Nick Taylor grew up in a strict Mennonite family, served in World War II, worked for an oil company and married Bet who grew up in an upper middle class Irish/American family. They had two children, Katherine, who after college took up with a radical group in the 60’s, and Harry, a dreamer who was interested in ecology. The saga of the Taylor family begins in the 1950’s and ends in 2026. Last House is not only a look at an American family, it also describes the counter culture of the 60’s and the willingness of corporate America to obtain oil at any price.

There are parts of Last House that are descriptive and tense and there are other sections that fall flat. Jessica Shattuck does a fine job of describing the Taylor family in the 50’s, 60’s and 2026 but barely touches on the other decades. For me as a social commentary and family tale, Last House was incomplete.

I began rereading Mark Twain’s classic novel to see how it compared to James by Percival Everett. I soon discovered that these books are completely different books. James is narrated by Jim who is a runaway slave but is educated, violent and angry. It is the story of a slave on the run who has to fight to stay alive. In Huck Finn, Jim is naive, superstitious and subservient. Although Huck is in the novel, he is not a major character. James is clever with several ironic situations, but it lacks the humor and innocence of Huckleberry Finn. I think Everett’s novel is good; Twain’s is great. Both are worth reading but they are very different.

Eilis, who lives on Long Island, learns in the opening pages that her husband of over 20 years is having a baby with another woman. The woman’s husband declares that the child will be dropped off at Eilis’s home soon after its birth. Eilis confronts her husband, Tony, and says that the baby is never welcome in her house. When she learns that her mother-in-law, who lives next door will raise the child, Eilis decides she needs to get away. She goes back to Ireland to visit her mother in Ireland where she has not been for twenty years. After her arrival many old scenes play out in her head, including her relationship with the man she dated way back when.

Summarizing Long Island does not do it justice. Toibin’s novel grabbed me on page three and didn’t let go until the last page. The plot is simple and unoriginal, but it is intriguing and unique when written by Toibin. Also, no male author today knows and writes about women better than he does. Long Island is a sequel to Brooklyn, but it is not necessary to read Brooklyn to enjoy, understand and appreciate Long Island.

Stella St. Vincent was not close to her mother and had no idea who her father was. When her mother dies, she leaves Stella a plane ticket to Paris and little money for her to spend while she is there. Stella, who has lived a quiet, regimented unadventurous, lonely life in New York City hesitantly follows her mothers last wish. In Paris she is exposed to a world of high fashion, delectable food and famous authors.

Ruth Reichl’s description of food and wine are mouth watering. A “foodie” will enjoy The Paris Novel even though the plot is trite and predictable.

Jody Rattler was raised by a single mother in St. Louis. She grew up surrounded by a loving extended family, had a fairly successful career as a singer, and thanks to a financially savvy uncle never had to worry about money. Although she never married or had children, she had twenty-five affairs and a few close friends. Jody considered herself lucky.

I don’t know what to make of Lucky. The writing lacks artistic prose and Jane Smiley’s description of Jody’s life is simplistic, stilted and unemotional. The epilogue, which is probably meant to be a surprise ending, is just ho-hum. It’s hard for me to believe that the author of A Thousand Acres also wrote Lucky.

Although I usually give a short summary of each book I have read, I don’t think it’s necessary with James. James is sort of a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim, the runaway slave. I say sort of because although the first third of the novel adheres pretty closely to Twain’s classic, Jim(James) then becomes separated from Huck and the odyssey takes a different path with James meeting up with a new group of characters.

Parts of James are clever and ironic. For instance when James is hired as a minstrel, he must wear black face make up even though he is black. However, there are other scenes that are not very creative or original. Truth be told, I began reading James doubtful that it could ever be as great as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Just to be sure, I will next read Twain’s novel again, and see if my doubts were correct.

Priya and Ashok Shah have worked hard to give their three children a good life. They had just moved into their dream house in an upper middle class neighborhood in southern California. Just weeks after the move, they are at a dinner party when they receive a phone call informing them that their twelve year old son, Ajay, is at the Los Angeles Police Station. That call triggers the beginning of Priya and Ashok’s realization that the American dream is just that-a dream.

Although A Great Country raises some interesting points for discussion, it tries to cover too many issues in too few pages. Also, the main characters are one dimensional and almost stereotypical.

The title refers to the constructing of the Panama Canal, and Christina Henriquez’s newest novel describes a number of characters directly or indirectly involved in it. John Oswald is a scientist and he and his wife, Marian, leave their home in Tennessee so he can try to solve the mosquito/malaria problem. Ada has left her home in Barbados and sneaks aboard a ship bound for Panama. She hopes to make enough money there, so her sister can have a life saving operation. Omar has taken on the dirty, exhausting job as a digger much to his father’s dismay. Valentina’s childhood home will be moved along with the whole neighborhood because a dam must be erected there. She thinks there is a way to prevent this.

There are too many characters with their back stories for a book of this size. Just when I was getting into Ada’s story, her story line would stop and the novel would begin to describe the death of Omar’s mother. Although The Great Divide brought up some interesting dilemmas about the digging of the canal, it required more pages to flesh out the characters and illustrate what is involved in the making of the Panama Canal.

Recently a customer, knowing how much I admire Niall Williams and am drawn to most things Irish, brought me two of his earlier works of nonfiction which he co-wrote with his wife. I was not disappointed. Together the books cover their first three years in Ireland after leaving their lives and their jobs in Manhattan in 1985. Niall and Christine share in the writing, and each describes in their own way the hardships, trials and joys of learning to farm on the rugged land in western Ireland. The authors never sugar coat the obstacles they face-the cold, the rain, their childlessness, but they also share the sense of community, the friendships they make and the satisfaction they felt when they could finally produce what they ate.

These books are probably hard to find, but I promise it will be worth the effort.

Every year on August 16th Ana Magdalena Bach travels to a tropical island from her home. She goes by ferry to put gladiolas on her mother’s grave. She stays in the same hotel for one night and returns home the next day via the ferry. However, this time she takes a lover for the one night she stays on the island. For the following two years she takes two other men as lovers for that one night. The three men are very different but each has an impact on her life when she returns home.

This novella was published ten years after Marquez’s death. He wrote it while suffering dementia,was unhappy with the results, and asked that it never be published. Two of his sons felt it was well worth publishing, and I am grateful. Although not one his best works, Until August still shows glimmers of Marquez’s genius.