How to choose a Christmas gift

 

While I'll buy an adult friend a book that I haven't read, as long as it's been highly recommended, I won't do the same when buying a book for a kid or a teen. I want to make sure that the book is worth reading, that it's "appropriate" (means different things for different kids), and I want to be able to talk about the book to the gift recipient after she or he has read it. (Of course, I always hope that they'll read the book but sadly. that doesn't always seem to be the case.)

This year, I decided I was going to gift each granddaughter a book. I knew exactly the book that I wanted to give the 14-year old. I loved Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I loved the entire Sisterhood series. (And I loved the movie... but not as much as the book. The book was so much better!) But what to buy for the 12-year old? She's too grown-up for some of my favorites from when I was a 5th grade teacher. I started googling  "best books for 12-year old girls." I read list after list after list. The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty showed up on several of the lists. I was able to get the e-book out of the library and was able to read the book fairly quickly. It's a story about a girl who gets struck by lightning and causes brain damage in the form of acquired savant. In other words, after being a perfectly normal girl for the first 8 years of her life, she becomes a math genius. She's been homeschooled since the lightning strike, but as 7th grade begins, her grandmother decides it's time for Lucy (aka Lightning Girl) to attend middle school. 

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl is a pretty typical book about adjusting to middle school which would make more sense if granddaughter was first starting middle school. But considering she's halfway thru her middle school career, this book just didn't make sense for her. However, I really enjoyed McAnulty's writing style, perhaps because she used to be a correspondent for The Daily Show? Miscalculations was her first middle grade novel. I noticed she had a book called Millionaires for the Month. I read the blurb on that one and it reminded me of the Million Dollar Math project that I used to teach in fifth grade. The point of the project was  to prove to kids just how much a million dollars is. That seemed to be the point of this kids' book as well.This one was also available at the library so I took it out and started on another kids' book. I don't remember the last time I read a kids' book prior to this.

The two main characters are Felix and Benji and I worried that this might be more of a boys' book. Not the case at all. Felix is field trip partners with Benji when he finds a lost wallet on the ground in Central Park. The wallet has a drivers' license inside. It's the wallet of a famous billionaire! Benji, who was hungry and didn't have enough money for a hotdog, figures that a billionaire won't notice a missing $20 bill. Felix, the rules follower goes along, even though he disagrees. They take the $20, turn the wallet over to the police with a little note enclosed so perhaps the billionaire will reward them for returning the wallet.

When the billionaire gets her wallet back, she notices that the $20 is missing. She comes to Felix and Benji's middle school in Upstate New York and accuses them of stealing. After much discussion, she offers the boys a challenge. She'll give them the amount of money in the "penny doubled every day for 30 days" calculation. If they can spend that amount of money, in excess of $5 million, she will reward them with $10 million each! How hard can it possibly be to spend $5 million in 30 days? Except... along with the challenge come a lot of rules. Will Felix and Benji be able to spend the money in time?

The book is still al title young for a 12-year old. (The character try are 12-years old, usually a bad sign. But the way they go about trying to spend the money within the confines of the rules was so interesting. At least it was so interesting to me. So interesting, in fact, that I recommended it to one of my former 5th grade colleagues who is still teaching fifth grade. I hope my recipient enjoys this novel as much as I did.

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin was highly recommended in Renee's Reading Club (that group on Facebook where I get a lot of recommendations). When I was ready for a new audio book and this was available, I scooped it up. It was very confusing at first to listen to because I couldn't tell who was speaking, I didn't realize that the chapter names were sentences which made things seem to not make sense. I was almost ready to return the book to the library. Unread. Instead, I put it aside, and requested the e-book version. I really wanted to give this novel a chance. Once I got the e-book, the format, the narration, the chapter titles all made sense. I was then able to seamlessly move from the e-book and the audio book. That's something I am rarely able to do with a book.

The upshot is that I loved this story. Seventeen year old Lenni and 83-year old Margot meet in an art class while patients in a Glasgow hospital. They realize that between the two of them they've lived 100 years. And between the two of them, they have 100 years of life stories. They create the idea for a project of creating art to represent each one of the 100 stories they are ready to share. The art project forms the structure to the story. The life stories are the meat of the novel.

We learn about their families and why they are both in the hospital. We learn how they each become the person that they are when they meet. Cronin reveals the information in an engaging way. We watch them each learn about love. We watch Lenni and Margot's relationship develop. We get to know other characters, both patients and workers, in the hospital with them.

I'm not sure that I'd recommend the audio book, but I'd highly recommend this novel.
 

The Paris Library

 

Janet Skeslien Charles' historical fiction, The Paris Library, is told is dual timelines. What I'd consider the main story is set in France during World War II. The other story is about young Lily, living in rural Montana, yearning to be a part of the bigger world. She's intrigued by her very private French next door neighbor and wants to learn more about her story.

Oriel had always loved books and longed to be a librarian for as long as she could remember. In the late 1930s, she's lucky enough to get a position in the American Library in Paris. Readers - and especially library lovers - will love this aspect of the novel. I know that part of the story.

What made this novel most compelling is that several of the characters were actual people who managed to keep the library open during the war. The library was an important gathering place and a place where friendships were developed. The head librarian created "The Soldier's Service" to provide serviceman with books to read during the war. It reminded me of the Kentucky Packhorse Library but during a war.

The relationships in the book developed in a natural, authentic way, ebbing and flowing the way relationships do in real life. Sometimes we recognize how much we can count on our friends and what it takes us to be good friends to them. Other times, they disappoint us and we, purposely or inadvertently, disappoint them.

The novel is about "r" esistance during the way. And yes, the fact that there's a lowercase "r" is important. This is not a story about The Resistance. I'd highly recommend it to those who recognize the importance of libraries and books.

The Red Tent

I first read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant when it came out in 2007 so this was a re-read for me. If it wasn't a book club read, I probably wouldn't have read it again. Even though I loved the book the first time I read it and merely liked it this time. I think I got a lot more out of it reading it now.

The story came about because of a reference to Jacob's lone daughter, Dinah, in Genesis 34 in the Bible. In the Bible, there's just a small mention of Dinah. Diamant creates a story about women roles and society during Biblical days with Dinah as the central character. 

My thinking about women in Biblical stories has evolved over the years, in part due to some classes I've taken with the spiritual leader of my synagogue. She's all about the women. In 2007, I took a lot of what I read at face value. What was also different for this reading is that we were reading the story of Jacob and his wives and then his reunion with his brother, Esau, in synagogue at the same time I was reading and discussing the novel. That made me read the novel differently and it also made me read the Torah portions differently. A very rich experience.

The discussion at book club was primarily about women's roles and the relationships between Jacob's wives and his daughter. The "red tent" refers to the tent where women retreated to during the times of their periods. We're (unintentionally) an all-women's book club and we all agreed that it would have been lovely if we'd been able to have our own red tent back when we were menstruating.

If you haven't read this, I'd strongly suggest you do.
 

The Sixth Wedding

I loved The Sixth Wedding, Elin Hilderbrand's follow-up novella to 28 Summers. I only liked that book since it had a few issues I couldn't wrap my head around. But this novella which followed up on the stories of the friends and family of Mallory, the main character of 28 Summers. The relationships seemed more authentic and less riddled with questionable decision making.

If you liked 28 Summers, you'll like The Sixth Wedding. If you loved 28 Summers, this might be a disappointment to you. In either case, though, you might find yourself wanting for a little bit more.
 

Well Behaved Wives

We'll Behaved Wives by Amy Sue Nathan is one of my Amazon Prime First Reads. As usual, I read my free books while waiting for a library book to come in. This one was a lot meatier than I expected.

Here's the blurb from goodreads.com:

Perfect wives, imperfect lives, and upending the rules of behavior in 1960s America.

Law school graduate and newlywed Ruth Applebaum is acclimating to life and marriage in a posh Philadelphia neighborhood. She’ll do almost anything to endear herself to her mother-in-law, who’s already signed up Ruth for etiquette lessons conducted by the impeccably accessorized tutor Lillian Diamond. But Ruth brings something fresh to the small circle of housewives—sharp wit, honesty, and an independent streak that won’t be compromised.

Right away Ruth develops a friendship with the shy Carrie Blum. When Carrie divulges a dark and disturbing secret lurking beneath her seemingly perfect life, Ruth invites Lillian and the Diamond Girls of the etiquette school to finally question the status quo.

Together they form an unbreakable bond and stretch well beyond their comfort zones. For once, they’ll challenge what others expect from them, discover what they expect from themselves, and do whatever it takes to protect one of their own—fine manners be damned.

The secrets shared were not secrets that I was expecting to read about. The friendships amongst the women evolved into something deeper than I expected as well. While we've made a lot of progress since the early 1960s, we still have a really long way to go. This is historical fiction that takes place in an affluent Jewish community to Jewish women, but this was not at all Jewish fiction. The story could have taken place in any affluent community of the time.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Not a book I ever would have picked up on my own, The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, while in parts sort of dry (ha ha... this is a book about beverages) was the type of book that compelled me to share snippets with my husband and the rest of my family over Thanksgiving weekend.

Standage tells the history of the world as it revolved around 6 different beverages. Beer, wine, coffee, tea, Coca Cola and water. "Did you know that people drank beer to get hydrated a really long time ago?" was one of the questions I posed to my family. Two of them quickly understood that beer was probably safer to drink than water back then. And so went our weekend. Me sharing facts, them either already figured them out and surprised to learn something new.

Parts of the book dragged on a little too long. And parts of it, some of the political things, I didn't want to concentrate hard enough to fully understand them. But I'm looking forward to discussing this with my book club next week. I think tea and Coca Cola were most interesting. And I'd love to hear his follow-up on water!

P.S. We had a great book club discussion.
 

The Bookstore Sisters

What reader doesn't love a good story set in a bookstore? The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman was one of my Amazon Prime First Reads and as a short story, it was perfect to pick up when I needed something to read at that moment, but had other books pending.

This is a story about estranged sister Isabel trying to find a way to reconnect with her sister, Sophie, as well as with her past.. The family bookstore that was left in the care of Sophie is getting ready to go bankrupt. Can Isabel and Sophie come together, find their way, and save the bookstore.

I could have easily read a longer version of this beautifully written short story. The two most likeable characters are Violet, Sophie's daughter, and Hank, the dog that Isabel dog walks who somehow ends up going "home" with her.

Mr. Perfect on Paper

Written by Jean Meltzer, the author of The Matzoh Ball, Mr. Perfect on Paper is also like a Jewish Hallmark movie. In this instance, Dara Rabinowitz, 3rd generation matchmaker, is looking for love. She gets tricked into this by her grandmother, her bubbe, the first generation matchmaker, when Bubbe reads Dara's checklist for "The Perfect Jewish Husband" on an afternoon television show. The anchor of the show offers to help her find her perfect mate at the same time he hopes to boost the ratings of his fledgling show.

The book was very cute, easy to read, but it does include some serious issues. Dara is dealing with severe anxiety (similar to the main character of The Matzoh Ball, if I'm recalling correctly). Most of Dara's dates are comical, at best. In the meantime, her admiration for Chris, the TV anchorman, grows.

I was disappointed with part of  the novel, but talking about that will be too big a spoiler. Yet even that was given a nice spin by Bubbe. My other complaint would be that for all the accurate Jewish information Meltzer includes, she referred to the prayer book for Yom Kippur as a siddur. It's a machzor. It wouldn't have bothered me had she just called it prayer book, but since everything else was so "correct," this bothered me.

It was a fun, enjoyable read and I'd recommend. It would make a great Hallmark movie!

City of a Thousand Gates: A Novel

I'm not even sure where to begin with when writing my review of City of a Thousand Gates: A Novel by Rebecca Sacks. Rather than struggle to summarize the novel while not giving anything away, I suggest you read the review from The Washington Post that does a far better job than I could ever do.

City of a Thousand Gates is the selection we will discuss at my January synagogue book club meeting. It's really a raw look at the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in Jerusalem - and, well, Israel. The lack of peace between the two groups is raw so why shouldn't the novel be also. To be totally upfront here, I love Israel. I loved my time spent in Israel and I would love to go back. I definitely understand why the Jews view Israel as the refuge that it has been for many over time. However, I am conflicted by the human rights violations that are part of the everyday lives of the Palestinians. Why can't everyone just get along? This novel gave me more perspective on why people can't even attempt to get along. The history between the Israelis and Palestinians have such a history of not getting along. 

This novel confirms my conflicted feelings. It helped me understand the viewpoints of the different groups. Those born in Israel, those who came to Israel after running away from a bad situation in Europe. New immigrants. Palestinians whose families have been there forever. Some of them living in the West Bank. Some of them living in East Jerusalem. So many different personalities and experiences and perceptions of the situation.

The contentious environment sits on top of the normal everyday life for everyone who lives there. The characters have their own lives, complete with regular issues like everyone else, and then the "war" going on around them which is ever present. I can't imagine living life like that.

I look forward to discussing with my group.

The Alice Network

I think what I found most fascinating about The Alice Network was that it seamlessly blends stories about World War I and World War II. The story is told in two different timelines, from two different character's points-of-view.

Eve's story is told mostly about her experience as a female spy in occupied France during World War I. Charlie's story takes place shortly after the end of World War II. Charlie is a young, unwed, pregnant woman in Europe with her mother so she can get an abortion, something which is illegal in the United States at that time. She decides almost on a whim to search for her French cousin, Rose, who went missing towards the end of World War II. After fighting with her mother, she heads off to London in search of a woman who might have some connection to Rose. That woman is Eve. Most of the Charlie chapters are about Charlie, Eve, and Eve's Scottish driver, Finn, driving around France looking for any clues about where Rose might be.

As I was reading, I realized that most of the novel was based on historical events, but it wasn't until I was done reading the story and was reading the notes afterwards that I realized how much of the story was very closely based to actual events. The Alice Network is a book that pulled me right in and kept me interested until the end. I look forward to my book club discussion this afternoon.
 

Oh William!

I'm not sure why the rush to read thru all the Elizabeth Strout novels in the Amgash Series which started with My Name is Lucy Barton. Oh William! is the third in the series. (I've got Lucy by the Sea on hold at the library. The wait is fairly long.)

Oh William! picks up the story after years when Lucy and William have been divorced a long time. William is on his third wife and Lucy's second husband has recently died. I guess I was sort of confounded as to how - or why - Lucy and William maintained the relationship that they still have after all these years. But that's part of my personal perspective and my history with my ex-husband. Lucy does explain it several times by saying that William always made her feel safe and sort of grounded. 

As Lucy is now alone, she has more time to think about William's other relationships and the marriages that her daughters are in. She also thinks a lot about William's mother, Catherine. In the novel, we get to learn a lot more about Catherine's history: who she was before she became William's mother. Really, what do we know of our parents before they were our parents? And how often do we really think about them in that way?

Of the three books in the series that I've read so far, I definitely connected much more to Oh William! than the other two. Perhaps because in the novel, Lucy is nearly my age. She's dealing with an (long ago) divorce, an ex-husband, adult daughters with struggles of their own. Oh William! was an enjoyable follow-up to My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible. Now I'll just sit patiently here, reading other things, while I wait for Lucy by the Sea.
 

Mad Honey

Mad Honey, a collaborative writing effort of Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, is a difficult novel to write about without giving too much away. In fact, I thought long and hard about which labels I wanted to use in describing this post. In the end, I decided that less is more.

Like almost all Picoult novels, this one, Mad Honey, is based on current events, involves a bunch of courtroom scenes and meetings with lawyers, and has a twist somewhere in the story to make you realize at that point that the novel isn't going in the direction you thought it was headed.

The two authors worked very well together. Seaminglessly.The story was told in two voices, from two perspectives. Olivia, the single mom of Asher, and Lily, Asher's girlfriend. I imagined that one author was responsible for writing Olivia's chapters and the other for Lily's chapters. That wasn't exactly the case. Boylan came up with the idea for the novel and Picoult jumped right aboard. 

I wasn't always happy with the trajectory of the plot. I thought the novel dragged in places and was too rushed in others. I wasn't totally satisfied with how some of the subplots were wrapped up. Yet I would still highly recommend this novel. Why? Because it's so informative about current issues. And while these issues surely don't impact everyone directly, they do - or should - impact everyone indirectly. It's important to know about these issues in an attempt to understand and be accepting of others whose life experiences are not like yours. Plus, it was interesting to learn about beekeeping and honey. I knew some of the facts offered about honey but certainly not all. (Yes, I do love honey. And I really appreciated the honey recipes at the end of the book. I wish I baked. I'd be making up a honey loaf right now!)
 

Before the coffee gets cold

I read about Toshikazu Kawaguchi's novel Before the coffee gets cold in an article about "newer" time travel books. The premise of the novel is that if you sit in a certain seat in a certain cafe in Japan you can time travel to meet someone who has also been in the cafe at some point in time. There are a bunch of rules associated with the time travel. You must remain in that seat, you can only meet someone who has been in the cafe, you have to stay in the seat, you can't change the future, and you have to finish drinking your coffee before the coffee gets cold. Imagine the pressure!

I listened to the audio book. Some of the language was sort of flat but I wonder if that's because I was listening in translation. There were basically 4 chapters, each basically a little story on its own. Culturally, I'm not sure that these stories could take place anywhere other than Japan. Or at least they probably could not happen in the United States.

The first story was about a young women feeling like her boyfriend chose his career over her. The second story was sadder about a married couple. The wife is a nurse and the husband has early onset dementia. That story was emotionally difficult to listen to. The third story was about the estrangement between two sisters. And the final story was another bittersweet story in which the wife of the cafe manager goes into the future to see how their lives evolve.

There was one character, the woman in the white dress, the ghost in the white dress, that I wish we'd learned a lot more about. That was left hanging.

If you're interested in reading a short, different time travel book, about human nature and that ends with some lessons, this might be a book you'd enjoy.

Anything is Possible

At the end of the e-book edition of My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout was an excerpt from her follow-up book Anything Is Possible. (In the interview with the author at the end of Anything Is Possible, I learned that she wrote most of Anything is Possible while she was writing My Name is Lucy Barton. As she was writing the first book and the conversations that Lucy and her mother have about people from Lucy's childhood, Strout realized that she wondered about the stories of the people that they talk about. She wrote those stories as she was writing the first book.

Lucy Barton is a key character in Anything is Possible, but this is not her story. She is the glue that holds these disparate stories together. Lucy is only a direct part of one of the stories. One thing that Strout says in the interview at the end of the book was about Olive Kitteridge but I think it applies to Anything Is Possible as well.

I'm interested in different points of view, and that's fun to do in a small town. I just love how, in a small town, we think we know someone, but we only know them this way, and someone else knows them that way. That was interesting to me, initially, as a way to give readers a break. But then as I made these characters I realized that they are living people who happen to know Olive in their own way.

In many ways, Anything is Possible is like a collection of short stories rather than a long narrative. There are stories about mothers leaving, about going from rags to riches, about different directions that the lives of siblings take.

Like My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything Is Possible is written in Strout's sparse, stream of consciousness style. It wasn't quite as short as Lucy Barton but it was an equally quick read. The fact that I've already downloaded Oh William! which is the next book in the Amagash "series" where we get to learn a lot more about Lucy's ex-husband, William. I've also but a hold on Lucy by the Sea (Amagash #4) which I'm expecting to be available in about 12 weeks. That should tell you all you need to know.
 

My Name is Lucy Barton

Years ago, I read Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout's debut novel. That was in the days before I kept really good records of what I'd read. (Can you imagine if I first started keeping track of what I read back when I first started reading?) That means I remember enjoying the novel, but can't remember too much about it. Now that I've read My Name is Lucy Barton, I can't believe that I don't remember her spare, kind of stream-of-consciousness writing style.

My Name is Lucy Barton is the first novel in what is now a series of 4 where Lucy Barton, a woman raised in poverty somewhere in Illinois, is featured. Lucy is hospitalized and her mother, whom she hasn't seen in a long time comes to sit with Lucy in the hospital at the request of Lucy's husband, William. Lucy and her mother share conversations about people they knew in common when Lucy was growing up. Learning about these other people, we also learn more about Lucy and her upbringing.

I can see why this novel wouldn't be for everyone but I enjoyed it a lot. And was surprised by how quickly I read it - and by how short it was. My copy of the e-book ended with an excerpt to Anything is Possible which I downloaded almost immediately after finding him Lucy Barton.

The Last Castle

 

I really enjoyed reading The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Denise Kiernan. I am sure the fact that I started reading this days before heading to Asheville, North Carolina and my first visit to the Biltmore Estate and I finished reading the morning after arriving back home was a huge contributing factor. I would highly recommend that everyone visiting Biltmore takes the time to read this non-fiction accounting of George W. Vanderbilt's visions of his mountain home becoming a reality and then the fight by Edith Dresser Vanderbilt to keep her husband's dream alive after his death.I'm glad that I first read The Wedding Veil by Kristy Woodson Harvey, the fictionalized version of basically the same story. (It also became incredibly obvious that Harvey did her research well. Reading both these books in conjunction with my trip gave me enough information so that I had a good background about the city of Asheville, the history of the area, the Vanderbilt connection to the area, and some specific history of Biltmore.It also insured that I was more curious about things that I saw while sightseeing. And that sightseeing included a trolley around Asheville, time spent at the Grove Park Inn, spending time at the Estate and driving around the Piegan Forest. Now that I finished The Last Castle, I wish I was close enough to go back to the Asheville and look at some specific things a little more closely.

Sadly, it was too cold on the day of our visit to explore the gardens the way that I'd hoped. I'd done research on how to best maximize your time at the estate so we got their mid-morning, giving us time to shuttle to the house, then get to the gardens (I thought that would be a walk and not a shuttle), explore, and time to get back to the house to enjoy a hot chocolate before getting to go inside for our audio tour appointed time. We took the audio tour slowly, savoring lots of the rooms. From there, we shuttled back to the parking area and then drove to the Antler Hill Winery, a new business started by. the latest generation of the family. After the wine tasting, we went to the Legacy exhibit which I really enjoyed. That brought even more of the book to life. It also got me thinking about the generation running the estate now. A brother and sister about my age running their family home as a business. George and Edith's great granddaughter lives on property so she's running her home as a business. Intriguing. 

Wealth is a strange thing. There's so much curiosity about how "the other half" lives as well as such disdain for those who have so much. At least this branch of the Vanderbilt family did a lot of good with their riches. And fascinating how they've struggled financially for many years trying to maintain the house the way George dreamed it could be.

Day 1 in Asheville we spent several hours at 
The Omni Grove Park Inn

The view from the Inn

Interesting construction






Day 2 was our Biltmore Day

The Wedding Veil

Preparing for a return trip to Asheville - and my first visit to the Biltmore, I was interested in reading something to give me a little background. The Wedding Veil by Kristy Woodson Harvey fit the bill. It's a perfect cross between well-researched historical fiction and a Hallmark movie. And I love Hallmark movies!

The novel unfolds in dual storylines. Some people don't like this format for novels. I don't mind. 

The historical fiction storyline is about the Vanderbilt family, the building and maintaining of Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. Edith Vanderbilt is determined to preserve her husband's legacy after his untimely death. Their daughter, Cornelia, would also like to preserve the legacy, as well as maintain her "safe" home away from the spotlight in the mountains. Until she comes to the realization that she needs to make her own mark on the world.

The romance storyline is about runaway bride, Julia, and her determination to find out more about the history of the wedding veil that her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother all had worn before her. It was while putting on the wedding veil, which comes with the promise of a "happily ever after" that Julia realizes the guy she's about to marry at, where else, but at the Biltmore, isn't going to be her happily ever after.

It doesn't hurt that Julia and her grandmother, Babs, my favorite character in the novel, have a special connection to the Biltmore. Babs has a mountain home in Asheville. It's a place where both Babs and and Julia go to think about life.

After reading this, I'm more excited than before to make my trip.

All-of-a-Kind Family

If you are a Jewish woman of a certain age,  you probably read All-of-a-Kind Family as a young girl. I read probably the entire series by Sydney Taylor as a little girl going to Hebrew school. Each book (there are several in the series) are full of stories about five little Jewish girls on the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century.

As a girl - or even now - it's rare to read stories about Jewish people doing things that Jewish people (meaning me and my family) might be doing, thinking, celebrating. To read about a family celebrating the Sabbath or observing Jewish holidays, well, that was ideal for a young girl. And sorry, brother, but my whole life I always wished I'd had a sister. Maybe these books are the reason why.

A few weeks ago, reading the news, I came across a story about a new TV miniseries based on this book series. I shared the link in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook and that started a dialogue amongst all those who loved reading the books as little girls or reading the books to our own little girls. Why did I never read these to my little girls? The conversations made me wonder if I'd enjoy reading the stories now as an adult old enough to be a grandmother! I remembered loving Little House on the Prairie as a kid but then finding it incredibly tedious as an adult. Or was I just remembering the TV series and not the books?

I found All-of-a-Kind Family in the library, borrowed it, figuring I'd read the book in a night or two since, after all, it is a children's book. After reading the first two chapters, I realized that rushing through it wasn't going to work so I started reading one chapter per night before I did my regular reading. That was probably the way it was read to me when I was younger. And it was the perfect way to consume this sweet, lovely book as an adult. Now I wish I had a little girl to share it with!
 

The Rebel of Savannah

After visiting Savannah - and specifically after visiting the old synagogue in Savannah, Mickve Israel - I was very much interested in the history of Savannah and the growth of the Jewish community in Savannah. In fact, as I was digesting all we'd learned on our visit to the synagogue, I said to my husband, "I wish I could find a historical fiction novel about the Jewish community in Savannah." I did some cursory searching of my own. Their history is very much tied to the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal. I had no luck!

I was having a conversation with a friend who mentioned she mostly reads Judaica fiction. She also has Sephardic roots. I asked her if she knew of a book that might fit my need. She recommended The Rebel of Savannah. It sounded perfect.

It was incredibly interesting, but it wasn't perfect. It was not the story I was hoping to read and it really did not satisfy my desire to learn more about the history of the Jewish community in Savannah. (I read it on Kindle and I'm not sure if that's why it was so poorly formatted, making it even more difficult to read than it might have been otherwise. It also needed some pretty major editing. Was I somehow reading an Advanced Readers Copy?)

In The Rebel of Savannah, Hayim Tawal, Chananya Weissman and Mazal Mizrahi tell the story of the development of the colony of Georgia and the role of the Georgians during the Revolutionary War. The Rebel of Savannah happened to be a Mordecai Sheftall, Jew, son of the founder of the Jewish community in Savannah, a Prussian Jew who organized the first Jewish congregation. Mordecai was the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

The novel seems to be very well researched. For me, though, it focused too much on narratives of specific battles. And often I found it difficult to follow the storyline. Once I realized this wasn't what I was looking for, I could have put this book down and moved on to the next book. There are so many good books out there. But, as I said, it was a very interesting story non-the-less. Would I recommend this one? Conditionally. If you're interested in learning about the early days of the colony of Georgia and it's role in the Revolutionary War - including fairly graphic battle scenes - this novel is for you.

 

The Thread Collectors

I really enjoyed listening to The Thread Collectors by Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman. Had the story gone a little bit deeper, I think I would have loved it. That being said, it was an excellent story told in an effective way. I highly recommend it. It was too new to select as a book for my synagogue book club, but at some point I'm hoping we can discuss it.

The authors, Edwards and Richman, tell the story of the Civil War from perspectives we don't often hear from. William is a fugitive slave who enlists in the Union Army where he meets Jacob, a Jewish musician from New York, who is a musician in the Union Army. Through their chance meeting, William's experience in the war is very different from what it might have been had they not met.

Both men have left loves behind. William leaves Stella, a slave to the same master, back in New Orleans while Jacob leaves his wife, Lily, in New York City. While the men communicate with the world thru their music, the women have different ways of communicating. After Stella hand stitches a map to help William escape in order to join up, women on her street ask her to stitch maps for their loved ones. Lily shares her thoughts through her written words. She volunteers in New York City, trying to make a difference to the war effort. She writes articles for an abolitionist newsletter and is part of an organization of suffragettes. To make an early connection between Lily and Stella, Lily is part of a quilting bee even though as a motherless girl, she never learned how to quilt. Or sew. Or knit.

This isn't exactly a spoiler, but at the end of the novel, the authors' note indicates which parts of the story are based on facts from the authors' families' stories and which parts of based on historical research. I'm can't stop thinking about the connections.
 

The Book Woman's Daughter

The Book Woman's Daughter is the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book which was about the Packhorse Librarians in Kentucky at the earlier part of the 20th century. One of the librarians was Cussy Mary, a blue-skinned person (due to a medical condition) who was called the "Book Woman" by the families on her route through the Kentucky mountains.

This sequel picks up with the arrest of Cussy Mary and her husband, arrested for intermarrying between races. Their teenage daughter Honey is left alone.

Where will Honey live? How will Honey live? She sees a sign that the public library is trying to restart something similar to the Packhorse Librarians' routes. Honey applies for the job and gets it.

Honey faces many challenges as she tries forge ahead in life. She makes new friends that she learns to rely upon. This was less historical fiction than The Book Woman's Daughter, although it was written about an earlier time period.

I listened to a library copy of the audio book - and because it expired before I got to finish it, I had to rerequest it and wait for it to be available for borrowing again. That's the only reason why it took me so long to finish. Personally I wouldn't consider this a standalone novel, but if you read and enjoyed The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, I think you'd really enjoy this one as well.

 

Four Treasures of the Sky

Jenny Tinghui Zhang's Four Treasures of the Sky is a beautifully written novel about a decidedly ugly period of United States history. This novel is set in Idaho during the 1800s.

Main character Daiyu's life does not go as planned. When she's a fairly young girl, her parents get arrested and her grandmother feels that it's safer for Daiyu to life as a boy in a large city rather than staying in their little fishing village. Life isn't easy on the street, but eventually Daiyu, living as a boy, finds a place in a calligraphy school. That's where she learns many of the life lessons that will help her survive many other hardships that come her way.

Eventually, she finds herself in Pierce, Idaho. This is where the story that Zhang's father stumbled upon on a trip out west is told.

Zhang's use of language is so beautiful and the connections to calligraphy throughout the novel are incredibly thoughtful.The story of prejudice, injustice and violence towards the Chinese throughout USA history as recently as, well, now (think of anti-Asian acts of violence during the early days of Covid). It can be a very difficult to story to read, but it's well worth making the attempt.

I listened to Four Treasures of the Sky. My edition of the audio book came with an interview with the author. That's where she talked about her father coming across an historical marker in Idaho that started her quest to tell this story.

 

One Last Stop

My daughter recommended Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue quite a few times, but I never got around to reading it. When I read about One Last Stop, this novel intrigued me. A novel set on the Q-line of the NYC subway. In Brooklyn, no less. It sounded kind of sort of time travel-ly which is a type of fantasy that I thoroughly enjoy.

It took me awhile to get into One Last Stop but by the end, I took such great pleasure in reading this book. Of course I loved the setting. I also loved the characters, and not necessarily the character development. That was okay. I loved the development of the relationships between and amongst the different characters in the novel. I'm not just talking romantic relationships. (This is a romance novel. The main couple would be August and Jane.)  I really loved watching the friendships deepen.

August is bumbling her way through college. She just doesn't feel like she fits. She's finally at Brooklyn College, close to graduating, when she meets alluring Jane on the subway on her first day of school. After madly crushing on Jane for months, she realizes there's something up with her and sets about to help her. In the process, she starts needing other people, something she hasn't ever needed to do at any other point in her life.

Other than sexuality, there are no grand themes here. Instead there are lots of reminders of what the 70s were like and what things are like now. Once I got into the story, I thoroughly enjoyed reading One Last Stop. I highly recommend this one.
 

Fifty Words for Rain

I'd seen so much buzz about Asha Lemmie's debut novel, Fifthy Words for Rain and was really hoping for something great. I was disappointed. This is the story of Nori, the mixed-race bastard granddaughter of a cousin of the Emperor of Japan after World War II. Nori has never met her Afro-American father and gets dumped on her grandparents by her beautiful, restless mother when she's about 8 years old. Nori is an embarrassment to her grandparents so is kept hidden up in an attic. Her maid needs to sneak her downstairs to use the bathroom. And the baths she is given? They're filled with some chemical in the hopes that it will lighten Nori's complexion.

Things change when Nori's half-brother, the hope of the family, comes to live with their grandmother. It opens up Nori's world.

I kept expecting something to happen that would really shake things up. But in my opinion, the story just kind of plod along. In the end, I was left with more questions than answers in a very dissatisfying way. Lemmie's use of language is beautiful so this wasn't a difficult book to read. But while there might not be another novel that tackles this story, there are many much better books to read. I wouldn't recommend this one.

The Testaments

Was Margaret Atwood's The Testaments much easier to read than The Handmaid's Tale (of which it is a sequel) because The Handmaid's Tale told such a dire dystopian story which seems far too similar to what we're living in now and The Testaments seemed somehow more hopeful? The Testaments was more "entertaining" and less horrific on many different levels.

The Testaments takes place about 25 years after The Handmaid's Tale. It's told from 3 different perspectives: Aunt Lydia, one of the female elders of the community and from two teenage girls, one growing up in Gilead and the other growing up in Canada. In many ways, this is a typical coming-of-age story, even though the upbringings of the girls is anything but typical. It gives us a much better idea of the workings of Gilead.

I don't want to give too much away and I'm struggling to give you a better idea of the plot of the book without spoiling it for you. Of the two books, The Handmaid's Tale is the one with the larger message, the one that is more scary and the one that really makes you think.

 

Brave New World

I can almost imagine that I never read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley way back in high school since so much was unfamiliar. But I do remember the fact that I didn't like it when I read it back then and some of it jiggled memories in my brain. This reading was basically like reading a book I'd never read before. I could call this post "Brave New World Revisited" but I can't because that's the name of another book.

What did I think? Well, back in 1970-something, I would have given this book just one star on Goodreads. This time around, I gave it three stars. And I reflected that my personal sense of this dystopian novel would have been quite different as a teenager than it is as a "mature adult."

Sometime in the future, when people might be grown solely in test tubes (no more crazy ideas like mother or father), happiness and comfort will trump knowledge, beauty and wonderment. That's what Brave New World is all about. Humans are predestined to a certain castes when the embryos are developing inside of bottles. Each caste has a certain place in the social order. Okay, yes, that's what caste is. But each caste, in addition to their tasks to keep society going are provided with amble leisure time and pleasant ways to spend it. There's always soma in case someone needs a vacation from reality.

Unlike other dystopian novels I've read of late, this one is a little far fetched so looking at it very generally, it might be a bit less disturbing. But then, when I started to think about how happiness is more important than knowledge, well, isn't that what is happening in Florida now? How students are not to be taught subjects which might be uncomfortable for them? That's when my thinking went in a really dark direction.

If you're of the believe that it's important to read the classics, perhaps you should add Brave New World to your list if you haven't already read it. It was a quick enough read. Then again, there are so many good books out there. You decide.

Lessons in Chemistry

In Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus tackles a huge societal problem in a fairly light-hearted way. It's the story of chemist Elizabeth Zott, chemist, taking place in the late 1950s to early 1960s when most doors were closed to women chemists - or scientists - or most professions that weren't teachers, nurses or secretaries.

While working at Hastings Research Institute, Zott meets Calvin Evans, an extremely brilliant chemist. Evans seems to be the only one to appreciate how brilliant Zott is. The chemistry between them is something else. People seeing them together were sickened by how perfectly well-suited they are for each other.

One thing leads to another, Zott gets fired from Hastings and an opportunity to host a cooking show "Supper at Six" pretty much falls in her lap. It's referred to as a cooking show, but to Zott, it's a show teaching chemistry - and teaching women that the status quo isn't working for most. Daring women to take "a moment for yourself," advice from her neighbor, Harriet.

It was Harriet who told me to use that moment to reconnect with my own needs, to identify my true direction, to recommit. 

I'm trying to think of which book I can relate this one to. Maybe The Rosie Project? I'm just not sure. If you can think of which book you'd connect this with, I'd love for you to let me know. Three books I've read this year that have a connection (specifically women's roles that involve cooking specifically) are:
                        The Secret History of Home Economics
                        Miss Eliza's English Kitchen
                        The Kitchen Front

The book has important messages to communicate about women's roles and opportunities, single parenthood, and afternoon television in the 1960s. Family is not necessarily those who gave birth to you.

Some of the book was a little far-fetched. I'm talking about you, Six Thirty, Zott's beloved dog. Towards the middle of the novel, I kind of wanted things to hurry up. And then they did. And the end of the novel flowed beautifully.

I'd recommend this for an easy read about how far women have come since the early 60s and which will have you thinking seriously about how much farther we still have to go.

 

Violeta

 

I usually enjoy epic family novels and Violeta by Isabel Allende was no exception. I especially enjoy when they are set in the context of real world events that are taking place over the course of the story.

In this novel, Violeta is born into a wealthy family in 1920 just as the Spanish flu is starting to spread throughout South America. Her family survives that intact only to suffer great losses during the Great Depression. Violeta lives through World War II and major political upheaval in South America. She manages to live long enough to die during the early days of Covid, from old age and not from the virus.

Violeta is writing the story of her life to share with Camilo, someone that from the start we realize is very important to Violeta. She wants him to have an entire family history. It's 2020, Violeta is 100 years old and it's time to get the story down on paper.

This is a novel full of love, passion, friendships, commitment and the struggles that people face. 

Allende's The Japanese Lover was the first novel of this author that I read. I really loved that epic novel, possibly a tiny bit more than I loved this one.

A Harvest of Secrets

Another waiting period for library books to become available so I once again I picked up my Amazon Prime First Reads. This one, A Harvest of Secrets by Roland Merullo, I believe was my August 2022 choice.

A Harvest of Secrets is another World War II novel. This one was set in Italy. Each book I read about the war experience in Italy gives me a totally different aspect of what the war must have been like. This novel focuses on the partisan network in Italy in a more in-depth way.

The main characters of the story are Vittoria, daughter of a prosperous vineyard owner, and Carlo, the vineyard keeper. Besides the usual problems when social classes fall in love, Vittoria and Carlo are separated during the war. She's at home with her father and brother keeping the wine business and farm going and Carlo has been conscripted and is off fighting the war. Old Paulo, the foreman of the vineyard is another key character, holding secrets from the past.

I spent a lot of time thinking as I was reading. How do you figure out (in real life) who is on what side? How do you trust anyone? And I wondered how those with different views on the war maintained their relationships.

I was on the fence over whether I should round my 3.5-star rating in my head to 3-stars or 4- on Goodreads and ultimately went with rounding up. It was a well-written, engaging story that made me think. A lot.

I'm going to leave you with the two quotes that struck me the most.

Mussolini will make us great again. Il Duce is creating another Roman Empire. A true man, he'll never let Italy be disrespected on the world stage!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

"Your problem," Antonio went on, the words flowing out of him now, as if a dam had broken, "is that you want to be pure. A pure man. In war you can't remain pure and you can't remain neutral. You're fighting with us now. You've made your choice." 

 

Ella Minnow Pea

Perhaps if I had read Ella Minnow Pea, an epistolary novel by Mark Dunn, back in 2002 when it was first published, perhaps then I might have found it entertaining. Reading this in 2022, I was somewhat horrified.

The premise is somewhat cute. There's a fictional island nation off the coast of South Carolina called Nollop, named after Nevin Nollop, the person who penned the famous pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." That pangram happens to be the sentence my dad insisted that I type as I was first learning to type. It is the sentence that includes all the letters of the alphabet, perfect to type while learning the keyboard. 

At the center of Nollop is a statue of Nevin Nollop with the phrase stuck in with individual letters. As each letter alls off the statue, the island's Council bans each letter. They can't be used in speech or in writing. Punishments are incredibly harsh. Nollop folks have always prided themselves on their interest in language. Banning letters is extremely difficult for most.

Ella Minnow Pea is an 18-year old resident of Nollop. She communicates with her family and neighbors by mail since Nollop hasn't had reliable phone service since some hurricane years earlier. She was very quick to realize that soon she will have no freedom of expression. That's what struck me reading this novella in 2022 - how easy it is to trample freedom of expression and what arbitrary punishments can do to a society.

This really jumped out at me.

    Yes, that is now the topic on every lip. This salient, impertinent, Hamlettian choice.

    To leave or not to leave.

    To waive claim to our homes. To renounce our mother soil. To give up everything to those who warrant only our lowest contempt - to those who aspire to reign in outright tyranny, who misperceive Nollopian thoughts in service to rapacious intentions. Can they not see that we see what is happening here?

That is how I feel about life in the United States about now. Slowly but surely our rights are being stripped away. Do we stay and fight? Do we leave?

Ella and her correspondents must come up with creative ways to express themselves once they can no longer use certain letters in the alphabet. She is disgusted. She is one of the few who remains to fight the fight and restore the freedom of expression to her nation.

Like I said, the premise could have been cute but to read this now, it was most disturbing.

The Old Man and the Sea

Maybe I am a truly unsophisticated reader but I did not enjoy reading Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. I read it for Books & Beer Club. If I make it to the book club meeting, I'm sure it will make for an interesting, fully engaging discussion. But this was a novella that I couldn't wait to finish.

I liked the story better than the writing style. Is it totally ignorant to say this? It's the story of Santiago, an old fisherman who, after a long string of bad fishing days, catches a marlin. The marlin is so big and for a few days pulls Santiago further and further away from the harbor and his home. Both Santiago and the marlin put up a good fight. The writing, though? Is this how all of Hemingway's books are written? 

On further reflection, I realized that Fredrik Backman's And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer is a similarly themed novel. Old age, place in the world, reflecting on the past. I much preferred And Every Morning...

Another classic I can say that I've read.

The edition that I took from the library included all sorts of notes, correspondence and a draft of a similar short story that Hemingway had written. I think I preferred the draft story.

 

Mazel

Mazel, by Rebecca Goldstein, was a hard copy novel given to me by a fellow book club member that I read at the same time that I was reading Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale on my kindle. It was interesting to be reading two books where Judaism is an important component at the same time. Yet the stories could not be more different. I wonder if reading them at the same time made me like Mazel less than I might have had I read it at a different time.

The novel starts with Phoebe's marriage to a traditional Jew in suburban New Jersey, a lifestyle that neither her grandmother, Sasha, or her mother, Chloe, can understand. Sasha's rejection of traditional Judaism and traditional women's roles is implied and easily comprehended as the story jumps back in time to Sasha's childhood in the shtetl in Poland. Sasha, then Sorel, is the daughter of a rabbi. She's one of six children. She and her two sisters are very close. One of their favorite ways to pass the time was to create stories together.

After tragedy strikes the family, Sorel and her parents move from the shtetl to Warsaw where her life changes when her aunt introduces her to the Yiddish theater. This takes Sorel's storytelling to a new level.

Sorel's mother's guiding force is mazel - or luck - and that becomes Sasha's guiding force as well. I felt that the author talked more about the mazel rather than showing it. I also wish that Sasha's story was shared directly with Phoebe rather than the story jumping back in time without the connection. For me, the story dragged a bit when dealing with he relationships amongst those in Sasha's original Yiddish theater group in Warsaw. For these reasons, this book was just an okay read for me. It would probably lead to a good book club discussion, but I doubt that I will recommend this as a title for my synagogue book club.

 

Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale

How Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale wasn't on my radar until recently is beyond me. I read about it recently in an email from the Jewish Book Council. Andrew Kane's novel is such a powerful read.

This story which spans about 40 years centers on Joshua, Paul and Rachel, three individuals whose lives intersect repeatedly over the time period covered in the book.

From the blurb: Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale views four decades through three lives. Andrew Kane's novel is a love story about loneliness, a reflection on the value of community that acknowledges that it takes a village to raise a mob, a tale of public dysfunction and personal demons, and an image of the frail beauty of humanity that somehow survives.

Themes in the book include religious identity, fanaticism, racism, segregation, women's roles, opportunity, and the bonds of friendship. There's romance, eating disorders and parental expectations.

Joshua is a young black boy when his mother moves him from Bed-Stuy to Crown Heights in an effort to increase his opportunities in life. Paul is a secular Jew living on Long Island with his assimilated parents who is exposed to Hasidic Judaism when he trains for his Bar Mitzvah with a rabbi from Crown Heights. Rachel is the rabbi's daughter.

I grew up in Brooklyn so was able to picture some of what was described in the book. There are also historical events that are fictionalized - somewhat - and I recall several of those as well. The book culminates with the Crown Heights riots in 1991 and sadly, much has not changed in those 30-plus years.

I highly recommend Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale and think it would make a great choice for my synagogue book club. We just selected a different book for our October book, but I might suggest this for our January title.