Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

To say this is a non-traditional novel is to make a gross understatement.  It is true that in 1862, President Lincoln's young son Willie died of Typhoid fever.  It is true that "bardo" is a real term used in Tibet to indicate a place between physical death and a final resting place of the soul.  So this is a story of Willie's death and Lincoln's return to the cemetery to grieve - sort of.  The style of the book is one of continuous narrative - narrative from ghosts of people buried in the cemetery - lots of people although we get to know three of them better than the others.  The speaker for every part is identified and through their comments some of their stories are revealed line by line with the appearance of a movie script.  Interspersed between these ghostly narratives are lists of short selections from various actual historical sources providing what is often a conflicting historical context.  It's a jumble that eventually becomes a debate about the future of Willie's soul.  It is a jumble that raises questions about an accounting of our lives.  It is a jumble about what is important and what is not.  I think it is a book that would be even better in the audio version where each voice is distinctive - although it still might be a jumble.

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood

 Ona Vitkus, age 104 and cranky, has come to look forward to the young Boy Scout who comes every Saturday to do things around the house.  She finds his obsession with entries in the Guiness Book of World Records intriguing - even more so when he seems determined to find a way to make sure Ona becomes a record holder.  Then one day, the boy's father, Quinn, shows up to do his chores.  Quinn, a hardly successful musician never quite warmed to his son - this odd boy who counts everything; who has a freakishly good memory; who has died.  Ona and Quinn eventually form a bond over the memory of "the boy".  Both look for a way to grieve the boy's death and a way to honor his life.  The choices they make about how to do either drive this sometimes humorous, often thoughtful story.  Something about each character puts them outside the "normal" box but they eventually confront the reality that no matter how odd we feel or how odd we appear, we all struggle to find connections.

The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones

Newly widowed Maggie McElroy travels to China for a writing assignment for Table magazine and to address a personal problem her husband may have left behind.  Sam Liang has left his home in Chicago to reconnect with his Chinese family.  He is already a well regarded chef but his grandfather was the last chef to the Emperor - the last Chinese chef.  The Maggie and Sam story is a complicated romance but the story of the Chinese cuisine is something else entirely.  One of the things I know for sure, I have never eaten real Chinese food - even in China.  The connection of food with history and family and mood and intention makes me long for a whole different relation with my dinner.  Apparently "the last Chinese chef" is a character of fiction but you could have fooled me.

Triangle:the fire that changed America by David von Drehle

On March 26, 1911, 146 people -  mostly young immigrant women - died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.  While the details of the fire are part of the book, it is more a commentary on the times.  The rise of unions, the socialist movement, Tammany Hall, the growth of the immigrant life - all a part of the story.  It starts with a prologue titled "Misery Lane" - the story of life on Hester Street.  The final chapter is "The Trial" which follows the attempt to assign fault to the owners of the factory, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris.  There are pictures and horrible details of the fire itself as well as a complete list of the victims but the details of the society of the city of New York at the beginning of the 20th century are at least as interesting as the tragedy that society almost overlooked..

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini

Some people live such interesting lives.  Elizabeth Keckley, slave, was the daughter of white master rape and the victim of the same.  Her sewing skills allow her to buy her freedom for herself and her son.  She eventually finds her way to D.C. where she sews for Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mary Todd Lincoln and many others.  When the Civil war begins, Keckley develops an even closer relationship with Mrs. Lincoln and the President.  This relationship continues even after the assassination which is when the story becomes even more interesting.  Chiaverini sticks pretty closely to the strange story of what happens to Mary Todd Lincoln when she is left on her own although there are many version of this history to choose from. The fact that Keckley ends up living in the Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children after having founded the Contraband Relief Association to help former slaves relocating in D.C., written a highly controversial memoir of her life with the Lincoln's, and served on the faculty of Wilberforce College is a testament to the struggle between an individual's courage and the forces of the world around them.  This is an unusual lens to use to examine the war years, the affects of slavery, and the Lincolns.  The war years of the book are a bit of a slog but help give context to the rest of Elizabeth's compelling story. 

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Fix Keatng thinks it is strange that Bert Cousins shows up for his daughter Franny's christening party.  Stranger still that Bert kisses Franny's mother Beverly - a kiss that leads to a divorce and throws the four adults and their six children into a mash of events for the next five decades.  As they children travel back and forth across the country, they form alliances in the parenting vacuum created by the adults trying to sort out their new lives.  Franny becomes the primary narrator although the chapters often focus on different family members.  Two significant events drive the story.  One happens when the children are young and binds them forever in a secret regret.  The other is the result of a relationship between the adult Franny and a famous but struggling author.  He overcomes his writer's block by turning Franny's confidences into a new book.  With so many events and relationships made public, it is time for the families to confront their tangled history.  Stories about families and the key events that affect them are not unusual.  Patchett's ability to create characters we care about make this a worthy read.

The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

So what do you know about Alexander von Humboldt?  Probably very little except for some geographic references I am guessing.  And so we start where Humboldt, the scientist, started in the last half of the 18th century - knowing little but wanting to know more.  At a time when science was more religion and philosophy than - well science, when scientist was not even a word, he gathered what few instruments there were and set out to understand the world.  As he traveled and measured and observed and recorded, he came to the conclusion that the world was not little bits of things but an interdependent whole.  While that may seem obvious now, in his day it was revolutionary.  Darwin carried Humbolt's books on his journey.  Pres. Jefferson welcomed him to the new United States as an expert on South America.  John Muir was guided by his philosophy. And those are just the names you might recognize.  He was one of the greatest thinkers of his time and influenced much of how we have come to understand the natural world.  I found going down the road of discovery with him fascinating.  The New York Times named this one of the ten best books of 2015.  Dense in parts and distinctively quotable in others, I agree.