The Distance Between Us, A Memoir by Reyna Grande tells the all too common story of Mexican children who are left behind while their parents go to “El Otro Lado” the other side, to try to make a better life for their family, often times never coming back for their children. Reyna and her siblings grow up with a cruel grandmother in Mexico while waiting for their parents to return and take them to “El Otro Lado.” Beautifully written, honest,…
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn, is a family saga set in Hawaii. Strong Washburn brings ancient Hawaiian mythology into modern day life and explores local Hawaiian culture in a way that few writers ever have. When seven year old Nainoa falls overboard and is saved by a shiver of sharks, his family knows there is something special about him. As he struggles with his newfound gifts as a healer, he eventually ends up working as…
We are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby is a book of personal essays by Irby who also has a blog www.bitchesgottaeat.com. These essays are heart-wrenching, honest, gritty, often painfully sad, and always hilarious. Totally compelling, this book kept me up at night until I was through it all. It’s hard to laugh at another person’s pain, yet Irby invites us to do just that. Her writing is razor sharp, direct and packs an emotional punch, and did…
The Sleepwalkers Guide to Dancing is the debut novel by Mira Jacob. This is a fantastic family saga that takes the reader from India to New Mexico to Seattle and back. Following the lives of the Eapen family, Thomas, a brain surgeon and his wife Kamala, whose cooking I could almost taste, moved from India to America, raising their two kids Amina and Akhil in New Mexico. Amina, now in her early 30’s is a photographer living in Seattle when…
The Peppermint Tea Chronicles by Alexander McCall Smith is part of his 44 Scotland Street Series. If you feel like hanging out in Edinburgh for a few days this is a fun series to read. Full of McCall Smith’s usual wit and charm, we revisit familiar characters, my favorite of which is ten year old Bertie, finally free of the therapy sessions and yoga classes his mother had previously imposed on him. Nothing really new here, but as comfy as…
The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect by Wendy Williams is a fascinating new book about our obsession with butterflies. Although filled with scientific information, this book is for the lay person simply interested in learning more about these fascinating creatures and why and how they’ve captured our imagination for centuries. Williams takes the reader along on her own personal journey of discovery over the past few years…
A Burning is the incredible debut novel by Megha Majumdar, set in modern day India. The novel follows the lives of Jivan, a Muslim girl from the slums who aspires to rise to the middle class, PT Sir, a gym teacher hoping to rise to political power, and Lovely, an uneducated outcast with dreams of becoming an actress. As the story unfolds and builds to its climactic ending, their lives weave together and apart again, while Majumdar demands the reader…
Afterlife is the new novel by Julia Alvarez, her first adult novel in many years, if you haven’t read In the Time of the Butterflies, you should! Here she writes about Antonia, a just retired English professor in a small Vermont town (Alvarez taught at Middlebury) who is grieving the sudden loss of her husband, the town’s beloved doctor. While her Dominican sisters are staging an intervention for one sister they believe has lost her mind, Antonia finds herself drawn…
Good Talk: A Memior in Conversations by Mira Jacob is a graphic novel based on her life. If you haven’t read any graphic novels, start with this one, then read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh. If you’re not a fan after that, then graphic novels just aren’t for you. Jacob is full Indian, not half, born to immigrant parents and raised in New Mexico. Her husband is Jewish and they live in New…
How to Do Nothing by Jenny O’Dell is really not about doing nothing, but rather shifting where our attention goes. This is one of Obama’s top ten book picks of 2019, and I wholeheartedly agree; in today’s world, this book is nothing less than revolutionary. Many self help books claim we need to spend less time on social media and more time in nature, but this book offers so much more than that. Extensively researched, thoughtful and observant, this book…