Three Days in June: A Novel
by Anne Tyler
Ordinary Family, Complicated Lives (12/4/2024)
I loved this book, as I do all of Anne Tyler's work. This story is not a deep or complicated read, but instead a focus on the everyday lives of a family working through an important event. The setting was an ordinary one, but as happens in life, the day to day stuff gets tangled and what begins as ordinary gets complicated with choices large and small. The characters were so well drawn, always a beautiful part of Tyler's talent, that I could relate to each one's situation and feelings. For fans of the movie Groundhog Day as a metaphor for real life, readers can enjoy the themes of change and maturation and appreciation during the three days in this family's life.
Half a Cup of Sand and Sky
by Nadine Bjursten
Choices Make All The Difference (3/26/2024)
I was immediately drawn in by the first paragraph in chapter 1 - a young woman making a choice - and the choices she makes continue throughout the whole book, just as they do for all of us during our whole lives.
Though this story revolves around an Iranian woman's choices within the historical time of political and societal upheaval in her country, there are many parallels to others, in other countries, including our own. This particular historical journey takes us through some of the history of nuclear power, weapons and the fight for nuclear disarmament in the 70s-90s, which provides the backdrop to the protagonist's choices within her marriage & mothering, friendships, career goals, wishes and dreams.
I found the book to be a wonderful fusion of love & marriage, family, personal growth, social change, and historical background. I learned more about the Iranian people (and their cooking), the global politics of disarmament, and how both familial and societal expectations are ever present in the choices we make wherever we are in this world.
For me, Half a Cup of Sand and Sky was a magnificent and well-written read!
Help Wanted: A Novel
by Adelle Waldman
A Much-Needed Look at Who Surrounds Us (1/9/2024)
Dreams and options, hopes and frustrations exist in so many forms for this group of skillfully characterized employees in a retail chain store. The details of both their lives and their work are written with compassion and deliver the reader into a largely unknown and unheralded universe. This is such an important story, told through fiction, but one that generates much needed awareness and understanding for the good of humanity. I laughed and cried, cringed and applauded each of these remarkably created characters as they made their way through the book.
The Stone Home: A Novel
by Crystal Hana Kim
The Stone Home continues the spotlights provided by Nickel Boys and A Council of Dolls (11/8/2023)
As hard as it is to acknowledge and accept the reality of recurrent instances of intentional, institutional human to human cruelty and carnage across our world, the talented authors who bring them to light offer a deeper and realistic understanding of these devastating truths along with hope for a future where such actions can never again occur.
In her harrowing but remarkably creative and dynamic new novel The Stone Home, Crystal Hana Kim delivers a rich and detailed story of one such "residential school" in South Korea during the 1980s. With memorable and extraordinary characters, their intense relationships and gut-wrenching actions, Kim delivers a seamless, dual timeline picture of human emotions at their best and worst – hate, fear, anger, love and loyalty amid courage and the determination to survive – all alongside a slowly unraveling mystery. I couldn't put it down – definitely the most sorrowful and best book I've read this year!
The Wren, the Wren: A Novel
by Anne Enright
Three generations of women and their poet - an enticing serpentine novel (8/6/2023)
The Wren, The Wren is a captivating and beautifully written, but strenuous, book to read, with its non-linear format and frequent use of no conversational quotation marks. The opening of the book drew me in, a psychology expert's study on the ways people think, and the book followed that fascinating beginning with every character. Told through the perspectives of three generations of women, the wife, daughter and granddaughter of an Irish poet who left his family, each offers slices of the chapters of her life with many references to both wild birds and their songs. Snuggled in between those is a small section narrated by the poet himself, the man whose influence has greatly affected them all, and snatches here and there of old Irish poetry, some of which is his. I love Enright's use of language throughout. One of my favorite lines was given to the granddaughter: "A year out of college, I was poking my snout and whiskers into fresh adult air…" Truly a book worth reading!
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