The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger is a novel about a marriage between a Amina, a young woman from Bangladesh, and George, an engineer from Rochester New York. They meet online and marry a year later, The novel tells about Amina’s new life in America and her quest to bridge the gap between the two cultures. The novel is loosely based on the life story of a woman who Freudenberger met on an airplane. Freudenberger creates real characters that the reader…
Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas is historical fiction set in a Colorado mining town in the 30’s. Dallas brings the harsh reality of living in a mining town to life. The story focuses on the unlikely friendship between 86 year old Hennie Comfort and 17 year old Nit Spindle. As Nit spends her first year in the town, and Hennie spends her last, Hennie decides to pass all her stories on to the young girl, often told while quilting…
One Glorious Ambition, The Compassionate Crusade of Dorthea Dix is the latest historical fiction by Jane Kirkpatrick. She chronicles the life of New England activist and reformer Dorthea Dix. Living in the 1800’s when women had very little voice, Dorthea crusaded tirelessly on behalf of better conditions for the mentally ill. A lonely woman from a broken family, she feels a call to serve from a very young age. Kirkpatrick’s novel is a deeply personal portrait of this fascinating woman…
Tapestry of Fortunes is the latest from Elizabeth Berg. If you are a big Berg fan, this is sure to please, if not, you might find it a lot of forgettable fluff. Four women who hardly know each other set off on a life-changing road trip. I didn’t believe any of it. The only thing I will remember from this book is it’s pretty cover. Try earlier Berg for more depth.
NW, the new novel by Zadie Smith is about the North West corner of London, where Smith was born and raised. The novel tracks the lives of four inter-related, yet very different people who live there. Smith is a truly original writer, and has her own distinctive voice and style. However, this novel didn’t work at all for me. I couldn’t wait to be through with it. I felt it was all style over substance, and was left feeling very…
Noah’s Compass is the eighteenth novel by Anne Tyler, (my favorite is Digging to America.) This novel tells of a 60 year old man who has just lost his teaching job. He moves into a smaller apartment and his first night there he is hit over the head and robbed. He wakes up in the hospital and remembers absolutely nothing of the incident. His search to regain his lost memory leads him to engage with a professional ‘rememberer,’ and the…
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa is an elegant and restrained novel about a Mathematics Professor who has suffered a head injury and retains only 80 minutes of memory. Every 80 minutes he starts again completely from scratch, and remembers only what is written on notes he keeps pinned to his suit. He forms an unlikely, yet touching friendship with his housekeeper and her son. This is a beautifully told tale full of the magic of numbers and…
The Island by Victoria Hislop is a novel set on a small island off the coast of Crete called Spinalonga. Spinalonga was a leper colony for over half of the 20th century. The novel is beautifully written, well researched historical fiction. It is family saga, set on the island, and in the nearby village of Plaka, a small Greek seaside village in neighboring Crete. Hislop tells of the prejudice and misconceptions that surrounded leprosy at the time, and one families…
Wild is a bestselling memoir by Cheryl Strayed. Strayed, now in her forties writes of the time in her mid twenties, just after her mother had died suddenly of cancer at the young age of 45. Strayed was lost and her life was spiraling downwards, resulting in divorce, one night stands, and drugs. In order to pull her life together, Strayed decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. This is a bold move for an inexperienced backpacker and a woman…
The Mercy of Thin Air is a novel by Ronlyn Domingue that follows Raziela Nolan as she travels in the in between space for decades after her death, searching for her one true love. She dies young in an accident in New Orleans in the 1920’s, and the novel moves back and forth in time from her real life to her afterlife. Raziela and her mother were both activists for women’s rights in the early 1900’s. Its an interesting portrait…