Ruthless Tide by Al Roker

In the 1880's a group of steel industry millionaires decided to build a dam just upriver from the industrial city of Johnstown.  They wanted to create a summer recreational area for the proud creators of the Gilded Age.  Known as the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, membership was limited to the likes of Carnegie, Frick and Mellon.  They could have made sure the dam had a means to release water should the need arise.  They could have provided a working spillway.  They did neither.  So on May 31, 1889, following days of torrential rains, the earthen dam gave way devastating the towns below.  Thousands died.  Thousands more lost everything.  Roker draws heavily on the stories left by a core of survivors and other books about the Johnstown flood.  Like many of the other books, there is an emphasis placed on the refusal of the club or its members to accept any responsibility.  The Johnstown Flood was a pivotal event in the way the public and eventually history viewed the wealthy industrialists.  Surprisingly well written, I still think the David McCullough version is my favorite.

Carrying Albert Home by Homer Hickam

Subtitle: The Somewhat true story of a Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator.
The man and wife in this case are the author's parents.  Homer senior was a coal miner in Coalwood, West Virginia.  Elsie was his high school sweetheart who reluctantly returned from an escape in Florida to marry him.  Albert is the alligator.  When Albert outgrows his cement "pond", Homer and Elsie decide to take him back to Florida where his life began until Buddy Ebsen - the Buddy Ebsen - sent the alligator to Elsie as a wedding gift.  But it is the 1930's and the only affordable way to go is a road trip.  Homer thinks the roundtrip will take 10 days but what he doesn't realize is that Elsie has other plans.  And so the adventure begins complete with bank robbers, a pet rooster, and an encounter with John Steinbeck.  Theoretically, the story is based on real events but I'm sure the truth is stretched  quite a bit.  No matter - the heart of the story is the relationship between Homer and Elsie.  Sometimes funny. sometimes too over the top - each chapter is single adventure making it a great road trip read.

The Door by Magda Szabo

Never in a million years would I have read this book if it hadn't been chosen by one of my book groups. Szabo is an award winning Hungarian author but I had never read anything by her.  This book she describes as "thinly veiled personal history".  Struggling author Magda hires a housekeeper named Emerence.  It is the relationship between Magda and Emerence that forms the core of the story.  It turns out to be a connection of hard earned trust and ultimate betrayal.  A short intense book that generated a deeply personal book group discussion.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Based on a real spy network, the story spans WWI and II.  When Mrs.St Clair takes her daughter Charlie to Europe, hoping to take care of an unwanted pregnancy in Switzerland, she has no idea that Charlie has another plan.  Charlie hopes to find her cousin and good friend Rose who seems to have disappeared in France during WWII.  Charlie manages to connect with Eve  - a member of the "Alice" spy network during WWI.  Together with Eve's charming but war damaged driver Finn, they being the search for Rose.  It is also a journey of self discovery for the three of them. A story of great courage and history that was all new to me.

Gentleman from Moscow by Amor Towles

In 1922, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is placed under house arrest for being a member of the former aristocracy and authoring a "dangerous" poem.  His "house" is the Metropol Hotel - a grand world unto its own directly across the street from the Kremlin.  Banned from his elegant suite, he continues life in the servants quarters in the hotels upper floor.  But Rostov is the least isolated person imaginable.  Observant, thoughtful, wise in so many ways, and friends to the hotel staff as well to the Metropol's visitors of importance - he is the person you would most want to share a table with in the fine dining rooms of the Metropol or share a chat in the second chair of his "suite" both of which can be completely imagined thanks to the rich detail provided by Towles.  With humor and frequent philosophical insights - reading this book is chance to ponder both history and life with one of the most engaging of gentlemen.  On my list of favorites.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

As a young girl, Li-Yan gathered tea with her family in the hill country of China just north of what was then Burma.  As members of the Akha minority, they were both isolated from and victims of the changes in 20th century China.  The Akha people are ruled by the stern hand of tradition - traditions that force Ahka out of her village and on a long journey to the cities of China and eventually to the United States in search of a daughter she thought might have been lost forever.  As much as this is Li-Yan's story it is also about the tea - ancient tea cakes that carry the history of the owner as well as the finest flavor in the leaves.  There may be a few too many coincidences to make this completely believable but it reads like a fascinating multi-layered family history of a part of China we rarely hear about.

Hamilton by Ron Chernow

This is a chunk of a book but since I was getting a chance to see the amazing Broadway version of this history, I vowed to read it first.  I figured I was going to be schooled but I was not prepared to be both enlightened and disturbed by our early history and to see the weaknesses in the early thinking of the founding fathers so eerily played out today. Worth every minute and every page.