The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

The setting of this powerful novel is Czechoslovakia in the years prior to (and following) WWII. Next door in Germany, things are brewing, but in the Glass Room, the setting of much of this novel, the world is modern, clear and cool.  The Glass Room is as much a character in this book as the people themselves.  Viktor Landauer, a very wealthy car manufacturer, builds his dream house, using the most modern and respected architect. The house represents the future; it's not fussy and adorned like their old house with tapestries, heavy furniture and brocades. This house is simple, clean, austere.  Viktor does sense that events in neighboring Germany are looming large and will change his world. His wife, Liesel, is less concerned, but she is not Jewish as her husband is. There is so much going on in this novel, politically, intellectually, socially, that it is hard to write a concise summary of the plot.  The characters are interesting, especially Hana, Liesel's best friend, and Stahl, the Nazi who occupies and works in the house during the war. The house in this novel is modeled on the real Villa Tugendhat, in the Czech city of Brno, but the author claims the characters are all fictional. Most of them are so well drawn that they are very real for the reader.
I highly recommend this book. It was one of my favorites of 2010!

The Doctor and the Diva by Adrienne McDonnell

This was a fast and easy read which I needed after "The Lotus Eaters." Of course, it was also disappointing after such an amazing book as "The Lotus Eaters," but I did enjoy it nevertheless.
The story takes place in the early part of the 20th century. Erica, who is a talented singer, and her husband have fertility problems and seek the help of Dr. Ravell. From the onset, the reader understands that there is electricity between the doctor and the diva. The doctor finds out that Peter, the diva's husband, has no sperm so fathering a child will not be possible. But Peter refuses to have his sperm tested; Dr. Ravell does it without Peter's knowledge and finds out that he can never father a child.
Erica, the diva, does conceive, because Dr. Ravell substitutes his own sperm for Peter's in order to continue the doctor/patient relationship.
The story moves from Boston to Trinidad and to Italy.
The struggle of Erica's desire to be an opera diva and a mother and wife run throughout the book. She does persue her singing career in Italy, sacrificing family.
I took this book out the library based on the cover reviews from favorite authors such as Sara Gruen. It was a fun read. It was the novelist's first book as well.

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

This is probably one of the best books I have read this year. At first, I was a bit intimidated by it and was reluctant to delve in. But once I did, I was hooked. The novel tells the story of a female photographer during the Vietnam War.  She has lost a brother in the war and is drawn to the locale to make sense of what happened.
Helen must deal with the attitudes of male journalists who dominate and are dismissive of a woman covering the war. And then there are the soldiers and their superiors who refuse to have a woman with them as they prepare for their assignments. But still, Helen persists and handles the situations courageously, at least on the outside.
The book gets its title from Homer's Odyssey about a country of lotus eaters, a race that eats the lotus flower, and gives it to Homer's men to eat as well - but not to kill them but to make them wish to stay where they are and not return home with news or any desire to return home.  This theme runs throughout the book. Helen and some of her fellow photographers, especially Darrow, a Pulitzer prize winning photojournalist, are drawn to Vietnam and to war in general. Helen and Darrow's desire actually seduces them to danger.  When she returns home to California she is lost, and yearns to return to Vietnam, which she does, much to her family's consternation.  She needs to get that one last shot, be there when the war ends, capture the images.
There are so many themes running through this rich novel. One recurrent theme involves morality; do the reporters and photographers who cover this gruesome war promulgate the violence and immorality of the war in their depiction of it? Is this just war porn? Or do they do the public a service by exposing the gritty and horrible details?
The last 20 pages of the book were so intense; I had to read them very slowing, savoring every word. I didn't want the book to end, but I was dying to find out the outcome. I won't give anything away.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Henry Lee, a twelve year old Chinese American living in Seattle, meets Keiko, a similarly-aged Japanese American girl during WWII, right before the Japanese internment. Both are attending an American school, and are subjected to  ridicule and prejudice because of their race. Keiko, actually, has it much worse, being Japanese right in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. They meet because they are both scholarshipping in the American school, which means that they serve in the cafeteria and do other odd jobs in order to go to the "better" school. Henry's father hates the Japanese, and when he finds out his son has befriended Keiko, refuses to speak to him. For years this silence continues.
The story goes back and forth between the 40's and the 80's. In the latter years, Henry has just lost his wife, Ethel, and is trying to repair the relationship with his son, Marty, which has been strained during Ethel's last years of life.
The Panama Hotel, which is referenced in the title of the book, served as a place where many Japanese families stored their belongings when they were sent off to the camps. Henry, as an adult, hears about how the new owner of the hotel has found these treasures in the basement and allows people to come in a claim what is theirs. Henry goes, hoping to find Keiko's family's belongings.  And he does.
The book tells the story of Henry and Keiko's friendship, her family's internment and Henry's resolve to wait for her, despite his father's protests.  In the end, he does lose touch with her and marries Ethel.
The ending of the book was much to "pat" for me; all the pieces fall into place too easily, and not realistically, at least for this reader. And Henry's character as a child was far too grown-up to believe. The book was entertaining, but a bit of a "formula" book for me.

More for the Want to Read List

The New York Times published 100 Notable Book List.

Too many to put on my Want to Read List

The Siege by Helen Dunmore

This novel about the Siege in Leningrad during WWII, caught my fancy right away, being a Russian major and lover of all things Russian. I did enjoy the story of Anna, a young woman who takes care of her father and brother during the Siege. Her mother had died earlier in her life. Anna meets a young doctor, Andrei, who moves into the apartment. There is not really a strong story here but more a story of survival. I found it fascinating and of course, disturbing, to read about what people had to do to survive during that awful time. It's estimated that half of the population of the city was lost during the war. I recall vividly, even though it's been about 35 years since I was there, visiting the Piskarevsky Cemetary when I studied in Leningrad in the early 70's. Quite a moving experience.

The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg

This book recounted the days leading up to and including a high school reunion - a 40th reunion. I did mine this year so was interested in the story. The book was amusing and had some poignant moments, and did not fall into the cliches that could have easily persented themselves.  Ms. Berg developed some characters better than others, and expressed their trepidation at seeing old friends again. The "losers" are now the winners and the popular jock who expects to be the hit of the reunion turns out to be a pathetic kind of character, trying so hard to win back his wife, who brings someone else to the reunion. There were interesting snippets that I could relate to, and I appreciated the self realization that most of the characters express as they look back on their lives, who they were and who they have become.

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

This book was not on my "Want to Read" list or even on my radar. Not sure how I missed the reviews when it came out. Nevertheless, when I went to the Library last week to return my books, it was on the shelf with those daunting "one week only - no renewals - $1.00/day fine" books. I took it anyway, because Anna Quindlen is one of my favorites.
At the start, I loved the book and the writing. Quindlen has such a way to make characters real. I enjoyed getting to know Mary Beth and her husband and children. The story meandered, delving deeper into this family and their friends.  Hints of what is to come are subtle, but nevertheless, there between the lines in the text.
And when the "big event" happens, you are stunned, but  not shocked. I can't give any more away. I will just say, "read this book and don't put it down halfway through when you think it's getting a bit slow."

The Lovers by Vendela Vida

I just read an earlier book by this author - "Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name " and found that to be quite interesting and captivating.  This book was also enjoyable and interesting, but I took a bit longer to get into it than her other book. In the end, however, I think it was even more powerful.

I don't think I quite understood the title however. The novel tells a story of a woman, Yvonne, who has recently lost her husband in a tragic hit and run accident. She is traveling to Turkey to revisit the place that she and her husband, Peter, had visited on their honeymoon.  At the end of the trip she is to meet up with her twins, Matthew and Aurelia, and Matthew's finance, for a cruise in the Aegean.

She rents a house and has interesting encounters with the owner and his wife, and also befriends a young boy who plays a pivotal role in the novel.

The author describes in detail Yvonne's feelings of being alone in a strange country; she can't sleep, she makes mistakes, gets lost a number of times and wanders, seeking answers to questions and issues that have plagued her.

In the end, Yvonne deals with her grief and finds peace, especially with her daughter. It's a good read. Recommended.

LIttle Bee by Chris Cleave

This was a captivating read....not an easy read, but a very compelling story.  The lives of two women, very different, are intertwined in a tragic way, and their common experience brings them close together and makes their lives interdepedent.

Little Bee (not her real name) is a Nigerian woman who lost her whole family to acts of terror in her home country.  Sarah is a journalist with a young son, Charlie, and a strained marriage.  She and Andrew, her husband, travel to Nigeria to save their marriage.  Little do they know that what they experience their will change their lives forever.

So much happens in this book; so much that is sad, tragic, and scary.  The women are strong and positive characters, while the men are weak and flawed.  Even her son, Charlie, is maladjusted and difficult.

I don't want to spoil the end, but I was not quite sure exactly what happened at the end. I am not sure if the author intended to be cryptic, or if I just rushed through the end without fully grasping the meaning. I want to discuss with my friends who have read the book.

Have you read it? Do you have an opinion about the ending?

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Not sure where I heard about/read about this book, but I know I did. It was fast-paced, exciting, intriguing and compelling. It tells the story of a young woman who was abducted, tortured, raped, abused, and impregnated by a psychotic man over the period of more than a year. It reminded me of John Fowles' "The Collector," at first and makes me want to read that again.
I could not put this book down. One thing that is comforting in this horrific story, is that you know that Annie, the main character, survives, because the book is told in the present tense and is told as if she is relating her experience to her shrink. So it's comforting, in a way, to know that Annie does not die at the hands of her abductor.
But what she does experience, at the hand of her abductor, and when you find out how this all came about, is so disturbing.

Bridge of Sand by Janet Burroway

I had never read anything by this author and am a bit embarrassed to say that I had not heard of her before. Apparently, she is the author of one of the top selling and  most respected books on the craft of writing, and has written a novel nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She writes poems, plays, children's books and fiction, Quite prolific. She wrote for Mademoiselle Magazine as a Guest Editor in the 1970's a position also held by Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion.
So, I learned all of this after having read Bridge of Sand because I was curious about this wonderfully talented author. The novel opens on 9/11 as Dana, the heroine, is driving to her husband's funeral in Western Pennsylvania only to see a huge cloud of smoke, which turns out to be the plane that was hijacked and crashed in W. PA. 
Dana was ready to leave her husband when he became ill with cancer but she stays with him and takes care of him until his death. At this point she grapples with her life and what to do with it. Her husband was a congressman, but she seeks out her working class roots and goes down to find one of the only places she could ever called home, her grandmother's house in Georgia, only to find it gone. She looks up an old friend, Cassius, a black man who she used to work with in the local supermarket. A romance ensues, but much more than that as well. As a matter of fact, for most of the novel Dana and Cassius are not even together.
She settles in Western Florida after meeting up with Solly, the owner of a local grocery store in a town that she learned about from Cassius. She ends up meeting all kinds of interesting and rich characters and becomes embroiled in a life so different from what she had as the wife of a Congressman.
I will not reveal any more about the book, other than to say it's powerful, entertaining and beautifully crafted. Read it! I am going after her other novels soon.

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida

This was a quick read, and an enjoyable one. Clarissa, the heroine, is in search of her roots. At her father's death, she finds out that he was not really her father after all, and her mother left the family when Clarissa was just a teen. She just disappeared one day when she and Clarissa were doing their Christmas shopping at the Poughkeepsie Mall. Her mom arranged to meet her at a given place at a given time, and never came back. And her father never shared this secret with her. Neither did her fiance, who has known for 15 years that it was not her father, either.
Clarissa finds her birth certificate in her father's papers after he dies and finds another man's name as her father. He is a Sami priest and lives in Lapland. (The Sami are the indigenous population in Lapland, resembling our Native Americans.) Clarissa leaves her fiance to find out the truth about her past.
When she finds him in Lapland, she finds out other interesting information as well, and her journey takes her eventually to the truth about her past.
I heard of this author because she has a new book out that is on my Want to Read list but since I could not get it, I took this one out instead. She is a good writer and I am inclined now to find her other books.

The Three Weissmans of Westport by Cathleen Schine

After reading other reviews of this novel,  I guess I need to read Sense and Sensibility again in order to appreciate this one.  But I DID appreciate it, even without a reminder of the close correlation between the Jane Austen book and this one.
The characters Betty, Miranda and Annie are interesting and human. Betty, the mother, has just been left by her husband of 40 plus years. She moves from NYC to Westport, CT into a cottage owned by her Uncle Lou and is joined by her two daughters.  Their "adventures" are described in detail in this entertaining novel that is full of humor, satire and pathos.

Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb

I can't say that I did not enjoy reading this book, but I was a bit disappointed since it came highly recommended.  The story follows a young woman, Julia Bennett, as she escapes the torture and abuse of an abusive mother and blue blood fiance. The story is told in a humorous way, but personally, I find it hard to be glib about subjects as serious as these are.
The novel becomes a kind of "male bashing" vehicle, but there are sympathetic male characters in the book as well, which makes it a bit more palatable in the end.
Julie leaves her wedding gown draped over a tree in North Dakota as she escapes from her horrendous fiance, Robert. This was probably the best part of the book.  I really loved the description of Julia trying to drape that gown over the tree and have it stay there. So initially, I was "hooked," the talent of this young writer was powerful to start.
But I found as I continued reading that the characters were typical and predictable and reminiscent of other such novels, such as the Ya Ya Sisterhood.
I wanted more. The ending was not surprising. I was hoping for more.
Is Cathy Lamb related to Wally?

The Irresistable Henry House by Lisa Gruenwald

I was totally unaware of the fact that in the late 40's & early 50's and up to the late 60's, colleges and universities had home economics classes in childcare that had young women "practicing" mothering skills on orphans who were supplied by local orphanages. Quite strange!
This book deals with just such a baby - Henry House - who was reared by multiple moms for a short time in his infancy and who is then adopted by Martha, the head of the program at the school. She is so dedicated to Henry but he does not feel the same toward her. She lied to him early in his life, hiding the truth of his parentage and suffocating him with her love.
Henry has relationship and committment issues, given his unusual rearing and the book follows his life through his early years and into his adulthood. He has numerous relationships, but none can really last until Henry deals with his own insecurities and feelings about his past.
I recommend this book!

Private Life by Jane Smiley

I looked forward to reading this book and had it reserved for me at the Library, but I must say, I was a bit disappointed, especially since one of Smiley's early books, A Thousand Acres, has always been a favorite of mine. It is a slow moving story, but in the end, I realized that it was probably Smiley's intention to tell the story that way to convey the slowness of Margaret's life and how she must have felt during her long marriage to a delusional and eccentric man.

This book tells the story of Margaret Mayfield and it begins in the late 1880's when she is just five years old. The story ends during WWII in 1942, so you experience Margaret's life over a long span. In essence, the story is of her marriage to Captain Andrew Early, a "brilliant" scientist in a fairly well-to-do family in St. Louis where the story begins. She marries late (for the times) at age 28.  Never is there a shred of evidence that there was any romance in her marriage at all.  And her childhood was spotted with tragedies - the death of two brothers and the suicide of her father. You realize early on that the title of the book has relevance; Margaret lives a very quiet and introspective life and takes what life has been dealt to her with acceptance, sacrificing her own urges and interests to her husband. She rarely stands up to him but just accepts his dictates and fanciful ideas without question.

After Margaret and the Captain marry, they move to the west coast, outside of San Francisco in Vallejo. I must say, I enjoyed the fact that most of the book takes place in an area that I love and am so familiar with. The novelist brings current events of the time  into the story - the Civil War, the 1905 earthquake in San Francisco, the first world war and then the second world war.

Out west, Margaret meets some interesting people who help to spice up her life a bit and she becomes close to a Japanese family and an odd Ukrainian man named Pete. Perhaps one of the most interesting characters in the book is Dora, from her home town, who stays single her whole life and travels all over the world as a news correspondent. Certainly, daring for a woman during that era.

A public hanging witnessed by Margaret when she was five years old is an event that is mentioned over and over again throughout the book and in the memory of it serves as a way to bring Margaret's life to closure.

It is written well, and has some passages that did captivate me, but overall, I was anxious to finish the book and move on to the next.

So Much for That by Lionel Schriver

This is a very powerful and disturbing book but in the end, uplifting. It deals with a family's confrontation with a serious form of cancer and the accompanying issues at hand when facing such a tragedy: the illness itself, facing death, chemotherapy, changes in your life and then - the health care issues. At the start of the novel, the husband, Shep, is preparing to tell his wife of many years that he is ready for "the Afterlife." For him, the afterlife does not mean death, but instead means that he plans to pick up and leave the United States, his job and his family (if they won't accompany him) and move to Pemba in Africa. It's been his dream for many years to leave the rat race that is life in America and live a simple, self sustaining life in a third world country where the cost of living is very low. Before he can tell Glynnis, she tells him her news: she is sick and has been for a while and has been diagnosed with mesothelioma. She is an artist who works with metal and over the years has had much exposure to asbestos. And the bottom line is - he can't go to Pemba because she needs his health insurance.
There are other interesting characters in the book, mainly his best friend Jackson and Jackson's family. The daughter has a rare congenital disease, familial dysautonomia (FD), which requires frequent and unpleasant medical interventions, and of course, vast amounts of money to contain and control. So the theme of health care, its costs, its inequities are all a very large part of this interesting novel.
One theme that was particularly difficult for me to deal with was the cancer victim's relationship with her family and "friends."  The book hit very close to home for me in this regard, as I have lost several friends to various forms of cancer and grappled all the time with my inability to deal with people who are sick and provide the "right" kind of support. I was always beating myself up for not doing enough. Glynnis expresses her feelings quite frankly about the friends who don't know what to say or how to act and it was difficult for me to read these passages, as they strengthened my feeling of inadequacy in this regard. Glynnis' end was painful to read as well, as I was reminded of being with my mom when she took her last breath.
I don't want to sound as if this book is a terrible downer, because it is not. I really liked the ending, but won't give it away. The book had humor and pathos and I did enjoy reading it.

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Quite a different book! Templeton is really Cooperstown and Marmaduke Templeton is the father of a character who is James Fennimore Cooper,  author of Last of the Mohicans. References are made to the book and to the Baseball Hall of Fame, so fact and fiction intertwine in interesting ways.
It's the tale of a young woman, Willie, who returns home to Templeton from Stanford, after falling from grace in her doctoral program. She slept with her professor, who is married and threatens his wife. She returns home, the prodigal daughter, to her single mother, Vi, who has had a similar life experience herself.
Vi has changed, however, from the hippie chick she was when she returned home to Templeton from San Francisco when both of her parents died tragically in a car accident. Vi is no longer the hippie, but instead a nurse and "born again" Christian who is dating the local reverend.
Willie finds out from her mom that her father is someone from town. Previously she had been told that her mom did not know who father was - it could have been one of three men, she claimed.
Willie spends time researching all of her ancestors, beginning with Marmaduke, meeting old friends and classmates in her home town, and getting to know her mom. She is desparate to find out who her father is. And she does find that out in the end.
It's a really fun read and very unique, too. I have not mentioned the "monsters" in this blog post, but you will have to read the book to meet them.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Loved this book!!! It tells the story of a British major, a widow, who is stuffy and "English" and does all of the traditional English things - drink tea, shoot geese, play golf, etc. but is at heart, different from his cronies.  Oh, he is rigid and staunch when it comes to certain things, especially his pair of Churchill pistols, handed down by his father. These pistols play an important part in the story and end up being very symbolic and crucial at the end of the tale.
Anyway, the Major develops an attraction to Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper where he buys tea and other items in his town in Sussex.  They develop a beautiful friendship built on mutual interests and love of literature. She is not, however, accepted in his world and conflicts develop that will challenge their relationship.
I really enjoyed the way the author developed their mutual attraction and friendship. It is done in an elegant and quiet manner. The other women in town who are interested in the widowed Major are appalled that he could take up with a woman "of color."
The Major's son, Roger, is a true fop; you really want to smack him in the head many times, and so does his father.
There's much comedy, social commentary, pathos, sentimentality, sensitivity and delicacy in this tale. I loved the characters above all and love the way the author wove the story, even to the point of having a true climactic ending. I was almost willing to let myself be disappointed by the ending, believing it to be a "sell out," - the true happy ending, which doesn't usually happen in real life. But so much of this story was about real life and real people and real issues that prevail in our society today. I was relieved and delighted by the happy ending.

The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This book was quite well reviewed and I looked forward to reading it. I must say that it was totally different from what I expected.  It was much more psychological than I expected and delved into human frailties and issues that I did not anticipate. There were quite a few twists and turns, and the story certainly kept my interest.
But overall, it was not one of my favorites. In some ways, it was just a bodice-ripper with some psychological insight.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

Well, this was a good read, if the criteria is a book that I read for more than an hour a day.  It was fast, compelling and interesting. But, it was predictable, too. I knew too many times how things were going to turn out, from halfway through the book to the end.
But, the story was interesting and enlightening and told of events that have been buried for many, many years: the French collaborating with the Nazis during the Occupation. There was a round-up of Jews in July 1942; they were taken from their homes and taken to the Vel d'Hiv (an indoor stadium) or to camps. From there, most went to Auschwitz. Children were separated from their mothers, and this novel retells the story of one of those families. The daughter escapes and survives, but with a deep secret she hides for many many years.
This novel shifts back and forth from 1942 to 2002. There is a connection between Sarah, the young Jewish girl and Julia, the 45 year old American journalist living in Paris and assigned the story of the Vel d'Hiv.
The ending seemed trite, predictable and too "pat." It seems like the book was written with the Hollywood screenplay in mind.
I don't want to be too negative, because I do think that people should read the book. Just don't be expecting any big surprises!

A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates

One of my favorite authors, but not one of my favorite books by this author...

Joyce Carol Oates is such a prolific author that she can't possibly publish masterpieces all of the time. She writes and writes and writes, as an author should. Sometimes they are hits and sometimes misses.

This one is a miss, but it is a good read and a captivating story in spite of that fact. Sometimes we just need to read to be entertained, and I was. The book does lack the depth of her masterpieces, like, "We Were the Mulvaneys."

This short novel tells the story of a young girl, Katya, who is a nanny for a well to do couple on the Jersey shore during a summer. She meets up with an elderly gentleman who befriends her. The reader is not quite sure why, nor is Katya.

The story progresses through their friendship and offers glimpses into Katya's childhood and past which may help the reader to understand why she is attracted to, and repelled by Marcus Kidder.

The gripping ending is a page-turner, but ultimately, not really satisfying.

The Heights by Peter Hedges

Peter Hedges wrote both the book and the screenplay "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." which is one of my favorite movies of all time. And he was the writer/director of "Pieces of April" and "Dan in Real Life." So I knew he would offer a novel that was quirky, clever, funny and poignant. And I was not disappointed.
The novel is about marriage, family, temptation, infidelity, and trust.  The story shifts back and forth between Tim, the husband, and Kate, the wife, telling the story. It amazed me how well Mr. Hedges could "speak" as Kate so realistically....tell the story from the woman's point of view and sound just like a woman.
The life he describes, even though it takes place in Brooklyn Heights, is much like suburbia or a small town. Everyone knows everyone else's business. The women gossip and get together at the local Starbucks or other coffee shop. They are especially gossipy when the new rich family moves to "the Heights" and the wife is not only rich but beautiful.
Tim and Kate have the perfect ordinary marriage. The author puts them through a test that turns everything they have upside down. Do they survivie? You'll have to read the book to find out.
It's a quick and enjoyable read. Now I hear it's being made into a movie and the author is adapting the screenplay, producing and directing. I look forward to it. Now I am speculating.....who will play Kate? Tim and most important - Anna?

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

This is an interesting memoir/novel that tells the story of the author's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. She was born in 1901 in a one-room dugout in the western part of Texas. The beginning of the book describes her life their as a child and opens with her saving her siblings from one of the flash flood that come out of no where and can sweep people and animals away in an instant. She grabs her younger siblings and climbs up a tree with them where the stay overnight. She has to keep prodding them, and engaging them with singing and other activities because if they fell asleep, they'd lose their grip on the tree, fall and be drowned. You get a sense early on just what kind of strong, self-reliant woman this young girl will become.
The book takes place over many decades and follows Lily through her stints as a horse and cattle rancher, wife (twice - her first marriage is a disaster, but life-changing) a maid, a teacher, aviator, and eventually a mother to Rose Mary, a daughter who possesses many of the same characteristics as her mother, but not the common sense. The author, Jeannette is the daughter of Rose Mary and Rex. Lily was not in favor of Rose Mary's marriage to Rex. As Lily says to Rex, “My daughter needs an anchor,”  Rex retorts, “The problem with being attached to an anchor, is that it makes it 'hard to fly.' ”
Now that I have read this book, I need to read the author's other book, Glass Castles, which the young woman in the Library recommended when she checked me out with this book.

The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

I had never heard of this author but tuned into the second part of an interview with him on NPR in one of my many drives around the district from building to building. I wanted to be late for my appointment because I wanted to finish listening to him speak about this book. And then, the New Yorker came a few days later and there was a review of the same book. So, I put it on my "Want to Read" list and even logged into the Westchester Library System's website and put it on hold so I would have it when it came in to my local Library.
The book starts at Cynthia and Adam's wedding and you get a sense early on about these characters and their lack of moral tether. Their relationships to their families are strained and distant. Neither one really seems to care much for anyone but each other. (The one constant in the book is their love for each other. You half expect the success and money to tempt them into infidelity, as it often does. Money can buy anything - but they remain faithful to each other and to their quest for more.)
The book is written in sections that jump in years and covers their early marriage and birth of their two children when they are very young. They are always the youngest parents at Dalton School functions and the other older parents look at them with a bit of jealousy. We then witness the children at various stages of their lives. The daughter goes the route of bored and spoiled rich girl who gets involved with the club scene in NY and drugs and a near-death overdoses. The son, Jonas, is the odd one in the family. He is not smitten with money and what it can bring, but instead chooses to live, as a student at the U of Chicago, quite simply.
There is so much to this book about greed, immorality, insider trading, unscrupulous "deals" and the quest for more, not so much for what it can bring, but instead for the "thrill" that it gives Adam to be able to pull it all off.
At one point, I felt that it would become a story of the rise and fall of Adam, but he doesn't fall; he gets away with his schemes. He and Cynthia have no guilt because they start huge foundations and give away millions of dollars to all kinds of great causes. This launders their misdeeds.
The ending of the book was very strange. I read the last page a few times. I want to hear the author talk about that conclusion and how he ended the book. I won't give it away. Just read it!

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Oh, what an amazing book. You start out and get familiar with these interesting characters and then the next chapter starts and you see no relationship, until BAM! These characters are related (not necessarily by genetic relationships) to each other.
I must say that I was really into this book but was most captivated at the end when I got to know Gloria. What an amazing chapter. I can say no more other than
YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!!!

Invisible by Paul Auster

I loved this book until the ending and then I was like, "WHAT?"

My favorite Paul Auster book is the first one I read, Leviathan. I have read many others since then.  I am really not sure how I feel about this book. I will leave it at that.

Maybe I didn't get it?

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

I so looked forward to reading this book after the accolades bestowed upon it in the New York Times. I did enjoy its amazing prose, the clever and amusing writing and the story line. But I was not overwhelmed. And, of course, the fact that the author is a professor at my alma mater, U of Wisconsin, Madison made the book appealing. 

This is a coming of age story and a poignant and sad one. The main character, Tassie, is the daughter of a farmer. She is a student at the university in Troy, but I couldn't help but think it was really Madison. She gets a job as a nanny for a couple who is adopting a biracial baby. The story takes place very soon after 9/11, but the author does not really get around to that until late in the story, although it is alluded to earlier.

Her brother enlists in the army. His tragic end is crucial to the story. Tassie gets involved with a "Brazilian" who turns out to be not what she thought he was. There is a lot of that in this story. I won't give away more, but will just say that it's an engaging and very poignant story with long passages of beautiful prose, sometimes difficult to get through.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

As a liberal Democrat, would you expect me to read a fictionalized account of the life of Laura Bush????
This book was fabulous!!!! I really felt like I got to know this woman, Laura Bush, who in the book is Alice Lindgren, who marries Charles Blackwell (aka George W. Bush).
The writing is just wonderful. It's a page-turner and thoughtful and deep and rich in character development. And toward the end of the book, when she deals with being "the President's wife," Ms. Sittenfeld really writes from the heart and soul and you SWEAR that she IS the president's wife. It's so personal and real. I can't convey how I felt reading this part. I really liked this woman...wanted to meet her and get to know her.

I really would love to know how much of the character is based on the truth about Mrs. Bush. If she is really like the person in the book, I have to feel bad that I judged her because of who she is married to.So much of this last section of the book deals with being famous and what people expect of you, how they treat you, what they think of you, just because you ARE famous. It's such a great account of that facet life in the political limelight, or any limelight for that matter.

When this book came out, I read about it and was fascinated by the whole idea of it. I am so glad that I finally got to read it. It was just great. I want to read Ms. Sittenfeld's other books now, too!