Soulful Simplicity:How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver, a minimalist blogger, is a self help book teaching the reader how to de-clutter, de-stress, downsize and enjoy the simple things in life. Carver’s wake-up call came when she was living a very busy and stressful life and was diagnosed with MS. There’s a lot of good advice in here, just nothing too original.
The Power by Naomi Alderman imagines a world in which teenage girls gain an electric power in their hands that they can transfer to other women. With this new power, they soon become the dominate gender and begin to take over the world from men. Although some parts of this book were fascinating, mostly I found it disturbing. As soon as women gained this power, they began acting as awful as the men who had oppressed them. A very grim…
Fear:Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward, investigative reporter from the Washington Post who uncovered the Watergate scandal, is an in depth look at the first two years of the Trump presidency. If you weren’t afraid enough of our current administration, this book will surely strike fear into your heart. It tells in detail how decisions are made on a day to day basis, addressing everything from North Korea, to Afghanistan, NAFTA, WTO, and much more, as well as…
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin is about the early days of Hollywood, especially one of the first movie stars, Mary Pickford and her friend, screenwriter Francis Marion. They forged a strong friendship during the days of silent films, but their relationship suffered in later years, especially as Mary went off on tour with husband Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin. Not my favorite of Benjamin’s books, but great historical fiction about the early days of movies, a time…
When the English Fall by David Williams, an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, is a novel about the Amish way of life. Told in simple, sparse journal entries, Jacob, an Amish farmer tells what happens when a solar storm disrupts all technology and life outside their community is thrown into chaos. A beautifully written little book about what will happen if all our devices suddenly fail and we are left with no skills to survive. A meditative and timely read.
A Distant Heart by Sonali Dev reads like a Bollywood movie without the dancing, which is of course much less fun. A story of two young lovers who met in their early teens.Kimaya had a rare condition and was locked in her sterile germ-free room, Rahul cleaned her windows and got to know her from the other side of the glass.. Their relationship survived all odds, but this is not just a love story, its a crime thriller as well….
Man, which means perfect fulfillment in Vietnamese, by Kim Thuy is a beautifully written little novel about a Vietnamese chef who is married with kids and living in Montreal with her family, then meets a French chef who turns her world upside down. With such sparse, well chosen words, Thuy transports the reader to another world filled with beauty, love, food, and passion. Poetic, lyrical, totally original, a beautiful book to read slowly and savor.
Recipes for a Sacred Life by Rivvy Neshama is a little book of inspirations, or recipes as Neshama calls them, taken from her experiences that we all need to remember in order to live a better life. There’s nothing new or particularly remarkable here, but they are nice reminders when we need them. The kind of sweet little book you can flip through and return to time and time again.
The Story Hour is another fantastic book by Thrity Umrigar, one of my favorite authors. Lakshmi, an uneducated Indian woman living in the states far from home and married to a man who doesn’t love her, tries to commit suicide. This is how she meets Maggie, who becomes her therapist and friend. There are few storytellers who have the ability to create such sympathetic characters and draw the reader in the way that Umrigar does. She writes about race, gender,…
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrick Backman takes a small character from My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry and gives her her own book. This is my favorite so far of the books I’ve read by Backman. Britt-Marie starts out as a not very likable, fastidious older woman set in her ways and blunt with her opinions of others. When her husband leaves her for a younger woman she must find a job for the first time in…