The Doll Funeral

The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer is a beautifully written atmospheric novel that follows 13 year old Ruby as she learns shes been adopted and sets off to find her real parents. Set somewhere in a forest town in England, Ruby befriends a group of siblings living on their own who she thinks might help lead her to her real family.

Hamer crosses seamlessly back and forth between the living and the dead as the mystery of Ruby's true family unfolds. A wonderfully hypnotic read.

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was written in 1959 and is one of the first great novels to come out of Nigeria, a country with a rich literary history, so I thought it was time to finally read it. It tells the story of Okonkwo, a strong man of an Ibo village, a warrior with three wives and many children.

This book gives the reader an inside look into African tribal life, and also shows what happens when the missionaries arrive and cultures clash. We see Okonkwo's village life become divided and things begin to fall apart, leading to an ultimately tragic ending. A beautifully written book full of powerful images that will stay with me for a long time.

Origin

Origin by Dan Brown is the latest in the Da Vinci Code Series. This one finds Professor Langdon traipsing around Europe again with another beautiful woman in search of the answers to the questions "Where do we come from and where are we going?" while trying to prevent an all out war between science and religion.

I've always enjoyed Brown's books and never expected excellent writing, but this one was rather silly. If you're a fan of the series, you'll probably want to read this book, if not, don't start here!

Reluctantly Charmed

Reluctantly Charmed by Ellie O'Neill is a book set in Ireland, and not nearly as bad as the title would lead one to believe. Kate McDaid inherits an estate on her 26th birthday from her long dead great great great great aunt of the same name. First she must publish "The Seven Steps" once a week under her own name in order to receive her inheritance. Her aunt was believed to be a witch and the poems written by Fairies.

What follows is a mysterious journey as Olde Ireland meets modern Ireland and thousands around the world come to see if Fairies really do exist. A mildly entertaining read.

We'll Always Have Paris

We'll Always Have Paris by Jennifer Coburn is a Mom/Daughter travel memoir that follows an 8 year old and her mother across Europe on several trips over the course of 8 years. Coburn is convinced she is going to die young since she lost her father at age 19. She decides to take off to Europe with her daughter and make memories while she can.

This is not an exceptionally daring, adventurous or even interesting book. It could have been, but Coburn is a pretty timid traveler and there's nothing much out of the ordinary here. I applaud her for doing this with her daughter despite her fears, it just wasn't enough to make a memorable book. An ok read.

Daughters of Ireland

Daughters of Ireland by Santa Montefiore is a big sweeping novel about three women who grew up in a small village in West Cork Ireland. Their lives have gone in different directions, one to New York, one to South Africa, while the third stays behind in Ireland. The novel moves back and forth through time telling the history of their families and the castle that they all grew up playing in.

A decent read, somewhat forgettable. It left the reader hanging at the end, so surely there is a sequel in the works.

Make Your Home Among Strangers

Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet is a great debut novel about a Cuban immigrant family. It is about the first in the family to go to college and what that experience is like.

Lizet is accepted to an elite, white, New England college and leaves her family behind in Miami. She finds herself swimming in unknown waters, while an Elian Gonzales based story plays out back home. This novel delves into what it means to be true to yourself, your culture, your family and how hard navigating those waters can be even for the smartest of us. A great read.

Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere is the brilliant new novel by Celeste Ng.The book is set in Shaker Heights, a planned community in Ohio, where everyone follows the rules, and all are wealthy. In moves an artist and her daughter who never stay put for long, have very little money, and do things differently. They befriend their landlord's family and all their lives are forever changed.

In the background is the custody battle for a Chinese baby whose mother left her when she was born, but now wants her back. Ng explores so many things in this richly nuanced novel, from cultural identity, to family values, the power of art, questioning the status quo, to finding your own identity, to name just a few. A great read.

Chemistry

Finally a book I loved!

Chemistry is the debut novel by Weike Wang. With deceptively simple prose, Wang explores what it means to succeed in a field full of men. She delves into family loyalty, love, relationships, and the complexities of finding your own place in the world.

Intelligent, witty, funny, honest; a great read.

The From Aways

The From Aways by CJ Hauser is a novel about life in a small town in Maine. Two outsiders who move to town become unlikely friends and work to save the town with the locals from other rich outsiders who threaten to change the way of life in this lobster fishing village.

I wasn't pulled in by the characters, the story or the writing, and it didn't make me want to visit small town Maine, although I know it is lovely there. I found this book disappointing.

Icy Sparks

Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio is a wonderful novel about ten year old Icy growing up in rural Kentucky in the 50's with her grandparents. Icy starts exhibiting signs of Tourette's Syndrome after her tenth birthday, but this goes undiagnosed until she is an adult.

What follows is a beautifully written story of how Icy deals with this. At turns sad, funny, honest; Icy is one of the best characters I've come across in a long time. A great read.

The Woman in the Photograph

The Woman in the Photograph by Dana Gynther is historical fiction about Lee Miller, the woman who was Man Ray's muse in Paris in the 20's. This was a very creative time and place full of artists, musicians, new ideas etc.

I usually love historical fiction, but found this book left me feeling empty, like I hadn't really connected to or learned much about the characters or the period. An interesting subject matter, yet not very well realized. Disappointing.

Two Sisters

Two Sisters by Mary Hogan is a sad story of a family that has been split apart and only at the end come together when one sister is dying of cancer. The mother never finds out until it is too late. Younger sister Muriel was mistreated her whole life by her mother and older sister and wants nothing much to do with her family, her brother already escaped years earlier to New Mexico.

There is some redemption when the sisters find compassion and forgiveness at the end, but overall I found it a rather depressing story with a handful of good moments.

Queen of the Tearling

Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen is book one in a trilogy. I had no idea when this was supposed to be set until I looked it up online. It is a sad picture of a post apocalyptic future in which slavery is back, along with most other horrors of our past, yet books and medicine and knowledge seem to have disappeared.

Nineteen year old Kelsea who has just become queen is a formidable and educated young woman meant to change all this. The story was somewhat interesting, although most of the characters were not well enough developed to understand or care about. A mildly entertaining read that falls flat when compared to others in this genre.

You and Your Teennager

You and Your Teenager, Understanding the Journey by Jeanne Meijis is a book that will help anyone raising a teen. Meijis is a family therapist whose work is informed by Rudolf Steiner. I found this to be one of most useful parenting books I've ever read.

Meijis invites the reader to reflect on their own teenage years, helps the reader understand teenage excess, difficult behavior, boredom, passivity, life in the digital age and more. A worthwhile read.

The Blessings of the Animals

The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle is a novel about a woman whose husband has just left her and she finds healing and solace through her animals. She lives on a farm and is a vet; she takes in many animals that she fosters, from horses and donkeys to goats, dogs and three legged cats.

I think it's a terrible title, but a lovely book. If you have animals in your life then you will be able to relate to this story, if not, it might just make you want to get a pet.

The Circle

The Circle by Dave Eggers is a chilling novel about life in the digital age that was recently made into a movie. When Mae gets a job at the world's most powerful internet company in Silicone Valley she couldn't be happier. It quickly becomes apparent that the company is growing into one large monopoly and every person is expected to participate with total transparency.

The book reads less like science fiction and more a terrifying portrait of life in the modern world where technology and social media have taken over everything and there is no such thing as privacy anymore. I was hoping for a better ending, but still found this a worthwhile, if disturbing, read.

The House at the End of Hope Street

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna Van Praag is a book set in Cambridge, England full of magical realism. After Alba has the worst experience of her life and is forced to leave Cambridge University she finds herself being called to a mysterious house run by a beautiful older woman who takes her in and tells her she can stay there for 99 days while she turns her life around.

There are two other women staying at the house as well as a ghost and numerous famous women pictured on the walls who once stayed there. They have a tendency to come to life from time to time and voice their opinions on all manner of things. With a wonderful cast of literary figures and just the right amount of magic, this book was a joy to read.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is a book more about computers than books. I was very excited to read this book about a small bookstore in San Francisco, only to find it was really about secret societies and breaking codes using mega computers and finding eternal life and very little about books.

That all sounds pretty cool, and some would probably love this, but personally I was disappointed; maybe because I'm jaded at this point and few books written by men live up to my expectations.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is a fantastic new novel by one of my favorite writers, Lisa See. It is about the Akha hill tribe people in the Yunnan region of China, who for generations have farmed tea, and held on to their customs and traditions despite the modern world encroaching upon them.

See has written many books of historical fiction based in China and her books are always meticulously researched, this one is no exception. I loved every page and was sad to come to the end. A perfect book to read with a cup of Yunnan tea or Pu-erh. If you don't know what that is, you will learn while reading this book.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson is a hilarious and mildly disturbing book taken mostly from her blog, The Bloggess. Lawson starts with her early life, growing up poor in rural Texas with a taxidermist Dad and the stories are laugh out loud funny at the same time as they are truly unsettling.

Lawson goes in for shock value each chapter and I was getting a bit tired of it by the end of the book, but still found it one of the funniest things Ive read in a long time.

The Last Anniversary

The Last Anniversary, is an early novel by one of my favorite writers, Liane Moriarty. Moriarty always weaves a good tale full of interesting characters and keeps the reader in a bit of suspense waiting to find out what happens.

Set on tiny Scribbly Gum Island, just off the coast of Sydney, Sophie inherits a house and becomes part of a family mystery about parents who left their newborn baby and disappeared without a trace. As Sophie's biological clock is ticking and she desperately hopes to start a family of her own, the truth about the Scribbly Gum baby might just be coming to light.

An entertaining read, although not nearly as good as her later books.

Quiet Until the Thaw

Quiet Until the Thaw by Alexandra Fuller is a novel about life on the Lakota reservation for two Native American cousins who choose very different paths. Fuller captures the wisdom and humor, as well as great sadness and injustice experienced by the Lakota on the reservation.

Fuller is one of my favorite writers and I still much prefer her non-fiction, but this is an engaging debut novel worth checking out.

The Woman Next Door

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso is a novel set in South Africa in a neighborhood where two older women, one black, one white, live next door to each other. They have both recently lost their husbands and circumstances bring them together even though they have always hated each other.

Omotoso's writing is so subtle you hardly realize you are unearthing the deep pains that reside in a country so long fractured by apartheid. Powerful, funny, incisive and honest. A great read.

Radio Girls

Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford is historical fiction about some of the first women in radio, specifically Hilda Matheson of the BBC. 1920's London, after WW1 when there were beginning to be fascist rumblings from Germany, Matheson was not only a director of the Talks programs at the BBC, but also a spy.

The BBC was one of the few places women could work, and Stratford does a wonderful job of exploring the early days of radio, and what life was like for women who wanted to work and not just get married. A great read.

Faithful

Faithful by Alice Hoffman is a novel about a 17 year old girl who gets in a car crash that leaves her best friend almost dead and in a coma. Shelby, the one who walks away, is devestated and can't forgive herself.

Hoffman is one of my favorite writers; in this book, we travel with Shelby through her breakdown, grief, self destruction and eventual path back towards life, love and happiness.

Beautifully written, a worthwhile read.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is a beautiful book about a very intelligent 12 year old girl and a 54 year old concierge in an apartment building in France that no one notices, because she seems unremarkable, although in truth, she is also quite brilliant. The chapters switch between these two characters as they observe life in the building around them, until a new tenant one day brings them all together.

Beautifully written, full of observations about life and love, art and movies, music, books, cats, Japanese culture, and the inner workings of the mind and heart. Funny, sad, philosophical; I fell in love with this book and the characters and was sad to see it end.

The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness

The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Kyung-Sook Shin is a semi-autobiographical novel about a Korean girl who grows up poor in the countryside and is sent to Seoul when she is 16 to live in a single room with her older brother and cousin and work long hours in a factory. Eventually she continues school and becomes a writer. However, the four years spent working at the factory and living in that single room were so traumatic for her, she blocks them out until she is in her thirties and finally decides to look back on that time and write about it.

We are much the richer for her effort. Beautifully written, this is a look into a world most readers know little about. It's also a reflection on life and art and literature and what it means to be a writer. A worthwhile read.

The Animators

The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker is a novel about two female animators who meet in art school in NYC and set up a studio together to make adult animated films based on their lives. It is partly about their process, and what it means to be an artist, but mostly about their friendship and their raumatic childhoods, one in Florida, the other in Kentucky. Their decade long relationship is the strongest thing in both of their lives, but it can't necessarily save them.

A fast paced, honest, funny, and at times painful debut by a great new writer.

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is a novel about the lifelong friendship between two girls growing up in a rough neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples in the 50's where poverty and violence is the norm. Ferrante captures the feeling of the neighborhood, the struggles both girls face trying to educate themselves and rise above their circumstances. They each do so in different ways, yet remain bound to each other nonetheless.

Beautifully written, Ferrante is a great storyteller and captures the place wonderfully. However, this is the first in the series of four, so it leaves the reader hanging at the end.

Commonwealth

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett is a novel about two families whose lives are thrown together when a father of four kisses a woman, not his wife, at a christening party and suddenly two families are split up. The six step-siblings form an unexpected bond during Summers spent running free together away from their parents.

There is a tragedy and a mystery at the core of the story which is revealed slowly, in parts, as the reader gets to know each of the characters. Beautifully written, this book drew me in from the beginning. Semi-autobiographical, this is one of Patchett's best books.

The Hundred-Year House

The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai is a novel set at Laurelfield, a historic estate filled with secrets and ghosts, and once the home of a famous artists colony. Told from the end of the 20th century to the beginning, it is one of the most masterfully crafted novels I have ever read. It is like piecing together a puzzle, in reverse.

Well written, funny and also tragic, full of wonderful characters and unexpected revelations at every turn, this is a great read.

Light of Paris

Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown, author of Weird Sisters, is a novel that moves back and forth from Paris 1924 to the States 1999. When Madeleine uncovers her grandmother's letters and journals from her time in Paris when she was young, she forms a whole new opinion of the woman she hardly knew. Dealing with an oppressive marriage, the journals just might be the inspiration she needs to set off on an adventure of her own.

I've read many books in this format lately and there's nothing very original here, however, it is loosely based on the authors own grandmother. A sweet, easy read. It's always enjoyable to get lost in Paris for a while.

Inside the O'Briens

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genoa, author of Still Alice, is a look at little known neurological disease called Huntington's. When Boston police officer Joe O'Brien begins dropping things, losing his temper, forgetting things and having involuntary spasms, his wife takes him to the doctor and he is diagnosed with Huntington's disease. There is no cure, just a slow degeneration over a decade or two until death and a fifty percent chance that each of his four kids will get it.

Genoa has a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, so this is a well informed, compassionate look at the human side of this devastating disease. As beautifully written as Still Alice, this is a worthwhile read.

Harmony

Harmony by Carolyn Parkhurst is a novel about a family with two daughters, one autistic, and a family searching for help understanding how to deal with it. The mother meets an educator who is starting a camp out in the woods in New Hampshire, free of modern technology where families can come with their special needs kids and live in a healthy, technology free, communal way.

There are big red flags and it is clear from the start that something is going to go tragically wrong; I didn't like the ending of the book. However, Parkhurst writes with such compassion and insight about a family dealing with an autistic child that I couldn't put it down. A beautifully written, brilliant novel.

Pekoe Most Poison

Pekoe Most Poison, A Tea Shop Mystery, by Laura Childs takes us back to the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston with another murder for proprietor and amateur sleuth Theodosia Browning to investigate. This time one of the town's wealthy elite drops dead at a fancy tea party in front of fifty or so guests, any one of which could be the murderer.

Nothing heady here, just a bit of fun to read with a good cup of tea, and loads of great tea and tea-time recipes in the book are sure to please tea lovers.

The Garden of Small Beginnings

The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman is a sweet, if a bit predictable, novel about a woman who lost her husband three years ago and with the help of her sister is raising her two young daughters. She gets a job illustrating a book about vegetables, so work pays for her to take a gardening class where she meets various interesting people and maybe even the man of her dreams.

There were some laugh out loud moments, make you cry moments and surprisingly tender moments. Overall I enjoyed the book. Sweet, harmless, enjoyable, just not knock your socks off great, which I was hoping for.

Barren Cove

Barren Cove by Ariel S.Winter is a futuristic sci-fi novel about a world in which robots rule and very few humans are left alive. One older human built robot retreats to Barren Cove where a sick aging human is said to live. There he meets other robots and ponders the meaning of his existence.

There were moments when this book was quite thoughtful and interesting, and other moments when it seemed silly and depressing. Although I enjoyed it while reading it, by the end I was left feeling melancholy, the whole story was rather sad and pointless.

Circling the Sun

Circling the Sun by Paula McClain is my favorite kind of book. Historical fiction about a fascinating woman ahead of her time, in this case Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Beryl is English born, then brought to Kenya as a young child. Her mother returns to England after only two years and when she is five she is left alone with her father who raises racehorses and owns a farm. It is a wild and free life.

If you liked Out of Africa, you will love this book. Beryl becomes fast friends with Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen who are the center of Isak Dinesen's novel, and appear here as well. A great read, full of romance and adventure.

The Guineveres

The Guineveres by Sarah Domet is a novel about four teenage girls named Guinevere each left by their family at a Convent. Intermixed with the chapters about the girls are stories of female saints who all suffered brutally.

I kept waiting for something interesting to happen the whole book, and when it finally did I was unsure if it was more ridiculous or disturbing. Either way, a sad, depressing, highly disappointing read. This is one to skip.

All The Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a masterpiece. I put off reading this book for some time as I had to take a break from reading books set during WWII. Although it is truly sad and tragic in many ways, its also one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

The story follows Werner, a young German orphan living in a mining town with few prospects, until he is noticed for his ability to build radios and fix things; and Marie-Laure, a blind French girl living with her father in Paris. The characters, the story, the writing are all brilliant, this is one not to be missed. I just wish it had been a little less heartbreaking.

Pond

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett is a rambling little stream of consciousness book of connected stories of daily life by an unnamed female narrator living in an unnamed coastal village in an unnamed European country. She spends a lot of time eating porridge and taking out the compost.

Some reviewers found this book brilliant and highly original. I found it interminable.

A Portrait of Emily Price

A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay is a novel about an art restorer who meets and falls in love with an Italian chef, then marries him after two weeks and follows him home to Italy. Once there, she has a hard time fitting in; mostly she tries to fix everyone and everything and begins questioning her life choices and marriage.

A somewhat charming, yet forgettable read.

The Red Car

The Red Car by Marcy Demansky is a deceptively simple little novel that packs a real punch. When Leah gets a call in NY that her old boss and mentor died in a car accident and left her her red car, Leah flies out to SF for her funeral, leaving her possessive husband behind. There, her old life awaits her and she finds herself on a journey of self discovery in the very car that killed her friend, a car she has always hated.

Always unexpected, never boring, I was happy to go along for the ride wherever The Red Car might take her. A great read.

Ways to Disappear

Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey is an original debut novel about a Brazilian writer who one day takes a small suitcase, climbs into a tree and disappears. This sends her two grown children and her American translator on a quest to find her. They discover she had an online gambling debt, is being chased by a loan shark and might be in contact with her editor.

The writing is brilliant, I liked it better than I liked the characters or the story, which usually isn't enough, but this time it almost is. Novey has written such a unique novel, from the perspective of being a translator herself, that I was willing to follow her just about anywhere. A worthwhile read.

The Book That Matters Most

The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood is a novel about Ava, a woman living in Providence, Rhode Island. Her husband of 25 years leaves her for an old fling, her grown kids are both living abroad and she finds herself alone and lonely, until she joins a book club. This book club is much more serious than any I have ever been a part of, it was intimidating just reading about it. Each person picks the book that mattered most to them in their lives and they read one a month,

Ava's book sends her on a journey of discovery into her past and also into the present life of her daughter who is drifting and in trouble in France. Hood ties it all up a little too neatly at the end, but I always enjoy a good book about good books, and this was no exception.

The Dollhouse

The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis is historical fiction based on the Barbizon Hotel for women, referred to as The Dollhouse in the 50's, and the women who lived there.

Mystery unfolds as present day journalist Rose tries to discover what happened on a tragic night in 1952 to one of the older women still living in the building. Rich in detail of NYC's jazz scene at the time, and full of colorful characters, this should have been a great book.

However, something fell flat. I found it predictable and I didn't quite believe in the characters, especially Esme. A mildly interesting, just ok read.

Swimming Lessons

Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller is a novel set in Dorset, England. A mystery involving the disappearance and assumed drowning of a mother with ten and fifteen year old daughters. During the last days before her disappearance, she wrote letters to her husband and placed them in the books piled all over the house. Eleven years later, believing he has spotted his missing wife, the father takes a bad fall and the daughters come home to take care of him.

Well written, and if you enjoy a good mystery, you might like this book. However, I didn't really like any of the characters and the book left me feeling very sad. There was no real resolution, it was all a bit hopeless. My recommendation, skip it.

The Revolving Door of Life

The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith is part of his 44 Scotland Street Series. I've read a couple of these, so far this is my favorite. McCall Smith is back with his usual charm and wit; this time Bertie's Mother is on a prolonged stay in the Persian Gulf. When his Grandmother arrives from Portugal, she quickly cancels his yoga, psycho-therapy and Italian lessons, orders him a pizza and gets down to the business of letting him be a little boy for once.

Full of wonderful characters, funny, wise and heartfelt, McCall Smith is at his best here. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick is a sweet book about a sixty-nine year old man whose wife of forty years has just died. On the one year anniversary of her death, he decides to clean out her closet and finds a gold charm bracelet unlike anything he has ever seen his wife wear. It sets him on a trail of discovery and travel as he finds the meaning behind each charm and uncovers his wife's long held secrets from before they met.

If you're in the mood for a charming, funny, heartfelt adventure, this is the book for you. It's hard not to like Arthur Pepper and hope for the best for him. A sweet, easy read.

When Women Were Birds

When Women Were Birds, Fifty Four Meditations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams is a beautiful, poetic, meditative memoir that is written in honor of Tempest William's mother, who has passed away and left her her journals; three shelves of journals she was instructed not to read until her mother was gone. When she opened them, she found every single one blank.

This book is Tempest William's reflections on what that might mean, and we are richer for the experience of reading it. Beautifully written, full of wisdom and grace, I loved this book.

The Girls

The Girls is the debut novel by Emma Cline that's gotten a lot of buzz so I was curious to read it. Beautifully written and heartbreaking all at the same time. Cline explores the interior life of lost teenage girls who get caught up in a CA cult at the end of the 60's led by an enigmatic, yet creepy older guy; yet she fails to capture the essence of the times and how this place might have seemed a haven for a generation rebelling against the system.

It's hard to follow all the way to the inevitable climax of the book, as the writing is much better than the story itself. I didn't like the way the protagonist still felt scared and powerless years later even as a grown woman. A grim picture of how things can go very wrong for girls without a support system to show them what they're really worth. Although Cline is undeniably a gifted writer, I was disappointed by this book.

The Lion in the Living Room

I was so excited to read The Lion in the Living Room by Abigail Tucker and I couldn't have been more disappointed. This is non-fiction, with the sub-title How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World. I wish I could invite Tucker to spend just a few hours with me and my cats to prove how wrong most of the information in this book is.

If you're truly a cat lover you will most likely disagree and dislike a large part of this book, if you're not, you simply won't be interested, so I'm not sure who this is marketed towards. This is one I wish I would have skipped, a complete waste of time.

The Mountain Story

The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens is a novel about 4 broken people who get lost on a Mountain in Southern California for 5 days and not all of them make it out alive. Told years later by a Father to his son, it's a harrowing tale of survival and bravery, family and friendship.

I didn't really enjoy the book as I kept waiting for the inevitable bad things to happen. However, it was well written, and if you like these kinds of books, then it is a good read.

Lab Girl

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren is a memoir by a brilliant scientist telling of her early days in her Dad's lab in Minnesota, through her education and struggles to make it as a female botanist with a lab of her own. She shares the journey with her eccentric lab partner Bill and eventually a husband and son. She is now a tenured professor at the University of Hawaii.

Part personal history, part a love story to science and plants, this book will make you want to go out and plant a tree. I would have loved to learn more about the split with her parents, her mental health issues, her husband, son, students, she seems to care mostly about Bill; but since her lab is the focus of the book, I suppose it is understandable. Overall I found it beautifully written and at times painfully honest, I feel richer from having read this book. A recommended read.

To the Bright Edge of the World

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child, is historical fiction based on the 1885 exploration of Lt. Henry T. Allen into Alaska after the US purchased it from Russia. In the novel, Colonel Allen Forrester leads a small party up the Wolverine River into totally uncharted territory encountering Native American Indians along the way, facing starvation, and meeting shamans and other mythic creatures that blur the lines between the human and animal world.

Back home, his wife Sophie, a naturalist and photographer in her own right, waits for her husband's safe return. Pieced together through journal entries, letters, newspaper articles, photos and museum archives, Ivey has created a story that captures Alaska’s vast unknown wilderness and the vast unknown wilderness of our own human soul. A stunning achievement and worthy follow up to The Snow Child. A great read.

This Must Be the Place

This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell is a novel set in the remote countryside of Ireland, in London and NYC. This is one of the few books I've read that skips around in time, is narrated by several different people, yet was very easy to follow. O'Farrell has crafted a wonderful story of a man in love with a reclusive ex-movie star, who has children in two different parts of the world and is thrown into chaos when a piece of his past comes back to haunt him.

Beautifully told, through all the characters voices. I loved this book. I didn't want to put it down. O'Farrell captures the depth of her characters, their strengths and flaws and all the things that make them human. A great read.

The Mortifications

The Mortifications by Derek Palacio is a novel about a mother and her son and daughter who leave their father behind and escape Cuba on the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. They head north to start a new life in Connecticut. The mother eventually meets a Dutch tobacco farmer and they all seem to be settled in their new life in America.

However, the call of one's homeland is hard to silence. Palacio does a good job of showing just how strong that pull can be, and how strong the bonds of family can be. Ultimately I found the book rather depressing and it reminded me that I generally prefer books written by women.

The Comet Seekers

The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick is a beautiful book which traces two families back and forth through centuries as they follow comets around the world. Francios, a French chef living with his mother who sees and talks to ghosts, family members who have passed; Roisin, an Irish astronomer who has left her small village to travel and see the world, struggling with ghosts of her own.

When these two meet at a lonely outpost in Antarctica, they find an unlikely connection and the story unfolds from there. Beautifully written, Sedgwick shows the distances we each need to travel in order to come home to ourselves. A great read.

Grief is the Thing With Feathers

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter is a novella, a poem, a fable, an essay on grief; it is impossible to categorize, it is simply a brilliant piece of writing. After an accidental death leaves two young boys and their father alone without their mother, Crow comes to visit, and stay.

Crow, trickster, therapist, shaman, baby-sitter, mythological figure, call him what you will, he is here to stay until he is no longer needed, kind of like Nanny McPhee.

What follows is one of the most beautiful and original books I have ever read. It blew me away. A highly recommended read.

Hot Milk

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy is a novel about Sofia, a daughter who has traveled to the coast of Spain with her mother Rose seeking a specialist to find a cure for Rose's limb paralysis. It is a mysterious illness that has plagued her for most of her life, with no apparent cause.

Sofia's life is on hold while she tries to attend to her mother. This is her somewhat late coming of age story, a deep look into her interior life and her relationship with her mother. Levy is a talented writer and this book is interesting and original, yet disjointed. I was never drawn in enough to care about any of the characters deeply, even Sofia; and the title remains a mystery.

Sight Reading

Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay is a novel set in the world of classical music, from Boston  to Vienna and across Europe. Three lives intertwine as Hazel and then Remy fall in love with composer Nicholas Elko.

What makes this book special is Kalotay's writing and her ability to create characters full of flaws and emotions covering the full spectrum of what it means to be alive and human. Her love of music saturates the book. A good read.

A Sudden Light

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein is set in the Pacific Northwest. Fourteen year old Trevor and his father travel to his father's childhood home to try to persuade his aging grandfather to sell the house and move into a retirement home, which would solve their financial problems, but of course things are a bit more complicated than that.

What ensues is a journey into generations of the families past, some appearing as ghosts to tell their stories to Trevor about the land and people they loved. Nothing is as it seems, including Trevor's Aunt.

A well written, multi-generational coming of age tale full of just the right amount of magic. I didn't like the ending, but overall it was a good read.

The Muse

The Muse by Jessie Burton is her follow up novel to The Miniaturist. The novel focuses on two women, one a painter living in Spain in 1936, the other a Caribbean immigrant living in London in 1967 working at an art gallery. One mysterious painting links their lives together and it is an ongoing mystery throughout the novel to try to figure out exactly how.

Beautifully written, full of gorgeous details and woven together in a way only Burton seems able to do; I couldn't put it down. A great read.

The Shadow

Wake of Vultures/Conspiracy of Ravens-The Shadow Books 1 & 2 by Lila Bowen are fantasy horror books and not something I would normally read. I loved Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, but these books cannot compare.

Set in the 1870's Old West, we follow Nettie, a half black-half Indian slave girl who doesn't know anything about her origins or what she really is. She escapes, dresses like a boy, changes her name to Rhett, gets a job with the Durango Rangers and sets off to hunt and kill monsters of all sorts, from werewolves, to shape-shifters, harpies, chupacabras, vampires and many more; all the while talking with a Texas drawl and doing a lot of fighting and spitting. Mildly interesting for their exploration of gender identity, but just not my cup of tea.

Absalom's Daughters

Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne Feldman is a novel about two girls, one black one white, with the same daddy who left them to grow up poor in rural Mississippi in the 50's. When they find out there might be money left to them, they take off in a broke down car with little food and money and head to Virginia hoping to find their inheritance.

This is a beautifully written novel, shining light on all different kinds of racism and prejudice and exploring what it means to be family. With a little bit of magic thrown in, their adventure takes them to wholly unexpected places that I was happy to follow. A great read.

Vinegar Girl

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is a modern day retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. It is brilliantly written, funny, clever, witty, wise and a bit outrageous.

Kate, the older daughter is stuck in a boring job, taking care of her father and her pretty younger sister and she has become bitter. When her Father comes up with a ridiculous plan to help further his work that involves Kate, she wants no part of it. What follows is hilarious and heartfelt.

A great read by an amazing writer.

Piece of Mind

Piece of Mind by Michelle Adelman is a novel about Lucy, a 27 year old woman who suffered a brain injury when she was 3 that left her missing certain brain functions. She loves to draw animals, read comic books and knows everything about coffee. After she is forced to move in with her college age younger brother and start fending for herself for the first time in her life, everything changes, and she finds that she is much more capable than she believed herself to be.

This is a beautifully written debut novel; it's impossible not to root for Lucy every step of the way. Smart, funny, full of compassion, a great read that you won't soon forget.