Final Five Favorites

Forty-eight more hours and we'll be in a new year, a new decade. My expectations for 2020 are way too high so I'd better guard my heart. One thing that does not cause me trepidation however is knowing full well that we will be gifted with a plethora of grand new novels from our favorite writers and glorious debuts from names that have yet to cross our radar. For all of these, I am deeply grateful.

One novel on my top ten list that didn't seem to get the buzz I thought it deserved was "Find Me," Andre Aciman's follow up to the luminous "Call Me By Your Name." If you haven't read the first book then, I can't believe I'm

suggesting this, see the movie. It's worth it for the Italian scenery alone. Afterwards you can fall into the most romantic novel I read this year. Here's what I had to say in "Library Journal."

Love in all its sublime iterations is at the heart of Aciman's incandescent sequel to the acclaimed Call Me by Your Name. It's been ten years since the heartbreaking end to the passionate summertime affair between 17-year-old piano prodigy Elio and his father's protégé, Oliver, an American graduate student living with them in Italy. Now Elio resides in Rome, visited frequently by his father, Samuel. The two languidly walk the streets, revisiting places that have been meaningful to each and eventually sharing these vigils with new lovers. In sensuous prose, Aciman creates honest relationships unfettered by age, gender, or time, perfectly capturing that initial hesitancy one experiences when embarking upon an intimate liaison. The joy and mystery of music, so wondrously described that you can hear it, features prominently in the story when Elio bonds with Michel, whom he meets at a chamber concert in Paris. Though Elio and Michel care deeply for each other, readers will wonder if Elio can ever forget his first love and whether Oliver, a married professor with two children, will ever find his way back to Elio.

And then there's the poet Ocean Vuong whose debut novel with the striking title, "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous," brought me to my knees. https://bit.ly/2QbD9CM

Australian journalist Trent Dalton created Eli Bell, the most delightful twelve-year-old narrator I've ever spent time with. "Boy Swallows Universe" is unlike

any novel I've ever read so you can imagine how shocked I was to discover that this sprawling saga of familial chaos, organized crime, magical happenings, violence, and tenderness reflects Dalton's own coming-of-age experience. Yes, this book landed on "Library Journal's" top ten literary fiction books of the year. I didn't have to sell it. We all agreed.

I've been reading Alice Hoffman for at least thirty years but she became inordinately special to me several years ago when she attended the Southwest

Florida Reading Festival http://readfest.org/ to accept an award, not just for the depth and breadth of her writing, but for her work advocating for breast cancer survivors. "The World That We Knew" stood out for me this year as one of her very best. https://bit.ly/2SHvgXx

Note to my local readers! William Kent Krueger will be speaking at this year's reading festival on Saturday, March 7th. See the link above. He'll be discussing "This Tender Land," my final pick for 2019's top ten list. A writer of such warmth and heart, Krueger finds redemption in even the most despicable characters. His writing is a marvel of eloquence couched in simplicity. https://bit.ly/2F6QIgB

That's it folks. I could add ten more to the list but who would read through all that. Here's to a glorious new year, healthy, peaceful, and full of a lot more love. Happy reading to all and please comment, comment, comment. I really want to know what you're enjoying. 2020, here we come!

Favorite Reads of 2019

Here we are at the end of another year, another decade in fact, and I'm still sharing my reading habits with you. When I'm feeling more sentimental I should probably go back over the last fifteen or twenty years to revisit my choices, see which books have stood the test of time for me and which ones were just fly by night. When I write for "Library Journal" I am reviewing for book buyers around the country and my criteria for what should be purchased often differs from my criteria for a favorite. This list reflects the top ten titles, out of the over one hundred books that I spent time with this year, that truly spoke to me, to my heart and to my gut. The first five, in no particular order are:

"The Disappearing Earth" by Julia Phillips. Here's what I had to say about this one which met all the criteria for me. It also landed on several other "best of"

lists this year. 

In her dazzlingly original debut novel, Phillips imagines a cold, desolate climate inhabited by characters who exude warmth and strength. This cinematic setting is the far eastern Russian peninsula, Kamchatka, where white Russians and indigenous tribes uneasily coexist. In the chilling opening chapter, two sisters vanish after a day at the beach, and though a witness describes seeing them with a man in a shiny black car, the authorities come up empty. Three years earlier in a village many hours further north, a Native girl also disappears, but she is dismissed as a runaway. Phillips cleverly weaves these two incidents through subsequent chapters that cover a year in the lives of her many vividly drawn characters, illustrating the subtle effects of racism on the investigation. Themes of dark and light pervade the narrative. Outsiders, those with darker skin or hair, are blamed for an uptick in crime. Prejudice blinds people to the truth until two grieving mothers, brought together by a photographer with a penchant for nosing into other people's business, manage to see past their differences to their shared loss and courage. 

"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. I fought reading this novel for

way too long for my own foolish reasons. Here's what I wrote about why it ultimately captivated me.

Delia Owens is a renowned naturalist and her knowledge of the environment informs every page of this lush, lyrical novel. Set in the marshes of the North Carolina coast, (which smelled and felt much like the mangrove swamps of southwest Florida), this is an exploration of extreme loneliness and disconnection. Owens gives readers something that's so hard to find any more - an original story, a novel that you simply can't put down. Combining poetry, mystery, character analysis, and enduring love amid horrifying abuse.





"Save Me the Plums" by Ruth Reichl. http://readaroundtheworld-sallyb.blogspot.com/2019/03/recalling-how-much-i-love-food-memoirs.html

"The Old Drift" by Namwali Serpell is a large, luscious, multi-generational, historical novel. This is a remarkable debut, one of those books that you can revel in, lost within the language, the characters, and never want to put down.

Set in Rhodesia at the time of those infamous explorers, Stanley and

Livingstone, the story is based upon the building of the first railroad over the great Zambezi River at Victoria Falls but the narrative ranges from the late 1800's to 2024. http://readaroundtheworld-sallyb.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-old-drift.html

And then the novel that helped me recuperate from surgery when I was feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable. Julie Orringer's "The Flight Portfolio," set in and around Marseilles, France, throughout 1940 and 1941, as the Nazis invade and install the pro-Fascist Vichy government. http://readaroundtheworld-sallyb.blogspot.com/2019/06/flight-portfolio-soars.html

My final five best for the year will be coming in a day or two. Stay tuned!

Leonard Pitts, Jr.

I first became acquainted with the passionate social commentary of Leonard Pitts, Jr. (http://www.leonardpittsjr.com/about.html)when his Pulitzer Prize-winning column was syndicated in my local Ft. Myers newspaper. I followed him for years, at least until I dropped my subscription after "The News-Press" sold its soul to "USA Today." When I heard that Pitts was turning his talents to fiction I was thrilled but found the first novel I read, "Freeman," less than thrilling. I'm happy to report that his latest effort, "The Last Thing You Surrender," is a stellar work of historical fiction.

"He was dreaming of home when the explosion came." From the very first line Pitts lets readers know that this will be an explosive book. Marine private George Simon is thrown from his bunk in the ship docked at Pearl Harbor, and as the water rushes in and he tries to navigate with a broken hip, we learn everything we need to know about George Simon while he ruminates for several pages on the likelihood of death. 

And then a vision appears, a "hulking colored guy" who George recognizes from the mess hall where the black soldiers cook and serve food to the enlisted men. As Gordy hauls George up onto his back, eventually carrying them both to safety, we intuit that the lives of these two men, one white and one black,  hailing from very different sections of Mobile, Alabama, will be forever intertwined.

An incredible amount of research went into the writing of this novel even as Pitts mines the experiences of his own father, a corporal in the United States Army during World War II. To readers my age it's no secret that the armed forces were still segregated in the 1940's and that black troops were despicably treated. I guess I assume that everyone is knowledgeable about the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Eleanor Roosevelt flew with one of the black pilots to bring about awareness of their heroic feats. But, have you heard of the Black Panthers? http://www.761st.com/18update/2018a/ I certainly had not. Another shortcoming in my education!

Pitts brings alive the struggles of the 761st tank battalion to be respected and commissioned to battle through the complex character of Luther Hayes, whose visceral hatred of the United States, its military, and the white men who run it, stems from the unspeakable trauma of having witnessed the lynching of his parents when he was only nine years old. Through a strange quirk of fate Luther's redemption from life as an imprisoned alcoholic will come through the intervention of his sister Thelma and George's father, Atty. John Simon.

I simply could not put this book down. It is wrenchingly violent and realistically tragic, in that horrific things do happen to good people. Man's inhumanity to man is seen not just in the Japanese prisoner of war camps but right here in the shipyards of Mobile where black workers were ostracized and abused. George Simon will lose his faith in God even as Thelma Hayes will make a momentously faith-inspired decision. You will be appalled at the evil Pitts reveals even as you may sob at the acts of love and redemption. 

At a time when so many younger writers seem to lean in to gimmicky means of grabbing a reader's attention or priding themselves on deliberately obtuse prose to be waded through rather than enjoyed, Leonard Pitts, Jr. has created a straight forward, honest story steeped in the accurate history of a flawed country yearning, I have to believe, to be better. 

This is How it Always Is

I'm not sure if it's the kind of novels that I read for Library Journal, the current state of our politics, or a combination of both, but I realized how jaded I've become when, a quarter of the way through this lovely, uplifting novel, I told my friend Don that it wasn't believable to me. The family is just too wonderful. How sad is that?

Laurie Frankel's "This Is How it Always Is" ventures into territory that's apparently unfamiliar to many people based upon the reactions of our library's book group which met earlier today to discuss it. As I mentioned in my last post regarding "Frankissstein," gender dysphoria, gender fluidity, or questions of sexual identity fascinate me. My own step-family spent years helping a daughter transition to a man. It is hard work but with love and encouragement it can result in celebration. 

Rosie, an ER physician, and Penn, a stay at home dad and budding novelist, have an enviable marriage. They are friends, they talk to and fully support each other and their family of five boys. Rosie always wanted at least one girl, so when her toddler, Claude, shows a preference for tutus and fairy wings over balls and bats, she feels no need to worry. But when Claude comes down the stairs dressed for his first day of school in, well, a dress, Penn and Rosie realize that they may have been naïve about the hurdles they are about to face.

There is so much to learn here and Frankel, who is mom to a transgender child herself, does an exquisite job of teaching readers without being pedantic. She doesn't shy away from the fact that parenting a child who feels that he or she is in the wrong skin affects the entire family. Siblings may be supportive to a point but communication is key and secrets will ultimately be destructive. 

After a terrifying confrontation with an armed bigot, Rosie and Penn make the difficult decision to relocate to Seattle where they believe they can start fresh, where Claude, now a girl named Poppy, can be accepted for who she is. The move and the subterfuge take a terrific toll on the boys, especially Roo, who was a standout student, athlete, and leader at his previous school. His reaction forces readers to question just how much the needs of one sibling should supercede the needs of the family unit as a whole. It's a legitimate question and made for some interesting discussion, with some of us believing it was unfair and others remarking that families often make long term decisions based upon the needs of one member over the needs of another.

Then, in a diversionary chapter I did not see coming, Rosie agrees to her firm's insistence that she participate in their outreach program in Thailand. Poppy, doubting her own future as a girl, travels with her mom to the remote medical outpost where she is charged with teaching English to the little ones. In this land of the Buddha, sexual identity is unquestioned and Poppy is finally able to see a way forward. 

I enjoyed this novel for so many reasons. It made my heart expand with love for this flawed but devoted family. It reminded me of the phenomenal variations of humanity, of the enormous capacity we have to not just "accept" or worse, "tolerate" differences but to embrace the entire spectrum of creation. If you are feeling jaded by the world we inhabit and are in need of a jolt of the possible then this is a book I can absolutely recommend. 

And a Note About Frankissstein

When Jeanette Winterson's latest novel, "Frankissstein," showed up in my mailbox I'll admit that I relegated it to the bottom of my huge reading pile doubting it would ever make it to the top ten. Lesson learned! Never judge a

book by its cover. This was one of the best surprise reads of the year - laugh out loud funny and deeply provocative. Winterson probably gave me more food for thought than any other author I read this year.

We hear the term "gender fluid" bandied about a lot lately but have we ever really pondered the ramifications of its meaning? In "Frankissstein" Winterson imagines a moment in time in the lives of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friend Lord Byron as they drink away the long, dark, damp hours of a sojourn on Lake Geneva back in 1816. On a dare, Mary writes her now famous book "Frankenstein," but Winterson draws our attention to the sexist attitudes toward female writers and women in general, focusing on Mary's single motherhood and poverty after the death of her husband.

Fast forward to current/future times where a transgender scientist, Ry Shelley  falls in love with Dr. Victor Stein, an expert in artificial intelligence who's experimenting with cryogenics. Their affair engenders a fascinating exploration of sexual attraction, why we are drawn to certain people, and why it is often the mind of the love object that hypnotizes rather than just the shell. And if we are just shells, why then shouldn't our souls, our essence, be uploaded to databases for future use?

For comic relief we have Ron Lord, creator of a lucrative line of sex-bots, who becomes enamoured of a certain evangelical writer with friends in high places. She sees in Ron's creations a means to God's end - no more need for adultery, no more sexually transmitted disease. Think about it! Is it really cheating if you're with a bot?

Winterson has written, as I said for LJ, a brave, bawdy book, outrageously original yet sentimental too. If you've ever questioned the nature of desire, the complexity of relationships, or the fragile boundary between male and female sensibility, then take a chance on "Frankissstein." You won't be disappointed.

Some Thoughts on the Library Journal "Best Of.." List

Library Journal's annual "Best Of..." lists are officially in print and most of you know that I worked for two months on the list for this year's literary fiction stand outs. Now I can talk a bit more about some of them and also about the fact that, naturally, each of the three of us who read the thirty-six contenders had to compromise a bit on the finalists. The wonder is that without this assignment I'd probably never have found such gems as "Boy Swallows Universe," or "Night Boat from Tangier." 

https://bit.ly/33bNWjH

Kevin Barry was a revelation for me. My sister and I have often lamented that we just don't "feel" our Irish roots. Far better, we thought, to have more exotic blood flowing through our veins. Alas, our DNA test disabused us of our dreams. Yet reading Barry's novel was a visceral experience. The language spoke to me, even though - perhaps especially because - it came from the mouths of Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond, a couple of two-bit crooks who share a long history of crime, violence, and the love of one woman. 

An air of menace surrounds them even though, when we meet the two, they are at the tail end of their careers and lives, sitting in a run-down ferry terminal waiting for the arrival of Dilly, a young woman they both lay claim to. They pass the time reminiscing about their partnership, their youth, their breaks with each other and their eventual reunion. Who else, you might wonder, would want them?

Barry exquisitely sets up scenes of horrific violence juxtaposed with others of tenderness, even love. This dichotomy reminded me of that famous scene in "The Godfather" that toggles back and forth between a baptismal ceremony and a mass gangland killing. Barry's narrative style is comprised of short, staccato sentences offset with poetic, musical cadences. This novel is a remarkable reminder of why the Irish are considered consummate storytellers.

"The Water Dancer," on the other hand, was a tough sell for me. I had to read it twice before I came around. First of all, I thought that it might be a better fit in the historical fiction category or even in fantasy. The story centers around an enslaved man named Hiram who is the son of the plantation owner. Taught to read and write, he comes to believe, without any reason, that his white father might raise him up to help run the property that is falling into disrepair under the hands of the actual heir, Hiram's half brother, who is a womanizing wastral without a shred of business acumen. 

As a devoted fan of author Ta-Nehisi Coates' non-fiction, I read in awe his brilliant case for reparations outlined in a famous article in The Atlantic, I was disconcerted by his use of a stilted, outdated linguistic style for his debut novel. It felt forced and inauthentic to me. I also had to work past the fantastical premise Coates put forth surrounding Hiram's talent of conduction, a means of seeing the past and the future and traveling in between. Then I reminded myself of Coates' work on the Black Panther graphic novels and decided to accept that he needed to give Hiram a bit of superhero power, the better to eventually work with Harriet Tubman on the underground railroad. 

What eventually spoke to me was Coates' decision not to focus so much on the physical horrors of slavery, the whippings, dismemberments, and constant torture that we've come to know from history, but rather to speak of the emotional devastation wrought by family separation. In fact, it is Hiram's sense of loss at barely remembering his own mother that is at the heart of his future activism. Coates eloquently evokes the eternal emptiness suffered by parents whose children are sold from them, offering a stark reminder of what's happening a century and a half later on our southern border.

More thoughts on our decisions as the week progresses, in the meantime, happy reading!

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Don't you just love reading a novel where the author's humanity so clearly shines through the pages? I felt overwhelmed by this phenomenon while reading Leif Enger's "Peace Like a River" and "Virgil Wander" and it settled upon me again while I was enthralled by "This Tender Land." Kreuger is a prolific writer so I have no excuse for telling you that this is the first novel of his that I've read. It will not be the last.

Our narrator tells us in the prologue that he is a storyteller, that this is a divine gift with which he entertains his family, in particular, his grandchildren. Readers will continue to return to this prologue to reassure themselves that the narrator, Odie O'Banion, does live to share his amazing tale with us. It has been compared to Huck Finn's days on the river but for me it seemed much more momentous, almost Odyssean.

Odie and his older brother Albert were orphaned in the early 1930's and sent to live at a boarding school in northern Minnesota, a school specifically designed for the "Americanization" of Native tribal children. In Dickensian style the school is run by a childless, heartless woman, aptly named Thelma Brickman.  The pupils learn little and suffer mightily, especially if, like Odie, they stand out from the crowd for their wit or spunk.

I don't want to and couldn't possibly relate the entire gloriously convoluted plot to you. What I will say is that to escape physical and sexual abuse and the fear of being blamed for the death of a student, Odie and Albert devise an escape plan that includes a mute Indian boy named Moshe and Emmy, an orphaned toddler imbued with a surreal wisdom beyond her years. They are the most wonderful company!

Krueger's love of the natural world graces every page of the motley crew's adventures as they canoe down the Gilead River on their way to the great Mississippi and potentially salvation in the form of a distant aunt of the brothers whose last known address was St. Louis. Take a look at a map as I did and just imagine these children with little but the clothes on their backs and hearts full of hope as they elude false newspaper accounts of their circumstances and bounty hunters hungry for a reward. We are in the middle of the great depression after all, the dust bowl era, a time when even a decent person might be tempted to sell out the kids for a bowl of soup.

The children will encounter the best and the worst that humanity has to offer, a traveling revival show and a lonely, desperate man willing to enslave them just for their company. They will misplace their trust in eachother and others yet discover deep wells of goodness in their fellow man. Moshe will learn of the horrors visited upon his native ancestors, falling into a pit of despair. Albert will fight the need to simply walk away from the burden of the group and Odie will commit a crime that will haunt him, forcing a reckoning with his belief in God, love, and forgiveness. 

Examining the meaning of life through the lives of four children on a quest for what each might call home, William Kent Krueger tenderly tells a universal story in luminous, languid prose, gently teasing out the best in even the worst of villains. This novel is so full of heart, such a lovely antidote to the anxiety inducing tweets and posts of the digital world. As Odie tells us in his prologue, "Things were different then. Not simpler or better, just different." William Kent Krueger's words are a balm for the soul.

The Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

I passionately spoke for this novel to make the cut on Library Journal's ten best list but alas.....perhaps I can convince you readers instead. So often I complain that there isn't an original plot under the sun, that everything new has been done before. I guess that's why Luiselli's imaginative, original, heartbreaking novel impressed me so much. 

We see the children in the news every day, their emotionally ravaged faces, their gorgeous dark eyes shyly peering out at the cameras from behind the bars of whichever state sponsored holding pen the border patrol agents have consigned them to. Will they ever see their families again we wonder. Valeria Luiselli's "The Lost Children Archive" will ignite a fire in your heart without providing the water hose to squelch it. 

An unnamed family sets out on a summer road trip from New York City to Arizona. Freelance journalists, each of the parents has a singular agenda. Dad is researching the 

history of the lost Apache tribes, while mom has a generalized plan to document family separation at the border, specifically looking for a friend's two missing girls, for whose safe crossing she has paid dearly. 

In the back seat of the car are two children, step-siblings, dad's son and mom's daughter. It's a credit to Luiselli's remarkable narrative skills that she creates two anonymous children who become so fully alive on the page. Their intuition is such that they understand before we do that this adventure, meant to unite the family, may well drive a permanent rift between their stubborn, individualistic parents. The boy, older and less trusting of the world, will nevertheless call upon his boundless imagination to protect and care for his baby sister with a love that will force a catch in your throat.

Luiselli pens scenes that will stay with you for ages. Mom has read of a government plan to round up undocumented children and fly them back to Mexico. Whether or not they are actually Mexican doesn't seem to matter. They drive to the airfield, protected by armed guards, unsure what they can do except helplessly watch as, on the horizon, they see the little silhouettes weighted down with a single backpack each, being herded on to the jet. Later in the story, the children see other children much like themselves clinging to the roof of a freight train as it speeds away from ICE agents who are actually firing at them. An indelible image indeed.

This novel appeared daunting to me, especially since we were reading on a specific time frame, yet it surprised and haunted me. Though rife with facts it reads like a parable. Storytelling and myth making are extolled. The slow fading of love between the parents is beautifully rendered while the profound love they hold for their children is palpable. Unabashedly political yet deeply personal this eye-opening novel definitely makes my top ten.

Olive, Again!

Olive Kitteridge doesn't suffer fools gladly. Cold, grumpy, judgmental, Olive can be a handful. Just ask any of her neighbors in the small town of Crosby, Maine, where Olive taught math at the local high school and her husband, now deceased, ran the pharmacy. Just ask her son, who moved as far away as he could to be free of her constant criticism. But don't ask those whose lives Olive  forever changed even when she didn't realize it. They might tell you Olive saved them.

This is the dichotomy that the remarkable Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout so ably sets out on the page. How she makes us scream with fury at Olive's

cruelty one minute, then quietly tear up at her acts of compassion the next. Olive Kitteridge is a conundrum, but we all know someone like her. Sometimes we may even see ourselves in the aging Olive who believes most folks are just full of crap, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and that the indignities of aging pretty much suck.

If you read the first "Olive Kitteridge" you'll jump right in to "Olive, Again." The format of linked vignettes still works beautifully, giving the reader small but spot on glimpses of the mundane but never boring goings on in Crosby over generations. There are some hilarious scenes, especially if you're the type of person who would rather have your nails torn out one by one than attend ONE more baby or bridal shower. Olive is the master of the eye roll who will never understand the etiquette of oohing and aahing over diaper bags and onesies. But, give her the chance to be useful, like helping a young woman give birth in the back seat of a big old Pontiac, and yes, Olive is there.

There is a poignant chapter in which Olive has to come to terms with aging and dependence after she falls on her porch and has difficulty getting up. For several weeks she's visited by two very different young female aides and therapists who tend to her injuries. The one happens to be a Muslim in a headscarf about whom Olive worries incessantly, afraid that she'll cross paths with the second woman, Betty, a local who drives a pick-up truck and sports a Trump bumper sticker. Hearing in town that Betty has a pretty horrible existence, and trying to fathom why anyone would support that "orange monster," Olive sits down with her and simply asks, "What is your life like, Betty?" No one had ever taken even that minimal amount of interest in Betty before. The floodgates open.

Elizabeth Strout excels at stream of consciousness writing. Through the busy mind and constant thoughts of a woman like Olive Kitteridge, Strout lays out the visceral fears and pains of the aging single woman, the loneliness, regrets, the missed opportunities, but also the moments when we say yes to love, to connection. This lovely, thoughtful book may not have made Library Journal's top ten this year but it's still an exceptional read. I just wish I hadn't seen the TV special because now, rather than utilizing my full imagination when I visualize Olive, all I can picture is that fabulously talented curmudgeon Frances McDormand in the title role.

Alice Hoffman's Latest, One of Her Best

"The World We Knew" is the novel I would recommend for those of you who may have enjoyed Kristin Hannah's "The Nightingale" but prefer more lyrical prose. Alice Hoffman has always been a favorite of mine. In fact, she received a lifetime achievement award at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival several years ago when I was still a working librarian and her speech brought me to tears.

Ms. Hoffman is no stranger to magical realism and mysticism but feminism also plays a large role in many of her books. I love the way she married these themes by explaining the Jewish idea of a golem, a being created out of clay and breathed into life through prayers that only an experienced rabbi can intone. A golem, because "it" is so powerful, has a limited existence and must eventually be destroyed. Hoffman uses this fact to beautifully explore the nature of the soul, of love, feelings, fear, and self-sacrifice that might render a being fully human.

 In 1941 Berlin, as the Nazis become a daily presence and an existential threat to Jews, a mother, Hanni, realizes that she must make the ultimate sacrifice and send her teenage daughter away to safety. Understanding that Lea could not escape on her own, Hanni goes to the rabbi to beg him to create a golem to accompany Lea on her flight to freedom. The rabbi's fearful wife turns Hanni away, but his feisty daughter, Ettie, who has been secretly studying the Torah against the strictures of Judaism, offers to make the golem under one condition, that she and her younger sister can accompany Lea and the golem, named Ava, to Paris.

Agonizing suspense and pathos play out in equal measure as we follow the women on to the train and through the check points. In Paris, Ava and Lea are taken in by the Levi family, relatives Lea had never met. Here Ava, always with a watchful eye on Lea, makes herself useful as a cook, replacing Maryanne who recently abandoned the family to return to her father's farm in the French countryside where she will become a valued member of the Resistance.

 The Levi's two boys, Julien and Victor are each wonderful characters who play an outsized role in bringing the stories of Lea, Ava, and Maryanne together. While love is the overarching thread throughout this amazing book, Hoffman does not romanticize this era when good and evil were in such stark contrast. Good people die, some for no reason whatsoever, others for a cause greater than themselves.

Like Julie Orringer's "The Flight Portfolio," this is an emotionally ensnaring novel that forces one to confront the nature of evil and ask how we would resist if the need arises. Especially interesting is Hoffman's note to readers about how she came to write this story after meeting a woman at a library book talk, a woman who worried that her history might never be known. I hope she's still alive to read this compellingly told tale.

The Secrets We Kept

I wonder what author Lara Prescott's parents were thinking when they named her after the famed love interest of Dr. Zhivago. I doubt they ever dreamed that their daughter would pen a best-selling debut novel, already optioned for film, based upon another true story we never learned about in school. http://www.laraprescott.com/

I was only nine when Boris Pasternak's novel came out so it's only fair that I would have been unaware of the swirl of controversy surrounding it. I'm certain that few suspected that the CIA was involved in making sure that the book was smuggled back into Russia, where it had been banned, so that ordinary Russian citizens could get a glimpse into life in the gulag and maybe, just maybe, foment a revolution. This is the fascinating story of how that happened.

Prescott sets her novel in the typing pool, one of the few places women were allowed to work, in the newly formed spy agency born out of World War II's OSS. She knows DC backwards and forwards and paints a vivid picture of what it was like for these women, newly freed from the conventions of marriage and parenting, working and playing among the men and admonished not to remember anything they typed - ha!


The story toggles back and forth between East and West and multiple viewpoints, a technique that will keep you on your toes. In Russia, Pasternak's lover, Olga, tells of life as the other woman, living in a small home not far from his much larger one that he shares with his wife. As with many life-long affairs of this kind, Olga is the one who suffers, often at odds with her children and her mother, and even spending time in prison for her relationship to the disgraced writer.

In Washington, a Russian immigrant named Irina catches the eyes of the typists when she is singled out for special treatment after only a small time on the job. How she is trained under the tutelage of an experienced female spy (named Sally) and sent into the Georgetown soirees to mingle and listen, is great fun even if it does feel much less sinister than some of the actual activities the CIA was involved in at the time. https://nyti.ms/2kaBLTU

"The Secrets We Kept" is high quality, fast-paced entertainment set in a Washington, DC, and a Russia that seem almost innocent when compared to what we read when we open our papers today. Yet Prescott raises some interesting questions about the nature of literature as a means for change, and the sacrifices made to get the word in the hands of the people. Boris may come across as stubborn and selfish, his wife, fearful, and Olga, both brave and foolish. Nevertheless, I see "Doctor Zhivago" now in an entirely different light. Yup, I just placed it on hold. 

Library Journal's Ten Best

Oh no, sorry, I can't divulge the final decision yet but at least I can say with relief that we have winners. Thirty-six novels in two months! Phew! During a marathon conference call Wednesday afternoon each of us three reviewers gave up some personal favorites to make place for others. We discussed, eliminated, and compromised. No wonder the Booker committee copped out and split the winnings.

The good news is that now I have some wonderful titles to share with you over the next couple of months, titles that we all agreed should grace a runners' up list if such a thing was possible. The books were heartbreaking, jaw dropping, original, and flat out fun. Several I read more than once before giving them my imprimatur. Others were picked up by different committees at Library Journal, and then books like Atwood's "The Testaments," well, it hardly needs the publicity does it?

We also had to consider our audience. We review for the nation's librarians, those folks charged with spending tax dollars wisely while fulfilling their customers' requests for the best. The only book on our list that I simply chose not to finish because of time constraints was that thousand page doorstop "Ducks, Newburyport" by Lucy Ellmann. That isn't to say the book wasn't clever as hell. It absolutely is. 

Comprised of just two or three long sentences, the honest, hysterical, wry musings of a working Ohio mom over the course of one day, covers a gamut of ideas. A few have referred to it as a modern day Molly Bloom soliloquy. Nevertheless, I had visions of this book languishing on the shelves and being weeded in two years. In this age of instant informational gratification,  I just couldn't see most customers I've come in contact with giving it the time and attention it needs. 

I'm taking a couple of days off from required reading to binge watch all the Jason Bourne movies with Don - it's getting chilly up here in Maryland. Then I've downloaded a British murder mystery by Mark Billingham, one of many in the Tom Thorne series, as a palate cleanser. It has the feel of an Inspector Morse for the 21st century and I'll be surprised if the BBC doesn't pick it up soon. Next up will be Lara Prescott's "The Secrets We Kept."

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

130,000 displaced people in just two days Judy Woodruff told me last night. Can we even imagine this? Turkey doesn't want these Kurdish families driven from their homes by the ongoing war in Syria. Italy no longer wants the Africans who still wash up daily on the Sicilian shore. The United States certainly doesn't want the central Americans - operative word - Americans who are fleeing gang violence and poverty. How do we wrap our minds around the courage that it takes to leave everything one has ever known, to start from scratch in a new place with nothing but hope? 

It is usually fiction that teaches me the many truths I never learned in school. Over the past few years there has been a bursting at the seams of amazing literature that speaks to the anguish of the immigrant experience. Several of these novels grace the list of books that I'm evaluating for Library Journal's top ten literary fiction for 2019. 

Today I finished listening to a remarkable debut novel by Cameroonian writer Imbolo Mbue - http://www.imbolombue.com/. "Behold the Dreamers" is

devastating, uplifting, and ultimately hopeful, though perhaps not in the way readers might expect. Mbue dares to ask if resettling in the United States is always the best route up and out of poverty. She poses the question, how long must one struggle before Langston Hughes's dream deferred becomes a dream not worth attaining?

Jende and Neni Jonga are characters who just leap off the page. They share their aspirations with us through every conversation, interaction, and move they make as they work hard and save mightily for something a little better than their three room walk-up in Harlem. 

Jende, with a word from a Cameroonian relative already established in New York, lands a fabulous job - $35,000 annually - as a chauffeur for a Lehman Brothers exec and his family. Often working eighteen hour days, Jende tries to connect with Clark Edwards by telling stories of his life back in Limbe, explaining how he can provide a better life for his wife and son in the United States. Meanwhile Neni, less nostalgic for the circumscribed life for a woman in Cameroon, excels at college where she is studying pharmacology on a student visa, and works as a nurses' aid, all while raising their boy. 

But the year is 2007 and Mbue imbues her novel with a terrible sense of foreboding.To the naive Jende, the Edwards family appears as shiny and bright as a newly minted coin. But when Mrs. Edwards asks Neni to spend the summer working for her at her Hamptons mansion Neni sees the shimmer fade away, the dark underside of the lonely, empty lives of her employers on full display. 

The crash, when it comes, will break you as you read. Not for Clark Edwards, who will be able to find a way forward, but for the Jongos, waiting for their green cards, desperate to stay in a country that saps the spirit from their souls. Jende and Neni grow farther apart as their ideas of what's best for their family diverge. I wondered, as I listened, would this country break them? You may be surprised by the answer.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Memory is a slippery thing. I've pondered the complex mystery of familial memories for many years and now Ann Patchett brilliantly addresses it and other themes centered around family, abandonment, and forgiveness in her latest novel "The Dutch House." She also builds an entire world around a young couple, seemingly deeply in love, who actually don't know each other at all. 

While Cyril and Elna are struggling, they are ostensibly happy. But when Cyril, through nose-to-the-grindstone work and good timing, establishes himself as a well-heeled real estate developer post World War II, a fissure opens up between him and his wife. By the time he surprises Elna with the keys to the elegant

Dutch house, a fait accompli in which she had no input, the crack becomes a chasm. Elna is not a woman comfortable with excess and raising her two children, Maeve and Danny, with nannies, cooks, and housekeepers in a fishbowl (Patchett makes much of the floor to ceiling windows that allow people on the street to peer right through from front to back) is anathema to her. And so she disappears.

This novel is a poignant look at the way people react to untenable situations and the fallout they leave in their wake. Love and incredible loneliness forge the bond between Maeve and her much younger brother Danny. The Dutch house, despite the desperate efforts of the "help," sisters Sandy and Jocelyn, is large, cold, and devoid of love. Cyril without Elna is a shell of a man, a tragic figure who is incapable of showing empathy to his children. 

A stepmother eventually arrives on the scene, bringing her own two little girls into the mix, but they are never fully formed characters, serving only as foils for the deeper development of the sibling relationship between the ferociously protective Maeve and her reluctant acolyte Danny.

When their father dies suddenly the two are shocked to discover that he, too, has abandoned them. Banished from the Dutch house, they form an alliance that is both unhealthy and a salvation, leading Maeve, a smart, tough, quirky heroine, to subsume her entire existence into a push for Danny to succeed, whether he wants to or not. Her motto would appear to be that "living well is the best revenge."

The story is told in hindsight by Danny, a comfortable if unreliable narrator. (I understand that Tom Hanks reads the audio version of the novel) After all, his mother left when he was only two-years-old while Maeve, who was seven, sees their childhood through an entirely different lens. Whose is true? Well, that's the mystique of memory, isn't it?

Atwood's The Testaments

There has been so much over-the-top publicity surrounding the publication of Margaret Atwood's sequel to "The Handmaid's Tale," that I almost wondered whether or not to write about "The Testaments." Don't we already know what it's all about? And really, was all the hoopla about the embargo and the Amazon snafu necessary? Atwood herself has hardly been reticent about appearing on

talk shows and doing interviews. She has told us that her fans' curiosity was the reason she felt compelled to write this novel of answers.

It's a great read! As you might expect, it's smart and snarky, witty and fast-paced, but it is not as terrifyingly dystopian as its predecessor. In fact, I see hope, even optimism in Atwood's vision. Gilead, like any society or organization built on a fundamentalism designed to regulate morality, limit knowledge, and terrorize free thinkers, is rotting from within. If you watched the Hulu television series, now filming its fourth season, you've already seen this manifest and will likely find no huge surprises in the book. This will not keep you from enjoying it. I burned through it in two days.

There are three alternating narrators. The most compelling of them is, has to be, Aunt Lydia. Through her secretly written memoirs, hidden away in a library (thank you Margaret) for future researchers to find, we learn about the horrific deeds that brought the brilliant, educated women, the judges, lawyers, doctors, and business people, together in a sports stadium, handcuffed, starved, tortured, and given a choice. Die or survive under the new Gileadian world order. When Aunt Lydia describes her thought process as she makes her decision you may question it, but I defy you to judge. 

The underground "femaleroad" is a thriving network running along land and sea borders between Gilead and Canada. Atwood's talent at ratcheting up suspense and foreboding takes us into the hearts of the selfless men and women who operate it. The layers of subterfuge naturally breed distrust and the lives of these people are lonely and difficult. Canada may be a safe place but it is no Utopia. Still, women from Gilead do manage to escape, often having to leave their children behind.

What I most appreciate about Atwood's new novel is the insight she displays into women and female-led organizations in particular. Ardua Hall is the home of the Aunts, the women in charge of training the Handmaids, the future brides, and the novice Aunts. The hall contains a vast library, knowledge only Aunts are allowed to access and enjoy. Just imagine what smart women can do with that! The women are cunning and crafty. Life in the hall is like a chess game and Lydia is the master. 

It's true that men perpetrated the injustice of a creation like Gilead on its inhabitants but Atwood lets readers intuit from the first page that Gilead will not last. Remember, as you read, that revenge is a dish best served cold.

Afternoon at the National Book Festival

Now that all of the author interviews from the National Book Festival are on YouTube I've discovered that there were people in line to hear Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 4:30 in the morning! Yes, she's a rock star but my days of camping out for anyone are pretty much over. 

Once the largest venue opened up and Ginsburg and her entourage were safely away I managed to snag a seat for the tail end of Chef Jose Andres' chat with NPR stalwart Diane Rehm. I will always have a soft spot for him and the courage he showed to cancel his deal with the devil...that would be his contract to run the restaurant at the what should be illegal Trump International Hotel in the District of Columbia. 

Andres has a huge heart and his warmth and love for people and food exuded from every pore. His charity, World Central Kitchen, has been feeding the hungry in decimated parts of the world for years now, specifically those in Puerto Rico after the devastation of hurricane Maria, at the borders where the tired and poor yearning to be free are amassed, and now up to 10,000 meals a day in the Bahamas. 

I was actually in that audience to ensure a seat for the next presenter, New York Times columnist and NPR commentator, David Brooks. I've been reading him for years, if only to try to understand what I perceived as the "other side's" opinion, but lately I'd noticed a distinct change in the tenor of his essays. Since the

election of Donald Trump, David Brooks has been evolving and showing his readers a softer side. His explanation is in his new book "The Second Mountain, The Quest for a Moral Life." His talk about his own failures as a man and as a friend and his search for meaning in life and relationships was by far the most heart-felt, thought provoking of the day. I can't wait to complete my literary fiction project for Library Journal so that I can take the time to dive into what I believe will be an instructive piece of non-fiction. If you want to watch Brooks' surprisingly funny, self-deprecating interview the link is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4gNvAtL00U

Those of you who follow me may remember that Richard Powers' "The Overstory" was my choice for number one novel read in 2018. https://bit.ly/2mkH7Nb My favorite book reviewer, Ron Charles from the Washington Post, is always front and center at the National Book Festival, but even he exhibited a bit of hero worship as he spoke with Powers about the ways his life changed after researching and writing his Pulitzer Prize winner. Great fiction has the same power as a great teacher, to inform, to engage, and to enable us to see the world, in this case the natural world, in a whole new light. I know that I'll never look at a tree in the same way again. Sadly though, inspiration is no longer on Richard Powers' mind. When asked whether he believed that we humans can stop the tide of irreversible climate change damage, he gave a devastating, unnuanced answer. No!

National Book Festival

It's been almost two weeks since my sister and I attended the Library of Congress National Book Festival in D.C. https://loc.gov/events/2019-national-book-festival/about-this-event/  My initial thoughts were negative so I'm glad that I've been on the road for a couple of weeks visiting family and have had time to temper my initial reactions. Having participated in so many reading festival in southwest Florida I do understand how important logistics are and am now surprised that I underestimated how the LOC would handle the overwhelming response to the appearance of the Notorious RBG!

Though we arrived by ten in the morning for Richard Ford's American Literature Award, planning to hang out in the four thousand seat auditorium for Ruth Ginsburg's 11:30 presentation, it was not to be. The crowd control police wouldn't even let us go up the stairs to get in line. Once I got over my disappointment I realized that I'd be able to attend smaller events and actually got to hear so many wonderful authors, many of whom I've had the pleasure of reviewing in the past, and a couple of whom I will be reviewing soon.

Within a few weeks the LOC website should be updated with video of all the speakers and you'll be able to enjoy them for yourselves. Last year, when working on the best of literary fiction for Library Journal, I read "The Incendiaries" by R.O. Kwan. She was on a panel with Valeria Luiselli whose new novel, "The Lost Children Archive," is sitting on my desk at home awaiting my return and attention. It is a potential candidate for "best of" this year. 

Initially I didn't feel that the two books had that much in common. The Luiselli is a timely take on the current immigration crisis on the southern border while Kwon's novel centers more on a crisis of faith. Still, narrator Aminata Forna whose glorious novel "Happiness" was one of my top ten choices last year, managed to correlate the two as mediations on the discomfort of so-called outsiders as they desperately try to assimilate, fly under the radar, and adjust to the often unfair assumptions of others. All three authors have international backgrounds, having been born in, raised in, and traveled through many different countries on their paths to the United States, a fact that informs their work with an enviable worldliness.

In keeping with theme of the immigrant experience of displacement was the fascinating interview with Bengali author Amitav Ghosh whose latest novel,

"Gun Island," come out this week. This is one I'm really looking forward to reading. Human trafficking, devastating climate change, the plight of the immigrant. Serious subjects wrapped up in Ghosh's inimitable combination of fantasy and history taking readers through time and across nations. Mr. Ghosh spoke passionately about the destruction of our planet and the need for writers of fiction to address this human problem, giving a shout out to Richard Powers and "The Overstory." 

More on the afternoon's presentations soon. Must go download a boarding pass now and make a last stop at my favorite bagel place before flying home tomorrow. Happy reading!