Deborah Harkness |  Fiction

My friend Lois recommended this book to me, and she has never once led me astray.  I loved this book, however I cannot recommend it to every one of my blog readers unhesitatingly ... you will have to choose on your own.  It is a fantasy, featuring witches, vampires, daemons, and humans.  It begins slowly, in my opinion, as we come to know our two main characters, Diana and Matthew, who are professors working and researching at Oxford.   One-third of the way through this 600-page read, I could hardly put it down.

A Discovery of Witches is about vampires, witches, daemons and humans at one level.  At another level, especially in the early context-setting pages,  it is an allegory of brown people, black people, white people, gay people, Muslims, Jews, Democrats, and Republicans and how we manage to live together – or not – with our diverse cultures, values, norms, rules, beliefs, and covenants.  Early in the book we learn that humans become nervous whenever the other creatures gather together in any sort of a group or crowd.  Sounds quite familiar.

This is decidedly not about vampires biting unwilling humans in the back alleys of New Orleans.  Never happens once.  It is actually about the discovery and manifestation of our individual and shared inner strengths and powers (whether we be witch or vampire!).

I realized on page 515 why Lois recommended this book to me; I can see what is looming in the second book of this All Souls trilogy by Harkness, which I will read!

And yes, there is a powerful love story that sparks both magic and war.

Marcy Dermansky |  Fiction

This is an absurd book.  I will venture to call it dumb.  It has a story-line that is not believable, a primary character I didn’t like and didn't care about, and a red car that is possessed.  Don’t even consider it. 

(Yes, I finished it.  I kept hoping.  This is a Huffington Post recommendation.  Hmmm, causes me to look askance at their recommendations.)

Rachel Kadish |  Fiction

I liked this book a lot.  I didn't love it.  I loved it at first; a richly woven story told in beautiful language.  I described it to my friend Jan as a “cup-of-tea-by-the-fireplace” book; a 600-page book to be read with intention and attention.

And then (you can blame my modern-day distracted brain) I began to find it too dense.  The weight of the ink on the page grew heavy.  When we were in the modern days with PhD candidate Aaron Levy and the challenging Helen Watts, Professor of Jewish History, with whom he was working,  time passed quickly, as our two scholars read pages from the trove they found, called a Genizah.  As we  learned more of the 17th century backstory of the female scribe Ester and Mary, for whom she was a companion, and the rabbi for whom she scribed, Rabbi HaCoen Mendes, the stories at times became rather dense with Jewish history and knowledge. I slowed a bit and my interest waned. I found myself using my iPad often to look up words such as Spinoza, Sabbatean, jib and virginal (the noun).

But I took a deep breath, woke up from the intermittent naps I took while reading The Weight of Ink, and kept going.  The last 150 or so pages re-engaged me.  So, like many long books, I experienced a dip in the middle.  However, on total, I am giving this book four hearts.  I think it is definitely worth the read.  This is a book club book, and I am quite looking forward to our discussion in late January, as there is much to explore.

You may be considerably more knowledgeable than I am about Jewish history and the plague in London in the 17^th century, but I learned a great deal from this novel.  It is, dare I say it, a feminist novel, as it is very much about the intellectual development of a woman in a time when women didn’t have many options.

So, with only minor hesitation, I recommend The Weight of Ink when you are ready to immerse yourself in a long read.  By the way, while long, it is not complex with characters.  Kadish manages to not inundate her tale with a multitude of characters.  There are, let me count, about a dozen significant characters, so you have ample opportunity to get inside their heads and hearts.

Nevada Barr |  Fiction

Last Thursday I found myself in-between books, and I wasn't going to the library until Friday.  So I put the grab on this Nevada Barr, which had been sitting on the credenza for about a year.  What a nice respite for the Christmas weekend!  Anna Pigeon at one of my favorite National Parks, Big Bend.  Love her character ...  and love that each Barr mystery takes place in a different National Park.

Timothy Snyder |  Nonfiction

This tiny book is big on making one think.  It is only 126 small pages.  The author, Timothy Snyder, is a Professor of History at Yale University and has written numerous historical books.  On Tyranny is 20 lessons.  In each lesson, 1-9 pages long, he writes of a historical event — tyrannical events primarily from WWII — and then ties it to a similar behavior, cultural element, or effect under our current administration.  Sometimes he caused me to gasp with the starkness of the similarities.

This is not a book to be read cover to cover in one sitting.  To allow and encourage its full impact, read one lesson at a time and let that lesson percolate for a few hours or days.  Think it over, muse on it, wonder about it, and notice how the parallels resonate (or not) with you. 

My one regret in reading this book is that I read it alone.  Snyder's lessons call to be read and discussed. It feels like On Tyranny is meant to be read with your life partner or your business partner or your book group or with friends.  It compels the reader to chew ... and you will want to hear the views of others in your life who you respect.  Truth be told, I didn’t comprehend all of it either, and it would be helpful to hear other’s understandings and interpretations.

For $7.99 US, On Tyranny could be that one last stocking stuffer for the thoughtful person on your list.

John Green |  Fiction

This isn't The Fault in Our Stars.  It isn't even on the same shelf.  I was looking forward to this next young adult novel by John Green, but was quite disappointed.  I find it interesting that all the commentary on the back cover of Turtles All the Way Down is about The Fault in Our Stars.

The main character in Turtles is Aza, a high school junior with mental health challenges.  She has “invasives” ... spirals, she also calls them.  These are obsessive thoughts, mostly about microbes and C. Diff (clostridium difficile infection) and bacteria and other ways our bodies can be infected.  These spirals, obsessive and ever-tightening, make relationships, school, and life itself difficult for Aza.  For this reader, they were simply boring and depressing.  I found no redeeming qualities in this story, and I read it all the way through.

If it is already on your reading list, my suggestion is to cross it off.  But, of course, if you have read it, I/we would love to hear your opinions, especially if they differ from mine!

Dan Brown |  Fiction

If you still need a Christmas gift for someone on your list, this is it!  I inhaled Origin.

Edmond Kirsh, a 40-year-old billionaire, futurist, and technology genius is unveiling a discovery that will fundamentally change beliefs about human creation and existence.  His dear friend Robert Langdon will be attending the elaborate, creative, dazzling presentation at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa Spain, along with several hundred other guests.  Langdon is a brilliant Harvard professor of symbology and iconology.  But then, chaos ensues and Langdon finds himself with the elegant museum director Ambra Vidal, as together they search for the password to unlock Kirsh's presentation.

This IS Dan Brown, so there is religion, anti-religion, history, and symbology throughout this fast-paced thriller.  I enjoyed it immensely.  Some of the resolutions were not complete surprises, but still, I was enthralled to learn of Kirsh's stunning discovery as well as to solve the inherent mystery in this tale.

I am wondering how you maintain the list of books you want to read.  I was chatting with my local librarian about this topic this morning when I  dropped off some books.  She'd just heard an idea:  put the names of all of them in a jar and when you need a book, draw one out at a random.  Interesting thought!  She keeps her list in her library account, which has a digital place where you can put in lists and organize them, but that is now 20 pages long, so she can't manage it anymore.  I have a typed list that I keep adding to.  I organize them by recommendation source or topically ... for example, I have lists of recommendations from my reading pals Mary and Rene; and I have a list I call ":adventures" which are true stories of wilderness adventures.  And now I have a bunch of published lists stapled to the back of that printed list.  But my sub-categories are insufficient, and, more important, new books keep trumping (45-ing???) books that have been on the list a while.

So, share your process, please!  I/we would love to hear new ideas, especially ones that work for you!

 Atul Gawande |  Nonfiction

Oh my, this is a sobering book to read.  It is about how we care and don't care for our elderly and dying community members.  This isn't a data-rich book, it is a narrative well told my Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.  He uses patients and their true stories to educate us, with anecdotes about the late-life journeys of his patients and his family.  He has also conducted considerable research on the topic of caring for our elderly. 

You will learn the interesting history of how assisted living came about as a counter to nursing homes.  And you will learn why.  You will gain insight into the motivations of oncologists, other physicians, caregivers and family members who paint overly optimistic pictures ... in service of the search for one more miracle.  And you will come to understand some of what is necessary for people who age to continue to have meaningful and purposeful lives.

While I am very glad I read this book, I gave it three hearts because I can’t recommend it for everyone ... I have to recommend it with reservation.  And the reservation is, pick this up if you are ready to explore this important but difficult subject.  If you care for or about someone who is significantly ill, or if you want to decide for yourself with greater clarity what actions should and should not be considered as your time grows short, this is a book worth reading.  You will receive a heartfelt education.

Josephine Tey | Fiction

(Andrea)     (Mary)

Mary, my friend from high school, and I like to read a book together once a year or so.  She recently sent a list published on September 15 by PBS News Hour titled, “13 Fall Books That Will Make You Think.”  We picked this novel from that list.  It was right below What Happened by Hilary Rodham Clinton.  Imagine our surprise to open our library copies and discover this book was written in 1949!

The Franchise Affair is a British crime novel, which apparently breaks the rules of British crime novels (no, I don’t know what the rules are!)  Josephine Tey (real name, Elizabeth MacKintosh) wrote 24 novels and plays, some under her pseudonym, Gordon Daviot.  In this novel Betty Kane, 15,  accuses two older women, mother and daughter, who live together in an old mansion called The Franchise, of kidnapping her, keeping her for a month, and beating her.  A local attorney in their small British town is hired to protect and vindicate Marion Sharpe and her mother.

 Mary:  While dated in writing style and very British in tone, some of the themes are very current, in particular the media's influence on society.  Based loosely on a well-known case that took place in England in the 1800's, I liked the story and how the author developed it. Tey fleshed out the characters well, even some of the minor ones like Aunt Lin.

While I did find the writing style dated, I appreciated Tey's method of illustration or "turn of a phrase". I believe there is a literary term for it but darned if I remember it from high school English classes. Here are a few examples from later in the book when I thought to make note of them. 

When Robert encountered Betty's mother in the courtroom, he realized that despite his warm feelings toward her "....the game had been laid out on the squares now and they were chequers of different colour." 

" 'She can never again take a step on to green grass without wondering if it is a bog.' " Marion reflecting on Betty's adoptive mother.

 Andrea:  Like Mary, I really enjoyed the “turn of the phrase.”  I found the writing style intelligent and interesting.  I thought the story had depth.  It barely resembles much of our modern-day crime fiction, which can be so formulaic.  I found this novella an easy and entertaining read, and I wanted to know how the alleged crime resolved itself.   I would like to read more of Josephine Tey, except, there are so many books on my list, I may not get to another of hers for a long time.  You may want to try her on for size!