A Vintage Affair

Isabel Wolff's love of vintage clothing is apparent in her novel A Vintage Affair. The protagonist, Phoebe Swift opens a vintage clothing shop in London, then meets all sorts of interesting people who come in to shop or sell their old clothes.

Each piece of clothing tells a story, and Phoebe quickly gets caught up in the story of a little blue coat belonging to Mrs. Bell, an elderly Frenchwoman who is dying. As Mrs. Bell's story unfolds, so does Phoebes'.

The novel sends Phoebe on a journey into the past that is ultimately healing.  Each piece of clothing becomes an important character in the novel. This is a beautifully written book, a worthwhile read.

All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion

All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion is the latest by Fannie Flag, author of Fried Green Tomatoes.

Flag is a wonderful story teller, and here she tells the true story of the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) who flew during WWII and have been mostly forgotten about.

We meet the Jurdabralinski family from Wisconsin of four girls and one boy, who all but one become pilots during WWII. One of the girls has a baby that is given up for adoption. The baby is taken to Alabama and raised by an eccentric and overbearing mother, and only finds out when she is 60 years old that she was adopted.

It's a wonderful story, full of Southern charm and comedy, that is mostly fiction, but with the true history of the WASPs woven in. A great read.

Telling the Bees

Telling the Bees, by Peggy Hesketh is a beautifully written novel, full of fascinating facts about bees. I wanted to like this novel more than I did, but in the end I found it mostly depressing.

The protagonist, Albert Honig, now in his 80's, looks back on his long and quiet life as a beekeeper, living in the same house he grew up in. Next door is his best friend Claire who he has fallen out of touch with in the last decade of her life. The book opens with Albert finding the the murdered bodies of Claire and her sister and traces back through the past to unravel their story.

A beautiful, yet sad and lonely book full of regret and missed opportunities. It ends with a poignant lesson in letting go. Not until Albert tells the bees of Claire's death, decades after the fact, is he truly able to let her go.

Dust

Dust is the debut novel by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. Owuor was born and raised in Kenya, where this novel is set. It begins with the death of Moses Odidi Oganda, gunned down by police in the streets of Nairobi. His father brings his body home and his sister Ajany  returns home from Brazil after many years away. His mother, full of grief and anger, disappears.

This is the story of a troubled family and their troubled country. Owuor's writing creates an almost trancleike state where we are taken back and forth through time trying to uncover the mysteries of Odidi's death as well as understand the corruption that has been the cause of so many years of civil war in Kenya. At times I found it hard to follow, but it came together by the end.

Owuor writes that the primary three languages in Kenya are Kiswahili, English and Silence. Everyone is afraid to even speak the names of all those who have disappeared, it is like they never existed. This book is Owuors sorrowful love song to her country. A beautiful lament.

The People in the Trees

The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara is a deeply disturbing novel about what happens when western culture collides with an isolated culture on a remote Micronesian island. Most disturbing is that it is very loosely based on a true story.

I had no sympathy for the narrator, Dr. Norton Perina who visits the island and finds that people seem to live for greatly extended lives by ingesting the meat of a rare turtle.

Yanagihara presents the reader with many moral and ethical questions throughout this long and tedious confession by Perina. By the end, I was so tired of this book I could barely finish it, and in fact I wish I hadn't. An exhausting read.

The Invention of Wings

The Invention of Wings is the new novel by Sue Monk Kidd. Kidd brings to life Sarah Grimke and her sister Nina, two famous abolitionists in the early 1800's all but forgotten today.

Kidd re-imagines Sarah's life as it parallels that of a slave named Handful, only one year younger than Sarah and given to Sarah on her 11th birthday. The Grimkes came from Charleston's upper class and it was inconceivable for the sisters to turn against slavery and fight for equal rights for slaves as well as for women, which is exactly what they ended up doing.

Kidd is a wonderful writer, and this is historical fiction at its best. I loved this book.

The Good House

In her novel The Good House, Ann Leary takes us into the life of an alcoholic and all the secrets and denial that come with it.

Hildy Good's family has lived in the same small town in New England for generations. She is now the top selling real estate agent there, selling houses to rich newcomers. Her world is slowly unraveling as she can no longer hide the truth about her drinking from her family and friends, but it takes a long time for her to recognize her own problem.

Leary does a wonderful job creating a portrait of this small coastal town and its inhabitants. At times funny, at times sad, always whip smart. A worthwhile read.