Rhys Kinnick has tried to live a “Thoreau” life for the last several years. He resides alone in the back woods of Washington state with no electricity, no indoor plumbing and no telephone. One day a neighbor of his daughter’s comes to his home with his two grandchildren, Leah and Asher. It seems his daughter, Bethany, their mother, has disappeared leaving a note that her children should be delivered to Rhys. Suddenly, Rhys’s quiet life is thrown upside down as he confronts religious fanatics, Bethany’s husband and an angry ex convict as he attempts to keep his grandchildren with him.

Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins, has written a fast paced, well-written, sometimes comical, sometimes frightening novel. Rhys Kinnick is a sympathetic, yet flawed, character who hopes to be given a second chance to form a bond with his family.

Tony Malik is an FBI agent who is half Arab. He is seriously injured by a terrorist bomb. While nearing the end of his rehabilitation, he decides to attend the wedding of relatives in Palestine. Since he will be in the Mideast anyway, his boss has asked him to meet with the Israeli chief of police. The supposed meeting puts Malik in a dangerous situation and he is pursued by both Israelis and Palestinians.

Interspersed throughout the plot of The Human Scale , Lawrence Wright describes historical facts about this region of constant unrest which for me got in the way of the plot. And although I believe Wright tried to be objective in his story telling, readers who are either pro Israel or pro Palestine will be angered at how he presents this work of fiction. Lawrence Wright should stick to writing nonfiction, which I feel he does best.

Based on true events, Isola, for the most part, describes three years in the life of Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval. Marguerite was born into a wealthy French family. Unfortunately her father died defending his country and her mother died birthing her. Her money and her estate is controlled by her cousin and guardian who is harsh, punitive and frightening. In 1542 she is forced to sail with him to Canada. When he discovers that Marguerite is spending time with his male secretary, he forces her as well as her lover and her loyal servant off the boar onto a small island off the Canadian coast. To survive on this desolate, barren island is almost impossible.

Isola is a fine read. Goodman’s descriptions of life on the island are harrowing but realistic. Marguerite is a well-drawn heroine-willful, intelligent and brave, yet loving and sensitive.

Griffin Hurt, the narrator and main character, is an adolescent with a lot going on in his life. It is the 1990’s and Griffin lives in Manhattan and attends a private school. His father is an actor, his mother teaches dance and is going to graduate school in literature and his younger brother is a rebel. Besides classes, Griffin is on the school wrestling team, acts in a popular television series, is having an affair with a friend of his parents and suffers from unrequited love. Griffin Hurt is a busy teenager, so busy that he doesn’t have time to think about or analyze his behavior.

Playworld is a coming of age novel as well as an homage to New York. Adam Ross spends a lot of words describing streets, intersections and landmarks that Griffin passes on his way from place to place. If you are very familiar with New York, this will be entertaining, but if you’re like me and only know the tourist areas, you might want to skim some of these detailed descriptions. Despite the tour of New York, Playworld is engaging and interesting with a complex main character.

Short-listed for The National Book Award and long-listed for The Man Booker Prize last year, My Friends is the story of Khaled and his two friends, Hosam and Mustafa. All three are Libyans who cannot return to their homeland while Qaddafi is in power. Because each of them are frightened of being discovered by Qaddafi’s spies who are all over Europe, the three friends are overly cautious, secretive and fearful. My Friends is a novel about the love of family, friends and one’s native land, but above all it is about how it feels to be exiled from them.

Hisham Matar is a gifted writer, but My Friends is not for everyone. Although I appreciated it and sometimes found Khaled’s plight awful, My Friends is slow moving and highly descriptive.

A man walking his dog in rural Ireland comes upon an expensive abandoned car with the motor running. After turning off the car, he heads towards the closest house, but on his way learns from the woman’s husband that she fled the car and may have flung herself into the ocean. Detective Strafford and Dr. Quirke are called in to investigate her disappearance.

The Drowned, another Quirke mystery, begins where Banville’s last mystery, The The Lock-Up, ended. It is not essential to have read The Lock-Up before reading The Drowned, but it does help. I don’t read mysteries often, but I appreciate Banville’s prose and enjoy his characters, especially Quirke and Strafford. There is a mystery in The Drowned but at times it is laugh out loud funny and not very mysterious.

With her husband, Richard Goodwin, Doris looks through boxes chock full of papers and memorabilia of Richard’s time working for John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Sifting through tons of material brings back memories and detailed descriptions of the couple’s involvement with the key players in our country during the turbulent 60’s as well as the historic happenings. An Unfinished Love Story gives a personal perspective on the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination, the Viet Nam War, the 1968 Democratic convention and other events during that decade.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a great writer. She writes with feeling, insight, sensitivity and enthusiasm. Having lived through the 60’s, I thoroughly enjoyed An Unfinished Love Story. However, I’m not sure younger generations would appreciate this work of nonfiction as much as I did.

Alexei Navalny was a Russian who fought the Putin dictatorship and other Russian oligarchs. He protested by demonstrating, writing letter, forming opposing organizations and even running in a presidential election. In this memoir which he secretly wrote while he was in prison, we see the human as well as the activist side of Navalny. He was a loving husband, father, son and brother, a brilliant caring intellectual, a man with a sense of humor, a Christian, and a true patriot.

Just when I thought there were no recent works of nonfiction that appealed to me, I found Patriot. When I thought there were so few heroes in the world, I learned in detail about Alexei Navalny. Patriot begins with his poisoning in August of 2020 which he describes in detail, and it never lets up. Navalny’s memoir is infuriating, intellectually stimulating, heart felt and definitely worth reading.

Jonathan Haidt’s work of nonfiction is about something many of us have suspected for a while: the harm that comes from looking at your smart phone too often. His main thesis is that smart phones have done a disservice to children of GenZ( anyone born after 1995), cutting them off from direct contact with their peers, harming their education, introducing them to pornography and resulting in anxiety and depression. Haidt cites statistics, studies and personal experiences that support his theories.

I decided to read The Anxious Generation because it appeared to be the nonfiction buzz book this year. I was not disappointed. The Anxious Generation is not a difficult, dry read. It has interesting examples, easy to understand graphs and statistics, and Haidt certainly convinced me that I, like so many others, am spending too many waking hours looking at my phone!

Blackburn Gant and Jacob Hampton have been friends since they were young children. Blackburn’s face is disfigured from polio. It is now 1951 and Blackburn is the caretaker of the cemetery in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Jacob is the only living child of the town’s wealthiest family. When he elopes with Naomi Clark, his parents are devastated, feeling that she is not good enough for their son. Soon after Naomi learns she is pregnant, Jacob is sent off to Korea. When he comes home wounded, his conniving, unscrupulous parents make the most of this situation.

The Caretaker is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Ron Rash takes a while to set up “the situation,” but once he does, the book takes off. The Caretaker is an easy, exciting, well-plotted read.