Clara and Mr. Tiffany: A Novel
by Susan Vreeland
Fascinating in Parts, Loses Its Oomph in Others (4/21/2023)
Colors. Lots of colors. Colors galore--from emerald green to peacock blue to daffodil yellow to ruby red. Author Susan Vreeland describes colors in this book, which is about Louis Comfort Tiffany, in a way that will make you almost see the colors pop off the page.
Tiffany gets credit for all the beautiful leaded-glass windows and lamps that carry his name, but the reality is that hundreds of men and a handful of women, better known as the "Tiffany Girls," were part of that early enterprise in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s/early 1900s. One of those women was Clara Driscoll, who likely conceived the idea of using leaded-glass in lamps and then designed some of the most famous lamps produced by Tiffany. And Mr. Tiffany took all the credit. Clara was never recognized for her incredible artistic achievements—until now.
This book draws on extensive research by art historians Martin Eidelberg and Nina Gray, who unearthed letters written by Clara while she was living in New York City to her family in Ohio. While this is a fictionalized account of Clara's life and work, there is much fact interspersed in the text—so much so that the book also serves as a litany on leaded-glass making. And that is where it loses its oomph. Even if it is never a page-turner, the story is at times quite fascinating, but too much of the book is downright boring. That's a shame, because this is an important story to tell.
The Monsters of Templeton: A Novel
by Lauren Groff
Amazing, Creative and Original! A Perfect Novel (4/21/2023)
What an amazing, creative and outright original book! (And it was Lauren Groff's first novel, too.) This is a two-dimensional story; one part takes place in the present day, while the other takes place some 200 years ago.
Wilhelmina Sunshine Upton, who goes by Willie, is 28 and working on her PhD in anthropology at Stanford. After a passionate affair with her adviser in the tundra of Alaska when they are on a dig, she is pregnant and returns home to Templeton, New York. This idyllic town with a very large lake that is hundreds of feet deep, is modeled on Cooperstown. The day a bedraggled Willie rolls into town, a dead prehistoric "monster" surfaces on the lake.
Willie's mother, Vi, is an aging hippie-turned-born again Christian, who has always told Willie that her father was one of three men with whom she lived in a house in San Francisco in the '60s. It turns out that isn't true. Willie's dad is a man who lives in Templeton. Willie now has a quest: Find out the name of her father.
Fasten your seatbelts, reader. You are in for a ride. Monsters aren't the only thing in Templeton. And some monsters aren't quite as easy to see as the one that came out of the lake.
P.S. Lauren Groff should get some sort of award for the characters' names. Here is just a sampling: Marmaduke Templeton, Noname, Minnie Phinney, Primus Dwyer and Asterisk Upton…just to name a few. And they are as quirky and original as their names!
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation
by Elizabeth Berg
Hilarious and Heartbreaking! A Must-Read (4/21/2023)
This is a book about food. More precisely, this is a book about eating food—or not eating it. It is a hymn to food. It is a testament to our relationship with food and how that relationship sometimes goes wrong. Very wrong. It is both hilarious and heartbreaking.
It is also a book about aging and how women endure, fight and/or give in to the inexorable process of having birthdays.
And it is a book about love. Love between men and women. Sexual tension between men and women. And the very precious, lifegiving love of a BFF.
This book by Elizabeth Berg is not to be missed. It is authentic and true. Read it!
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
Extraordinary Writing, Extraordinary Book (4/21/2023)
This four-generation family saga of poverty-stricken Koreans who are essentially forced in exile to Japan is everything a reader wants in a novel: characters so real they pop off the page, a plot that keeps you reading past your bedtime, and an ending that both breaks your heart and makes you smile.
Written by Min Jin Lee, the story begins with the teenaged Sunja, who falls in love with a much older, wealthy and very powerful man, who is married with three daughters (unbeknownst to her). Not surprisingly, she gets pregnant, and then her meager, but well-ordered, world comes crashing in. But a kind Korean man agrees to marry her and takes her to Japan where they live with his brother and sister-in-law. Remember the lover? Yeah, he hasn't forgotten Sunja. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that he remains a part of her life forever—and not always in a good way.
This is a story about love in all its forms, a faith in God (or not), the bond of family, life and death, basic human survival, and the power of country and tradition. The ending is perfect in that it brings the story full circle.
This book will grab your heart from the start and not let go. There is a reason "Pachinko" has won a bazillion awards.
The Ninth Hour: A Novel
by Alice McDermott
Powerful. Formidable. Astounding. Read It! (4/21/2023)
This is a wonderful story about life among the Irish-American Catholic community in New York City in the early 1900s. A nice little story. And then PUNCH! The last part of the book delivers such a powerful, unexpected and wholly formidable if not astounding ending that I felt it in my gut. Holy cow! Author Alice McDermott has done it again.
The book tells the story of life inside a convent of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor. The good nuns take to the streets every day to care for the sick and poverty-stricken. Annie, a young, pregnant widow, whose husband has committed the grave sin of suicide, is taken in by the nuns. She soon delivers a baby girl, named Sally, and the two spend their days in the convent laundry. Years pass, and Annie then does something in secret that nearly causes their world to fall apart when she is discovered. And then Sally, who has lived such a cloistered life, tries to rectify the sin to save her mother's immortal soul.
Alice McDermott is an extraordinary writer (Admission: She is one of my favorites!), and this book will just grab your heart and not let go. Read it!!!
The Road from Gap Creek
by Robert Morgan
A Story of Family Love and Survival (4/21/2023)
This sequel to "Gap Creek" tells the story of Julie and Hank's marriage years after they moved away from Gap Creek. They are now the parents of four grown (or nearly grown) children, and the life they live is based in large part on what they can raise and grow on their farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Taking place in the 1920s and '30s, the story of this one family serves a microcosm of the larger events taking place in the country and the world—from the booming '20s to deadly epidemics, from the Depression to World War II. While they are dirt poor, they are rich in love, and that is what makes this story just bloom.
Writing in the vernacular of the time and place, author Robert Morgan has created a tale that rings true and authentic.
Columbine
by Dave Cullen
This Should Be Required Reading for Everyone (4/21/2023)
Breaking news! Oh, it's just another school shooting. How sad we can even think like that.
The notion that a child could procure guns and make bombs to take down his high school took on a whole new meaning when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did the unthinkable at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. And all these years later you may think (yawning) that this is old news. It's not.
Journalist and author Dave Cullen took 10 years to prodigiously research and write this compelling and gripping book, interviewing the parents of those who died, the injured, the survivors and so many more. He scoured thousands and thousands of pages of documents published in the official government, police and coroner's reports, as well as laboratory evidence from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He read Eric and Dylan's personal journals.
The book's detail is incredible and at times excruciating, such as the stomach-churning fact of how many gallons of blood were spilled in the Columbine High School library. Cullen not only superbly clarifies what is already known about this horrific act, but also shatters the many outrageously false myths that most of us take to be absolute fact. (Exhibit A: Eric and Dylan were NOT bullied.) But this is not a mere recitation of facts. Cullen also offers heartbreaking answers to that most difficult question of all: Why?
Cullen's prose is so engaging, the story so riveting and the pacing so perfect that "Columbine" reads like a page-turning novel. Never mind that you already know the ending, you will still want to keep reading past your bedtime.
Most important of all, reading this remarkable book changed how I think about the perpetrators of such heinous crimes and how we as bystanders—parents, friends, teachers and neighbors—can spot and help a little kid who is already displaying disturbing signs of depression or even psychopathy long before they get to middle school.
In this tragic age of Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland, this book should be required reading for everyone.
An American Marriage
by Tayari Jones
A Love Story AND a Human Story (4/21/2023)
This is my favorite kind of book: long on characters and short on plot.
Expertly written by Tayari Jones, the book's characters are so real and so fully developed that they just pop off the page. The plot is heartbreaking: Celestial and Roy have a passionate and fiery marriage. Emotions run high—be it love or anger. When he is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, Celestial must go on with her life. Enter Andre, her best friend since childhood and (literally) the boy next door, who is—just to complicate matters—best friends with Roy. That's the plot. But the genius of the book is in the writing: Each of the three characters narrates various chapters in the first person, so the reader fully appreciates and understands each one's point of view. Jones delves deep into what it means to be committed to love, how it feels to be betrayed and what it takes to forgive.
While this is first and foremost a love story, it is also a human story—an enchanting and beguiling one that explores what it means to be a black, college-educated professional in a Southern society that still judges in tones of black and white. Read it! It's incredible!
Baker Towers
by Jennifer Haigh
A Powerful, Expertly Written Book That Will Transport You Back in Time (4/21/2023)
This book will transport you to the 1940s, '50s and '60s to the imagined—but, yet, oh so real—mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania where the good times come and go based on the coal industry. This is the story of the Novak family. He works in the coal mines, while she stays home with their two sons and three daughters. He is Polish. She is Italian. And that's important in this little town where ethnicity determines where you live, what you eat, who your friends are and which church you attend. Each of these seven characters is fully created and fully human, giving the reader astute insight into how each one thinks, acts and reacts to the events swirling around them.
Author Jennifer Haigh has told a searing family drama of love and faith, tragedy and pain and the eternal well of hope. But the real power and genius of this book is that it made me feel as if I were actually living in Bakerton. The town and its residents just came alive for me and they moved over to let me join them—and in this sense the book is quite compelling. I highly recommend it.
City of Light
by Lauren Belfer
Secrets. Lies. Innuendoes. Betrayals. Oh, What a Delicious Book! (4/21/2023)
Secrets. Lies. Innuendoes. Betrayals. More secrets. A murder mystery. And great tragedy. Oh, and enough of a lesson on how electricity is generated from Niagara Falls that it (almost) masquerades as nonfiction. Written by Lauren Belfer, this is one of those utterly delicious books that will also make you feel smarter after you read it—even though it reads a lot like a soap opera.
Taking place in Buffalo, New York in 1901, the story is told in the first person by Miss Louisa Barrett, a 36-year-old spinster who is headmistress of the prestigious Macauley School for Girls. Louisa has a deep and dark secret that would totally ruin her reputation should it ever be revealed. But she isn't the only one with highly-charged and potentially damaging secrets, as we soon learn. The cast of characters is wide, including cameo appearances by two presidents and one vice president. (In fact, so many of the characters are real people that the author's note at the end of the book actually list those that are fictitious. The Kindle X-ray feature helps with this, too.) Meanwhile, the new power station at Niagara Falls is coming online, but not without much political intrigue and a murder (or two?). It's a time that is ruled by powerful men who smoke cigars in backrooms. WHO can be trusted?
I gave the book four stars instead of five because it seemed to me that some of the text is needlessly drawn out. Yes, it's a long book and that's just fine, but the author stretches the plot line at times in ways that add only to the length and not to the development of the story or characters. Still, that's a minor complaint. Read it. It's a fun and educational book.
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
by Liza Mundy
A Must-Read—But Not an Easy Read (4/21/2023)
What this book is: A prodigiously researched, well-written and cogent historical account of the heretofore unrecognized accomplishments of the so-called "code girls," the incredibly smart young women who successfully deciphered the coded secret messages sent by Japan and Germany during World War II. This allowed the Army and Navy to anticipate enemy troop and ship movements so major battles were won, leading eventually to the Allies' victory.
What this book is not: An easy read.
While there is quite a bit of personal information about the women who were recruited to decipher the enemy codes—and all of it is absolutely fascinating—that is a small part of the book, despite the title. Instead, this is a history of the women's efforts, including how they got there, what they did, how they succeeded and how little fanfare there ever was for their phenomenal work. After all, what they were doing was top secret and remained so for decades.
I have given this book by Liza Mundy five stars, but not because I loved it and couldn't put it down. In fact, I had to slog through parts of it. I gave it five stars because this is an incredible book based on extraordinary research about a vitally important part of American history that hasn't been reported until now, largely because it remained classified until quite recently. This book is one for the ages that tells the true story of how much women accomplished for our country in a time when women were thought of as best being wives and mothers. If you enjoy reading history, you will like this!
Bonus: I think the epilogue is the best chapter of the book. It alternately made me tear up and gave me goosebumps!
The Teachers: A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession
by Alexandra Robbins
A Treasure! This Is a Page-Turner Filled with Compelling Storytelling and Cutting-Edge Research (4/21/2023)
This book inspired me, angered me, filled me with awe and wonder, and made me really and truly think—think about our public schools, the educators who work so hard, the students who depend on the schools, and the parents who can make life so wonderful or challenging for their children's teachers.
Written by Alexandra Robbins, this is an eye-opening deep dive into the state of public education in the United States in the 2020s. If you are a teacher or a parent of a student, this is a must-read. Using her extraordinary reporting and research skills, Robbins tells this important story in two distinct ways: by following the personal stories of three very different teachers and through hard-hitting essays based on facts, figures, and learned opinions of what is happening in the nation's classrooms.
This is what it means to be a teacher today.
The three teacher stories feature an uncensored, no-holds-barred look at their joys and frustrations, successes and failures, as well as their personal lives over the course of a school year:
• Rebecca Abrams, an East Coast elementary school teacher.
• Miguel Garcia, a middle school special education teacher in the West.
• Penny Davis, a middle school math teacher in the South.
(The names of the teachers and schools have been changed to protect their identities),
If you think a teacher's job is easy with a long summer vacation as the biggest perk, then this book will be a real eye-opener. Find out:
• What really goes on in the classroom.
• Go behind-the-scenes at parent-teacher conferences, the staff lounge, and teacher happy hour.
• Teachers' secret codes and strategies and what they really think about the parents.
• Meet amazing children—those who are stellar students and those who are struggling. (Oh, my heart! These kids!)
• How much money teachers make and why so many of them have second and even third jobs just to pay the bills.
• How much teachers spend of their own money on supplies for their classrooms. (If you really want to be a helpful parent, there is valuable advice on how you can assist with this expense.)
• Why teaching is incompatible with good physical and mental health. (Prepare to be shocked. I was.)
• Why our public schools are a hotspot for workplace bullying, leaving so many teachers verbally and psychologically abused by each other and their administrators.
• The shockingly high percentage of teachers who have been the target of violence or abuse, almost always by students.
Alexandra Robbins has produced a most unusual book: a non-fiction page-turner. It is filled with riveting and compelling storytelling, as well as cutting-edge research. It is a treasure! And we should heed its valuable advice.
P.S. This is how much I loved the book. I read it on a Kindle, and about four chapters in, I bought the hardcover edition for my sister, a retired teacher's assistant, who worked in a public elementary school for 20 years.
The Aviator's Wife
by Melanie Benjamin
An Oh-So-Sad Story of the Private Life of a Very Public Couple (4/20/2023)
This book is so sad. At times, it was almost too sad to keep reading. It is a fictionalized account of the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the painfully shy wife of the famous pilot Charles Lindbergh. Lauded as a hero for flying solo from New York to Paris in 1927, he was later vilified for his very public pro-German, anti-Jewish pronouncements in what was then billed as the "America First" movement. And even later, for we are a forgiving nation, he was once again lauded as a hero. Anne was truly the long-suffering wife. She devoted everything she had to Charles, and he returned that love and devotion with coldness and betrayal. Lindbergh shockingly led a double life with three German mistresses (two of whom were sisters) and with whom he together fathered seven children.
Author Melanie Benjamin deftly explores the private side of this very public couple, especially focusing on how much Anne actually did for Charles—even though she rarely received credit for it. She not only served as his only crew in the early years of flying, but also became an accomplished aviatrix in her own right. Oh, and she also had six children, one of whom was famously kidnapped and murdered at the age of 20 months, an event that had a tragic and everlasting emotional impact on her and their very troubled marriage.
But in the end, this is just a sad, sad tale because Charles is portrayed almost as a monster. How could Anne stay with him all those years? My heart breaks for her—and what could have been.
The Hour I First Believed
by Wally Lamb
A Beautifully Written, Intelligent Book (4/20/2023)
There is only one word that can adequately describe this phenomenal book: Genius.
That said, this work of literary fiction by Wally Lamb may not appeal to everyone. (English majors will love it!) Narrated in the first person by Caelum Quirk, this multilayered book is loosely based on the classical myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. And while the characters are imaginary, the events are straight out of the headlines, beginning with the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
Thrice-married Caelum and his wife, Maureen, are trying to hold their marriage together after she cheats on him and he nearly kills her lover in a jealous rage. They flee from their home in rural Connecticut to quiet and peaceful Littleton, Colorado. He gets a job as an English teacher and she as a nurse at Columbine High School. While Caelum is away on that fateful day, Maureen is there on the front line of fire, hiding in the school library. Although she physically survives, the emotional trauma she suffers at the hands of the killers changes who she is, and she and Caelum must struggle individually and as a couple to put their lives back together.
Plot is secondary to this structurally complex book that is stitched together with bold themes of chaos vs. control and despair vs hope, as well as the myriad destructive forces of violence, the fury of vengeance and the blessing of redemption. And this is made all the more powerful by the potent symbols of the butterfly (our souls) and the praying mantis (good triumphing over evil) that are laced throughout the book.
This is a beautifully written, intelligent book that should be read with care and awe.
Behold the Dreamers
by Imbolo Mbue
This Remarkable Book Pierced My Heart and Soul (4/20/2023)
The time: 2008
The place: New York City. Well, to be exact a corner office on Wall Street with floor to ceiling windows offering a breathtaking view, a posh Upper East Side apartment that is decorated to the nines and a one-bedroom, cockroach-infested fifth-floor walk-up in Harlem.
The main characters: Clark Edwards is a hotshot investment banker at Lehman Brothers, while his beautiful, too-thin wife, Cindy, spends her time shopping, lunching and summering in the Hamptons. Jende Jonga, an illegal immigrant from Cameroon, supports his wife, Neni, and their 6-year-old son, Liomi, doing whatever jobs he can find that do not require proof he is in the United States legally. Neni is in the country on a student visa and attends the local community college with dreams of becoming a pharmacist.
The situation: Clark hires Jende to be his and the family's full-time chauffeur, paying him $36,000 a year for 18-hour days. Jende is beside himself with happiness and hope for the future.
And then…Lehman Brothers collapses.
This magnificently written story by Imbolo Mbue is told entirely from the points of view of Jende and Neni. Clark and Cindy's stories we learn from eavesdropping on their phone conversations while Jende drives them around New York City. Jende and Neni have very little, but they are bursting with dreams and hopes for the future. Meanwhile, Clark and Cindy are impossibly wealthy but have only faded hopes and squashed dreams. It is this contrast, even more than the differences of race, class and wealth, that sets up the story for the main plot when life for both couples irrevocably and tragically changes forever with the failure of Lehman Brothers.
This remarkable story about the American dream—for those who desperately want it and those who indifferently have achieved it—is written with such verve and wisdom that it pierced my heart and soul. I highly recommend this book, which amazingly is Mbue's first novel. I eagerly await her second book.
The Female Persuasion: A Novel
by Meg Wolitzer
Profound and Moving, This Is a Sheer Joy to Read (4/20/2023)
Somehow this book, which is all about the characters—and I mean ALL about the characters—somehow has a plot. And that is the genius of author Meg Wolitzer!
This is the story of Greer, a shy, confused college freshman and her journey to adulthood. It's also about Cory, her high school boyfriend. Oh, and don't forget Zee, Greer's best friend in college, as well as 60-something Faith Frank, Greer's first employer, mentor and absolute idol. The stories of these four people are woven together in an intricate design with themes of power, feminism, discovery, ambition, romantic love and female friendship. But it's more than that. It's also about how we define who we are as individuals and as a group—and how that definition can and does change as life changes.
This is an exquisitely written and accomplished book that features vividly imagined, almost larger-than-life characters who embark on a journey together—and apart—that will memorably sear your heart. Profound and moving, the book is a sheer joy to read…and ponder.
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
by Jan-Philipp Sendker
Enchanting, Passionate and Profound: Read and Enjoy (4/20/2023)
Magic. Pure magic. This book—with prose that reads more like poetry—is a sheer delight. I have no idea how to classify it. It's a haunting fable. And a passionate love story. And an enchanting mystery. I wanted to hurriedly read to find out what would happen next, but I had to keep stopping to reread whole paragraphs because they were so beautifully written. Elegant writing cannot be cheated no matter how engrossing the plot.
When Julia Win's successful and wealthy father mysteriously disappears from their New York apartment soon after her law school graduation, she decides to track him down half a world away. Her only clue is a letter he has written to a mysterious lover in Burma. Is he leading a double life? Julia will find out, and in the process, she finds out more than she could ever imagine about herself and the transcendent power of love.
This short book by Jan-Philipp Sendker is a profound story about the true meaning of love, a wake-up for us all in this rather jaded world in which we live. Escape in it and simply enjoy!
Little Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
This Is a 10-Star Book: Read It! (4/20/2023)
This is a 10-star book. But it comes with a serious warning: Do not read it unless you really have time to read. Because this book will suck you in and not let go. It is one of those rare accomplishments in literature: an ingeniously plotted page-turner that is written with sympathy, intelligence and keen insight into the human condition.
Written by Celeste Ng, this is the story of the Richardson family of upscale Shaker Heights, Ohio. Mr. Richardson is a wealthy, successful attorney. Mrs. Richardson is a reporter for the local newspaper. They have four children, each one year apart and all in high school. They also have new tenants, single mom Mia and her 15-year-old daughter, who rent the upstairs apartment in a home the Richardsons own on the other side of town. This is the story of these two families and their unexpected interactions. Mia is a freewheeling, gypsy-type artist with closely-guarded secrets, while Mrs. Richardson is a buttoned-down perfectionist who is a stickler for following the rules—but they are both passionate mothers. Mix in hot-blooded teenage hormones with the pressure to excel, and we have a stunning exploration of what it means to live and thrive (or not) in suburbia.
I loved everything about this book, and I am in awe of Celeste Ng's ability to spin a story that fully engages the reader.
Bonus: If you have ever lived in any of the Cleveland suburbs—east or west—reading this book is like going back again. The Cleveland details are perfect.
The Monk of Mokha
by Dave Eggers
A Breathless, Unexpected and Mesmerizing Journey About Coffee (4/20/2023)
It's a good thing this book is nonfiction. If it were a novel, no one would believe it! The author would be excoriated for creating an absurd and preposterous plot line and told to tone it down. A lot. But this isn't fiction. It really happened.
Let's back up. This is the story about a Yemini-American man named Mokhtar Alkhanshali, who grows up in San Francisco's Tenderloin district in a shabby apartment located between two porn stores. After a series of failures—school and business—Mokhtar comes up with the highly unlikely idea of exporting coffee from his home country of Yemen to the United States. This is as Yemen is being blown to smithereens by the Saudis. The country is not only plagued with frequent power failures, food scarcity and a government that is inept and ineffective, but also terrorism at the hands of Al-Qaeda and the Houthis. Yeah, that's a good time to set up a brand new export business.
Written by Dave Eggers, this extraordinary book will take you on a breathless, unexpected and dumbfounding—but true!—journey about coffee told in such a creative, almost mesmerizing way that you'll read it like a novel and never again look at your morning cup of joe in the same way.
If you love coffee and a grand adventure story, this is a must read.
The Great Alone
by Kristin Hannah
ChickLit Meets Adventure With a Hearty Dose of Melodrama (4/20/2023)
This can best be described as ChickLit meets Adventure with a hearty dose of Melodrama. It is a good story—the kind that keeps you turning pages to find out what happens. And if you enjoy books with riveting plots, this one is for you. But that's about all it has. The characters—and some are quite colorful—are far too one-dimensional. The bad guys are really bad. And the good guys are really good. And there is not much in between.
Written by Kristin Hannah, this is the story of 13-year-old Leni who moves in 1974 (in an old VW bus of all things) to the uncivilized wilds of Alaska with her parents, Cora and Ernt. Cora is a loving mother, who thinks of Leni as her best friend. Ernt is a former Vietnam POW, who has nightmares and rages of anger that he takes out on his wife with his fists. This is the classic story of danger, and even in the middle of winter in godforsaken Alaska the real danger can be inside the cabin—not out.
While most of the plot is predictable, there are a few unexpected twists and turns that save the book from being totally banal. Still, this is hardly great literature.
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