Jodi Picoult | FictionIntense. This book begins light and easy. Sage Singer is a baker; you can almost smell (but not quite taste!) the delicious breads and pastries she bakes every night. One day an elderly man walks into the bakery and Sage and Josef strike up a conversation and then an unlikely friendship. Nice…
William Kent Krueger | FictionI remember one event clearly from the summer I was 13. I went to Bob-Lo Island, an amusement park on an island in the Detroit River, and met my first love, Randy. What do YOU remember about the summer you were 13? Well, this book is the summer Frank Drum was…
Scarlett Thomas | FictionOK, I give up. I have been trying for four days and 80 pages to get into this book. I find the characters completely meaningless. Bryony, for example, is obsessed with her weight … not obsessed with losing it, just obsessed with it; with feeding it; with how well her husband bakes;…
John McPhee | Non-FictionI was delighted by this book from the very first page. McPhee’s writing is like having a conversation over coffee. It is easy, engaging, curious, unhurried.Before I opened this book, I thought I had made a mistake. Other travelers give you books to read before you travel somewhere. I received an extensive…
Dominic Smith | FictionI really like the story line of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. Sara de Vos is a not-very-prolific painter in Amsterdam in 1631, and the first woman master painter in the Guild of St. Luke. Centuries later, 1957, Ellie Shipley is a struggling art student in New York City, when…
Eowyn Ivey | FictionThis novel is based on an actual 1885 expedition by Lieutenant Henry T. Allen.Eowyn Ivey’s character, Colonel Allen Forrester, travels up the Wolverine River with a small band of men (and soon, one woman and one dog) into the vast untamed Alaska Territory. There are three simultaneous story lines. Forrester’s journals create…
J.D. Vance | MemoirI wanted Hillbilly Elegy to explain to me why Appalachia voted for Trump. I guess if I really want to know, I better read a non-fiction that attempts to answer that question. Any recommendations? Hillbilly Elegy gave me some insight with which to answer that question, but not much. More on this…
Lee Child | FictionThis was a fun read, in-between more serious books! Someone is buying something worth $100 million, in two-decades-ago US dollars. What could be bought, sold and transported on the black market for 100 very large bills? Jack Reacher, of course, is put on the job to find the item, the seller and…
Marie Semple | FictionThis book is NOT about Bernadette’s physical disappearance (see my rant below.) However, it is about her emotional, intellectual and mental disappearance from her life. Bernadette is an incredibly interesting character … she presents as somewhat daft … but then again, she presents as very rational. Can someone be “somewhat” daft? (Heck…
Ruth Ware | FictionThe Woman in Cabin 10 is a fun read; I read it easily over a weekend. An Agatha Christie-esque-style novel … “How can the woman in cabin 10 be murdered? There IS no woman in cabin 10!”Lo Blacklock has landed the assignment of a lifetime. A travel journalist, she will be reporting…