A bare bones portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship past and present.  Lucy Barton grew up poor in a small town in Illinois.  She went off to college, moved to New York and married a man her family didn’t approve of.  After years of hardly any communication, Lucy’s mother comes to visit her daughter in the hospital where Lucy has been for weeks.  While reminiscing, mom and daughter dig up old memories, some buried for years and painful to think about.  Although Lucy’s childhood was difficult and at times traumatic, as Strout points out, there is usually such a strong mother-daughter bond that nothing can completely sever it.

My Name is Lucy Barton would be a great book for a women’s book club.  I envision long discussions about family, child rearing, marriage and loneliness.

Once again Brooks writes a tale of historical fiction from the distant past.  This time she tells of the adult life of David, the Biblical figure who slayed Goliath an went on to rule the nation of Israel.  Brooks gives us insight into a complex leader as well as into some of his wives, children and nephews.  David was a great warrior who could, at times be warm and loving, and, at other times, be cruel and hard-hearted.  Told through the ears, eyes and voice of Natan, David’s seer, The Secret Chord is a must for fans of Geraldine Brooks.

 

FYI-Since January 3rd, I have been working at The Book Bin in Northbrook, Illinois.  If you’re in the neighborhood, come in and visit. It would be great to chat face to face about the books we’ve read and enjoyed.

The focal point of Clegg’s novel is an accident that kills three people the night before a family wedding.  The plot is explained in alternating chapters narrated by survivors of the explosion.  Ironically, these characters led sad, lonesome lives well before that fateful night.  The wedding was to have taken place on the east coast, but much of what happens after the explosion takes place on the western edge of Washington state.

Did You Ever Have a Family? has been long-listed for several well-known book awards and given accolades galore, but I must confess, it just didn’t grab me.  The aftermath of the kitchen accident did not effect me, partly because the characters were one dimensional.  For that reason, I could never get into their heads or feel their pain.

 

I couldn’t wait to read the final novel in Smiley’s trilogy.  Yes, it was just as good a read as the first two, once again filled with memorable members of the Langdon family.  I cried after I finished Golden Age because the ending was sad and also because it was the last I would read of the Iowan farm family.  The only criticism I have, is that once one begins reading the first book in the trilogy, Some Luck, it’s difficult to stop.

This is the second book in Smiley’s Langdon trilogy, a saga about an Iowan farm family over the last 100 years.  I read the first book, Some Luck, a little over a year ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Early Warning is even better.  It covers the years 1953-1986, and Smiley deftly interweaves real life events into the lives of this fictitious family.  Rosanna and Walter Langdon had five children, four of whom married and had children, so there is a large cast of characters.  Fortunately, there is a family tree at the front of the novel, which I relied on often at the beginning but needed less and less as I read on.

Early Warning is a delightful read.  I just reserved the final book in the trilogy at my local library and look forward to learning more about many of these very human characters.

Poetically profound, this second unconventional memoir of Smith’s, describes, for the most part, her life after the death of her husband and brother.  Dreams are interwoven with reality and exotic sites are written side by side with the constants of Smith’s daily life.  There are also sections telling of her awe of certain authors who have made an impact on her and why.  Interspersed throughout this magical memoir are photos taken, most of them with an old Polaroid camera.

M Train is not the type of work that grabs the reader immediately.  Rather, I found that certain images and events of Smith’s popped into my head days after I finished her final chapter.

The subtitle for this work is:  How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World.  Another subtitle that would have been as appropriate is:  How Far Females Have Come in The United States in the Last 60 Years.  Using court cases as well as the personal experiences of O’Connor and Ginsburg, Hirshman illustrates the evolving role and the discrimination women have faced since the mid 1950’s.  To get to where we are today has been a slow, incremental process.

Sisters in Law also gives biographies of two Supreme Court Justices with very different backgrounds, philosophies and political views who still managed to respect each other and work well together.

This much acclaimed novel is, basically, the story of a marriage told from two points of view.  The first half of the book describes the marriage through Lancelot Satterwaite’s eyes.  He is loving, trusting, loyal and has a way of making everyone adore him.  The second half is Mathilde, his wife’s , version.  She has a  past that she goes to great lengths to cover up.  Despite the fact that this is a marriage fraught with secrets, Lancelot(Lotto) and Mathilde are very much in love and are good for each other.

Groff’s sentence structure-sometimes awkward,  with lots of fragments-took a while for me to get used to.  However, despite that, I found Fates and Furies an engaging, thought-provoking read.

In Afghanistan, a family with no sons is able to have one of its daughters follow the ancient custom of bacha posh.  She dresses like a boy, has tasks that a boy normally carries out, and is allowed the freedom boys in her country have until she reaches puberty.  Rahima takes on this custom and it is her narration as well as her great-great-grandmother, Shekiba, who illustrate many of the hardships women in Afghanistan have endured in the last century.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell is very interesting, easy to read and, at times, suspenseful.  Anyone who enjoyed The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns will want to read this debut novel.  I look forward to reading Hamids second work of fiction, When the Moon Is Low, which was recently published.

The perfect book for the reader who wants a good love story with likable characters.  The central focus of Allende’s novel is Alma Belasco, who is forced to leave her family in Poland at the age of eight when Hitler comes to power.  She is sent to live with her wealthy relatives in San Francisco where she eventually falls in love with the gardener’s son.  Subplots include her lover’s life in an internment camp in Arizona, Alma’s caregiver’s troubled, secretive past, as well as a host of engaging characters residing at Lark House, a retirement home.

The Japanese Lover is a work of historical fiction that pursues themes of identity, displacement, exclusion and many types of love.