All Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is the latest by Fannie Flag, author of Fried Green Tomatoes. Flag is a wonderful story teller, and here she tells the true story of the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) who flew during WWII and have been mostly forgotten about. We meet the Jurdabralinski family from Wisconsin of four girls and one boy, who all but one become pilots during WWII. One of the girls has a baby that is given up for…
Telling the Bees, by Peggy Hesketh is a beautifully written novel, full of fascinating facts about bees. I wanted to like this novel more than I did, but in the end I found it mostly depressing. The protagonist, Albert Honig, now in his 80’s, looks back on his long and quiet life as a beekeeper, living in the same house he grew up in. Next door is his best friend Claire who he has fallen out of touch with in…
Dust is the debut novel by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. Owuor was born and raised in Kenya, where this novel is set. It begins with the death of Moses Odidi Oganda, gunned down by police in the streets of Nairobi. His father brings his body home and his sister Ajany returns home from Brazil after many years away. His mother, full of grief and anger, disappears. This is the story of a troubled family and their troubled country. Owuor’s writing creates…
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara is a deeply disturbing novel about what happens when western culture collides with an isolated culture on a remote Micronesian island. Most disturbing is that it is very loosely based on a true story. I had no sympathy for the narrator, Dr. Norton Perina who visits the island and finds that people seem to live for greatly extended lives by ingesting the meat of a rare turtle. Yanagihara presents the reader with…
The Invention of Wings is the new novel by Sue Monk Kidd. Kidd brings to life Sarah Grimke and her sister Nina, two famous abolitionists in the early 1800’s all but forgotten today. Kidd re-imagines Sarah’s life as it parallels that of a slave named Handful, only one year younger than Sarah and given to Sarah on her 11th birthday. The Grimkes came from Charleston’s upper class and it was inconceivable for the sisters to turn against slavery and fight…
In her novel The Good House, Ann Leary takes us into the life of an alcoholic and all the secrets and denial that come with it. Hildy Good’s family has lived in the same small town in New England for generations. She is now the top selling real estate agent there, selling houses to rich newcomers. Her world is slowly unraveling as she can no longer hide the truth about her drinking from her family and friends, but it takes…
We Need New Names is a wonderful novel by a new voice from Zimbabwe, NoViolet Bulawayo. Bulawayo writes with such direct honesty about growing up in Zimbabwe and then moving to the United States, I was completely transported by this book. We follow Darling and her friends through their days in their shantytown, the place they came to after their real homes were destroyed. Darling is able to leave to live with her Aunt in America, but always has a…
The Condition by Jennifer Haigh tells the story of one family that falls apart shortly after daugher Gwen is diagnosed with Turners syndrome, a rare condition that keeps her trapped in the body of a twelve year old girl her whole life. Haigh writes with such exquisite insight and detail that the book becomes about the human condition, specifically how we relate to each other within our families. This is an incredible novel, I couldn’t put it down. Haigh is…
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter is a novel that starts in a very small village on the coast of Italy in the early 1960’s and takes the reader to modern day Hollywood and back. At the heart of the novel is the love story between Pascuale and Dee.Walter writes from many different perspectives in many different formats. Sometimes this was fascinating and worked well with the overall story, and at other times I found it distracting, and just wanted to…
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a hilarious novel written in the voice of Don Tillman, a Genetics Professor with Aspergers. I didn’t know this at the start of the book, and just kept thinking-what’s wrong with this guy? A few pages in, I finally realized that Don must be on the Autism spectrum, (even though he doesnt realize this about himself) and everything started to make sense. I loved this book. Don makes lists and timetables for everything,…