house on an island off the coast of Maine and buy it - the whole island - as a summer escape, a statement of just who they are.  In 1936, Ogden, the Milton patriarch, travels to Berlin in the midst of the Olympics to renew a long term contract with a business friend.  Milton money will provide the means to make Walser steel products - hairpins and the like - except that the men standing next to the two of them in a picture as they sign the deal are ready to unleash a holy horror on the world and Walser is Jewish.  Two more generations add layers to the story ( back and forth of course ), a family history of seeing and understanding their role and responsibility through the magic mirror of denial.   But this is not a WWll story.  Many issues historical and contemporary are raised.  This story asks questions to all of us.  Can things both change and stay the same?  Are words of kindness and acceptance real if nothing changes?  What sacrifices are required? If change is necessary, can you preserve the good connected to an act of evil?  Are they one and the same? This has book group written all over it!

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

 Odile has landed the job of her dreams in the America Library in Paris in 1939. Literary references and Dewey Decimal numbers roll off her tongue with ease as she rushes to help the cast of characters that inhabit its hallowed grounds. But the war is coming and everything is about to change. 

In 1983, in Froid, Montana, eleven year old Lily lives next door to a very changed Odile. War is not the only thing that can drastically alter a life and many challenges confront Odile and Lily as the stories unfold, back and forth, over the next few years.  Right - wrong.  Good - bad.  Love - hate.  What can and cannot be forgiven.  All are part of the story. 

You have to wonder why after we fought the first war thousands of years ago, we didn't just come to the conclusion that that particular way of solving a problem made no sense at all.  How our big brains didn't just come up with a better plan?  The fact that so much of this story is based on real people and events allows it to move a good distance away from its "Hallmark" tendencies into a "Masterpiece" possibility. Not to mention that number of literary quotes you will want to underline or books you realize you still need to read.

A Woman in Jerusalem by A.B. Yehoshua

 In this unusual story, a woman in Jerusalem has died alone, her body unclaimed.  The only clue to her identity, is a pay slip from the bakery where she once worked.  She is eventually identified as Yulia Ragayev (the only person ever actually named in the story) who emigrated not long ago with a long lost boyfriend.  The human resources manager from the bakery is charged with figuring out what to do with the body.  He is a middle aged man with a failing marriage and little joy in his life.  This mundane task becomes an epic journey as he tilts at bureaucratic windmills in an effort to take Yulia back to her home in a dismal frozen part of Soviet Russia.  He meets many characters along the way, none are named but each represent a life experience to be reckoned with.  It is a short book (237 pages) that reads almost like a long parable for what life requires of us to do our best, to maintain our humanity, to define who we are.  

Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera

Annie is the matriarch of the powerful Cole family of Branchville, South Carolina in 1924. The suicide of her young son has shattered the family and caused a long estrangement with her two grown daughters.  

Gertie, poor and abused by her drunken husband, is desperate to make sure her four daughters won't suffer the same sad life.  Working for Miss Annie's Sewing Circle could be her way out.  

Retta is a first generation freed slave employed by Miss Annie.  Her life is complicated when she challenges the skepticism of the residents of the black community of Shake Rag by taking in Gertie and her children.  

Desperate times call for desperate measures for all of them but there is a dark secret they share that brings the lives of these three women to a dramatic climax.  I am always fascinated by southern stories where race/class is so well defined and yet the lives of both races is so entwined. And it is particularly true of these women.

  

Salvador by Joan Didion

 If you were a grown-up in the 70's, you remember the Civil War in El Salvador - a bunch of bad minded military driven groups with initials that it was difficult to keep straight.  And then there was the USA with their noses  and weapons where they probably shouldn't have been.  Didion is the master at putting a clarifying lens to significant events and issues in history.  War is always about greed and power with the greatest loss coming to the people who never have anything to gain by the war in the first place.   The war ended in 1992 and this was written in 1994.  Enough time to provide perspective?  Recovery is yet to come.  The book is short but nothing sweet about it.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

In 1932, Odie O'Banion and his older brother Albert have had it with life in the Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota.  They may have be white but are just as poor and even more isolated. With the help of Mose Washington, a young Sioux who had his tongue cut off when he was young, they devise a plan to escape. The plan becomes action when a fatal accident makes it necessary to leave immediately.  Another tragedy adds little Emmy Frost to this band of lost children.  In true Huck Finn manner their journey is fraught with both danger and unexpected kindness.  It is another look at life during the Depression and a time when social struggles tended toward a sense of communal support not selfish hoarding and is all framed by Krueger's love for this part of the world.

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

 During the Spanish Civil War, Roser a talented musician falls in love with Guilliam, a passionate Republican.  He dies in the war and Roser, pregnant and unmarried, escapes to a refugee camp in France.  Guilliam's brother Victor, a medic in the war, finds her and hatches a plan for their escape to South America but to make it work there must be a sham marriage between the two of them.  And so the real story begins.  They board the ship Winnipeg, an escape route organized by the poet Pablo Neruda, and head for Chile.  We observe the plight of the immigrant and struggles against the code of economic status. We watch a practical relationship become something much more.  We see the political world shift through Salvador Allende and Pinochet.  We hear wise observations that echo the world we are living in now and pause to consider the poetry of Neruda that begins each chapter.  It is a universal story and a hopeful one, rich in history and sometimes surprisingly snarky - but maybe that's just the translation 😏

The Prague Sonata by Bradford Morrow

An act of kindness results in a gift - a single movement of a sonata - to young a music student at Columbia University.  Meta Taverner is intrigued by the unidentified work and the story shared by the elderly woman who had protected the sonata.  It is clearly old - and beautiful.  That story leads her on a quest to find the rest  of the sonata and identify the composer.  Is it possible it was written by ...well can't give that part away.  Her journey takes her to Europe and the reader back to the Prague of WWl and beyond.  The story unfolds back and forth between the historical and the contemporary.  Rich in history and in music theory - which you don't need to technically understand to recognize its significance - you are drawn from one piece of the puzzle to the next.  Music lovers will understand the passion for the search but anyone will enjoy the mystery and romance of the time and place.

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kid

There is much evidence for a historical Jesus but not much is known about his life between birth and the time before his death.  Kidd, best known for her earlier novel The Secret Life of Bees, imagines a very human Jesus - a Jesus who falls in love - a Jesus who marries.  And although the Christian story Jesus is woven throughout the book, this is a story of Ana, the wife of Jesus.  Ana lives a privileged life as the daughter of Herod's scribe but is still constrained by the traditional role of women.  She secretly writes stories of brave women like Jezebel and Bathsheba on anything she can find - including broken pottery and stolen papyrus.   Hoping to escape a marriage she does not want and fearing that her writings will be destroyed, she wanders the hills in search of a safe place to hide her stories.  It is at the mouth of a cave that she meets Jesus.  He is a thoughtful, gentle person who totally supports her desire to be a strong, educated, independent woman.  This is a good thing since they are often separated for long periods of time.  Neither lives a conventional life. Both experience the need to hide or run as they challenge the society around them. This is Jesus the zealot.  This is Ana in search of the sacred feminine.  We know how His story ends but Ana lives on with the support of a very enlightened aunt who has secrets of her own.  There have been many attempts by both historians and theologians to fill in the life of Jesus. Although much research went into this novel, I doubt that being included in that particular body of work was Kidd's intent.  It is a bit more fiction than history.  But she raises interesting questions about how the lens we use to examine that time in history affects how we understand it.  And (for a real teaser) you will never guess who Ana's brother is.

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

     Young-sook is an old woman living on the Korean island of Jeju.  For most of her life she has been a "haenyo" - remarkable women free divers who tend the "wet fields" around Jeju for various shell fish and kinds of aquatic food. Her memory is awakened by a black and white photograph handed to her by a young American tourist.  It shows a much younger Young-sook and Mi-ja, a young woman who was once her best friend.  Young-sook tells the young American she does not recognize the woman in the photo. 
    And so we go back to 1938, to the wonderful matriarchal community that existed on the island.  Men were often the caretakers of home and children while the amazing free divers dove as deep as 60 feet harvesting what they could to eat and sell.  The stories of the two women encompass both WWII and the Korean War.  The history of what happened in Korea was intensely research and I was particularly surprised to learn what happened on this unique island.  War is not the only tragedy that affects the lives of the two women as they grow up.  As strong as they are, cultural expectations are even stronger.  Unforgivable choices are made.  Unbreakable ties are broken.  In the end Young-sook must both confront and forgive a history she cannot change.

Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump

The best thing I can say is that it fed my rage.  Multiple levels of dysfunctional family behavior polished by an undeserved sense of entitlement. At some points, it could be perceived that Mary Trump was supplying an excuse for his atrocious behavior.  At some points, she seems bent on blaming the Trump family for her own father's unhappily tragic life.  It would have had to be much better written to be convincing on either count. Glad this horror is closer to being over.

The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor

     Two stories intertwine over an unopened letter and an unusual stamp.  Story one unfolds in contemporary LA.  Katie Nelson's life is not going well but she can at least make good on a promise to care for her failing father's stamp collection.  Included in the collection she takes to philatelist Benjamin Grossman to be evaluated is the an opened letter.  It will lead the two of them on a search across Europe and into their own life histories. 
    Story two happens in Nazi occupied Austria.  Young Kristoff becomes an apprentice to Frederick Faber, printer.  Faber and his family, including his determined daughter Elena, are willing to do anything to oppose the terror that has destroyed his country.  A tiny edelweiss hidden in a stamp becomes a message to the resistance, a bridge across decades and a link between the two stories.  I love happy endings and the link to real events makes this one even better.