Enlightenment                                             

by Sarah Perry

Mariner Books/HarperCollins Publishers

   Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay are friends whose lives are upended by unattainable love and an astronomer from a century past who knows their torment too well. Several comets have very important roles in this wonderful story of stars, love, religion, anger and reconciliation. And the vital importance of museums and libraries.

If you would like to know more about this book, or own it, please visit your local independent bookstore or this great place:bookshop.org

 Trust

by Hernan Diaz

Riverhead Books/PRH

    This is an amazing book, very much deserving of all the prizes it received. It is a historical novel composed of several different sections which put forth slightly different stories. In each story there is at least one character you come to care very much for, and many different meanings of the word - trust. 

    There is much here about the financial world, expertly delineated for even those of us who aren't experts in Wall Street, futures, the crash of '29 or investing in general. The characters are the essence, even when they are duplicitous or not even purposely vague.

  This is well worth your time.

If you would like to know more about this book, or own it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place - bookshop.org 

 Brotherless Night

by V.V. Ganeshananthan

Penguin Random House

    This is a difficult, wrenching book about Sri Lanka and the horrible war that went on for decades.  In 2009, the Sri Lanka government declared victory over the Tamil fighters, but the country is still not peaceful.

    We follow Sashi and her family from 1981 through the worst years of the war that came to involve the Sri Lankan government, the Tamil resistance fighters and the Indian "peacekeeping" forces. It is a story of the horrors of war but also of familial love and hope. It is a moving and important book.

If you would like to know more about this book or own it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org

    

 The Warm Hands of Ghosts

by Katherine Arden

DelRey Books/PRH

    This is a beautifully written novel of WWI - a nurse who has returned, injured, from the war and loses most of her family in the Great Halifax Explosion chooses to return to the war to try to find her younger brother.  The war scenes in the trenches and the hospitals are described in chilling detail, as is the depiction of evil as a force that destroys souls - this is not a book you'll soon forget.

    We don't get anti-war novels quite as beautifully done as this.

If you would like to learn more about this book, or own it, please check with your local bookstore or this great place bookshop.org .

 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

by James McBride

Riverhead Books/PRH

    This is a wonder - a book that brings you quickly into another world, that is our world in 1939 Pottstown, PA. You will fall in love with these characters and they will break your heart while still  giving you hope. Don't miss the acknowledgments at the end - this section will make you cry, even if none of the rest has.

    A brilliant novel.

If you'd like to know more about, or own this book (you will want it), please contact your local independent bookstore or this wonderful place bookshop.org

 Bournville

by Jonathan Coe

Europa Editions

   From VE Day, 1945, through the early months of the pandemic in 2020, we follow Mary and her family during years of great changes in England. This is a warm, loving, often humorous, sometimes angry, social history of Great Britain told through one immensely endearing family.

    And chocolate. Did I mention Cadbury's?

If you'd like to know more about this book, or purchase it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place bookshop.org .

 The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Groff

PenguinRandomHouse

    This is a novel of rare and disturbing beauty - a lyrical, terrifying tale of a young girl who has left the brutality of civilization and is trying to stay alive in the beautiful and equally (but differently) brutality of nature. There are wonderful descriptions of the forest she is running through  - the passage from winter to spring as she tries to find food and shelter.

    Beyond the adventure of her seeking the basics is a greater philosophical seeking that will leave the reader thinking for quite a while.

If you would like to know more about, or own this book, please try your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org .

The Romantic 

by William Boyd

PenguinRandomHouse

August 15th, 2023

    William Boyd has many enjoyable novels; his latest is a big old-fashioned biographical novel of a man whose life covers much of the 19th century, several names, explorations, criminals, a long lasting love, many different cities and a few major historic events. It's a delightful escape from our world.

If you would like to know more about this book, or purchase it, please try your local independent bookstore or this great place bookshop.org.

Properties Of Thirst

by Marianne Wiggins

Simon & Schuster

     This  is the story of a family making a home in California in the middle of the 20th century. More importantly, it is  a story of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. The building of the internment camp, Manzanar, is happening in the same valley that the damaged Rhodes family is trying to save from the devastation caused by the California water wars. 

   I read this several months ago and find myself thinking about it again, for pretty obvious reasons.

   It is  a large book, but well worth the time you'll invest in it.

If you would like to know more about or own this book, please try your local bookstore or bookshop.org