I am a huge fan of Dave Eggers.   He is a great writer, his heart is in the right place, and each of his works is different from anything else he has written.  His newest is a biography of a young man I had never heard of,  yet came to admire after I read The Monk of Mokha.

Mokhtar Alkanshali grew up in one of the poorest areas of San Francisco; however, he was hard-working, intelligent, engaging and quick on his feet.  With very little backing or knowledge of what he was getting into, he set out to help the people of his parents’ native land by bringing coffee growing back to Yemen.  Yemen was the first country to grow and brew coffee centuries back, and Mokhtar feels by reintroducing the world to their coffee, the country will overcome its negative reputation and give jobs to many of the country’s unemployed.  However, to attain his lofty goal, he must face many dangerous, life threatening encounters.

This is not the kind of book that I ordinarily read, but the buzz about it sounded intriguing.  It is difficult to categorize this work of nonfiction, but I guess, in a nutshell, the author goes back in history and discusses religion, art, sociology and conflicts to predict what our future possibly could be.  One of his basic premises it that most of humankind’s history has been shaped by war, plague and famine.  However, recently advances in science, medicine and agriculture have greatly diminished these disasters.  So what will shape us now?  Harari is a master of examples.  His knowledge and his ability to translate difficult concepts and ideas into simple language and situations are incredible.  Homo Deus is provocative and, at times, frightening, but I am certainly glad I read it.

I have put off writing about Autumn because it is difficult for me to summarize and describe.  Daniel Gluck, age 101, and Elisabeth Demand, 30ish, have known each other for almost thirty years.  They were neighbors, confidantes, and now Elisabeth visits Daniel weekly in a nursing home where most of his time is spent sleeping.  Through dreams, memories and snippets of conversations, we learn about their lives, their interests and the state of the world.  Autumn is not chronological , and although the writing is beautiful in some places, the first part of the novel takes some work and can be confusing.  However, there is a reason it was short-listed for The Man Booker Award.  It is lyrical,  full of feeling and thought-provoking.  Autumn is the first of Smith’s quartet, each representing a season.

In 1969 the four Gold children, Varya, Daniel, Karla and Simon visit a fortune teller who tells them the date that each of them will die.  For the rest of their lives, this pronouncement will effect many parts of their lives.  Simon, the youngest, runs off to San Francisco when he is sixteen, works in a gay nightclub and becomes a ballet dancer.   Karla becomes a musician and performs one very dangerous feat.  Daniel is a doctor who gives physicals to army recruits and then decides if they’re physically able to serve.  And Varya, the eldest, works in a lab with primates, hoping to discover ways that human longevity can be increased.  As we learn more about each of the Golds, we are introduced to other equally interesting characters.

Don’t be put off by the preface of The Immortalists.  Benjamin’s debut novel is a riveting work about fate and families.

The title of this debut novel refers to the main character and narrator, twelve year old Dave Greenfeld.  Dave is the son of hippie-like parents, the older brother of a boy who is not autistic but hasn’t said a word for years, and the grandson of a man who left Germany at the beginning of the Holocaust and has felt guilty ever since for the relatives he left behind.  Dave’s parents are liberal thinkers who feel it would be advantageous for him to attend public school where the majority of the students are Black or Hispanic.   Dave has blond curly hair and fair skin, so he is an easy target for other students.  However, life takes an upward turn when he becomes friends with Marlon, a motivated student from the projects who doesn’t fit in either.

Dave speaks as a street kid would, so it took me a little while to figure out everything he was saying.  Once I caught on, I realized Dave Greenfeld had a lot to say about pre-teen angst, the feel of being an outsider and some of the problems with race relations.

This novel by the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry takes place, for the most part, on a small street in an English town that is not thriving.  The main character, Frank, owns a record store.  He employs a quirky, clumsy young man named Kit and refuses to sell CD’s.  In fact, he is adamant that he will always only sell vinyl.   Frank also has the uncanny gift of finding a recording that will help each of his customers feel better.   As the novel unfolds, we are introduced to other merchants who have shops on Unity Street as well as Frank’s eccentric mother and a mysterious young woman named Ilse.

If you’re a music fan and enjoy nothing more than a feel good read,  this is the book for you.  The Music Shop has it’s sad, touching moments, but the happy times outweigh them.

Taking place in Victorian England, Perry describes life in a small village in Essex where a serpent is believed by some to have caused the untimely deaths of a few of its citizens.  Central among the book’s characters is Will Ransome, a minister who doubts the validity of the serpent, Stella, his wife, who firmly believes it exists and Cora Seaborne, a young widow from London who feels love and empathy for both Will and Stella.  There are love triangles galore in this debut novel, with interesting, realistic secondary characters.

The Essex Serpent is a slow read written in the style of a Victorian novel with letters interspersed throughout the text.  The story contains a slowly evolving plot with much detail about the Essex environment.

Eitan Green, a neurosurgeon living in a small city in Israel, is out driving his SUV in the desert late at night when he accidentally hits and kills an illegal Eritrean immigrant.  He leaves the scene, returns to his home where his wife, a police detective,  and his two sons are sound asleep, and unknowingly sets off a series of unexpected, sometimes dangerous, events.  From that night on, Eitan’s life is one lie after another.  And each new happening means he has to cover his tracks more scrupulously.

Waking Lions has it all-great writing, suspense, fleshed-out characters and moral dilemmas.  Furthermore, it brings up themes of guilt, the Mideast conflict, illegal immigrants and how well do we truly know ourselves or others.  I eagerly await Gundar-Goshen’s second novel.

There are four main characters in this readable, enjoyable novel.  Collin is the chalk artist, a very talented young man who falls in love with Nina, a serious women who wants more than anything to be a good teacher.  She teaches Aidan, a bright adolescent who is obsessed with video games, and consequently is doing poorly in school.  His twin sister, Diana, understands her brother’s problems but is also coping with her feelings of isolation and inferiority.  As these four pass into and out of each others’ lives, Goodman deftly weaves in themes of love, truth, artistry, obsession and loneliness.

I really liked The Chalk Artist.  It’s the kind of book I would take on vacation-interesting, not too complex and well-written. although there are some scenes of Aidan playing video games and Collin designing them that were more detailed than I thought necessary

Although I’m fond of Louise Erdrich’s novels, I understand that she is not for everyone.  Usually her works are slow reads about Ojibwe customs and characters.  This time she ventured onto a new path-a dystopic novel.   Cedar Songmaker is pregnant, the worst thing that can happen to a woman at the time this novel takes place.  Scientists and doctors believe that evolution has been put in reverse, and pregnant women are being rounded up and put into prison-like hospitals.  If their babies are born abnormal, the “authority” decides what is to be done to the mother and the infant.  Cedar is on the run to escape what she is sure is a bleak future for her and her unborn child.  While trying to elude those in power, Cedar finds out secrets about her birth and her adoptive parents.

Although this is really not my kind of novel, there were times when I was caught up in Cedar’s adventure.