The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

 Although Davis' style is more young adult than grand literary, it's a book about the New York Public Library so you know I had to read it.  Like her other books, this one celebrates one of New York's iconic buildings.  And like her other books she attaches a fictional female hero from past and present to tell its story.   In 1913, Laura Lyon and her family actually live in an apartment within the library while her husband serves as building superintendent but she has dreams that extend even beyond these grand library walls.  In 1993, Librarian Sadie Donovan is distressed over the loss of several valuable books just as she prepares for an important exhibit.  She also has a worrisome secret of her own - Laura is her grandmother - but there is a mysterious, troublesome history there that she fears might affect her career at the library she loves. And so back and forth across the decades - red herrings abound.  Still - it is about the New York Public Library and there really is a secret apartment - and hidden staircases - and the remains of the walls of the old city water reservoir and ...

ALEK by Alek Wek

 The subtitle is : "From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel" and that is exactly what this book is about. In the 1980's when Alek was nine, she and her family became a party of the tragedy that was South Sudan. Unlike some of the other Dinka families, her parents were educated and monogamous.  Some of her older siblings were already living abroad.  Still when the war started, they were forced to leave the life they had established in the town of Wau until 1 by 1, they were able to follow those siblings out of Sudan. Much of her story is tragic but with a little luck and a lot of grit, she has built a successful place in the fashion world.  Her story makes clear she is not just a pretty face.

10 Books the Screwed up the World by Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D

A discussion about the placement of Mein Kampf in bookstores and on library shelves led me to this book. He begins with the writings of the philosophers Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes and  Rousseau and then examines The Communist Manifesto. Utilitarianism, Descent of Man, Mein Kampf, Coming of Age in Samoa, and the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan among others.  Unfortunately he uses a very narrow lens to examine these works.  He identifies all the authors as atheists and it is this failure to believe in the  rewards of heaven or the punishment of hell that let them to imagine these dangerous worlds of free love, personal choice, and the preference for power.  It was kind of a disappointment but might be a good discussion starter.

Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie

 I 'm not sure where I heard of this book but it was hard to put down.  It is really just a story of a seriously dysfunctional family - almost a little Flowers in the Attic - but in an unusual time and place.  The Kamiza family is both ancient Japanese royalty and contemporary Japanese corruption.  The matriarch of the family clings to the old ways in the sacred city of Kyoto but in 1951 Japan, her only daughter rebels.  After dutifully producing an acceptable heir, she becomes pregnant by an African American soldier.  Disowned by her family, she tries to live on her own but circumstances cause her to drop her 4 year old daughter, Nori, at the gates of the family estate. Ridiculed, abused and hidden in the attic, Nori's life is a horror until her honored half brother, Akira, returns to the family home.  Using his power as the family heir, he frees her from the attic but her innocence and his musical genius put them at odds.  And so the story goes - for many years a struggle between personal freedom and family responsibility.  Certainly a common and safe theme for a first work by this author but the addition of the complication of skin color in this time and place makes it worth the read - even with the hurried ending.

Apeirogon by Colum McCann

 Two men - one Israeli - one Palestinian.  Each has lost a daughter to the random violence that is so much a part of life in this region.  Their stories are at the core of this strangely structured book.  Also included are the history of the area, observations of birds in flight, the absurdity of war, a tale of Philippe Petit, the geology of the Levant, Biblical references, so many things - all shared in numbered commentary - some a few words long - some many pages - in an order that seems both random and purposeful.  The two men meet each other in a group of grieving survivors like themselves - from both sides - from no sides. The group is real. It is called the Parents Circle Families Forum.  In the real world and in this book, they try to understand the why of any of it and seek an end to the conflict.  Apeirogon means an infinitely sided object - an impossibility.  The title certainly fits the organization of the book.  One only wishes that the peace the people seek in this unusual telling was in fact possible.