"Talking to the Dead" by Helen Dunmore

This was a very interesting book. Dunmore is a great writer. Very literary, but also interesting plots. The story takes place in Cornwall. Nina, an artist and photographer, is called to attend to her sister, Isabelle, who has just had her first child. After a very difficult labor, Isabelle had to have a hysterectomy. She is recuperating, and while there is a full time woman helping her, Richard, Isabel's husband, calls Nina to come and help out and spend time with her sister.
Isabelle is a great friend to two men, gay partners, who spend lots of time at her bedside. This allows Nina to find time alone, and to connect to Richard....in a very illicit manner!
What unfolds is the story of two sisters who are so different, but tied together by a family secret that comes out.
The writing is really quite beautiful. This is my second Dunmore novel and not my last!

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

When I found this skinny book (just under 200 pages) on the "one week shelf" at my local library, I grabbed it because Anne Tyler is a favorite author. And I read it in just a few days. And I enjoyed it, but it was NOT her best work of fiction.
The story is told from the point of view of Aaron, a man recently widowed, and recounts his reaction to his wife's untimely and unexpected death.
She is a physician; he is an editor for his family's vanity press. They meet when he is doing research for a book the firm is publishing. Aaron suffers from a handicap resulting from a childhood virus.  He and Dorothy seem an odd match on first account, but they actually are pretty well suited to each other.
After her death, Aaron tried to remain in their home (where she was killed by a tree falling through the roof!), but eventually has to move in with his sister, Nandina.  He hires a contractor to do the repairs, but never visits the house after moving in with his sister. At least not until she starts dating the contractor, Gil, and Aaron is uneasy in the house with them.
The odd but touching part of the book are the scenes in which Dorothy comes back to visit and chat with Aaron. The reader knows that the conversations that take place between the couple are really just conversations between Aaron and himself, trying to cope with his loss and the unfinished business between the couple.
The story did touch me, even though it was a bit simple and predictable. But I enjoyed the ending - and I won't give it away!

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

What I really liked about this book was the writing and way the author, a woman, told the story from the point of view of a group of males. When the novel opens, they are in high school, and they are gawky, awkward, typical teenage boys who talk about, and sometimes, lust over the girls they know. The setting of the book is not well defined, excepting to infer that it's a suburban community, probably upper middle class, since most of the boys go to private school.
The story revolves around the disappearance of one of the girls, Nora Lindell. On Halloween, she simply disappears and never returns home. And the mystery of her is never resolved in the book. But, in a very interesting fashion, several different versions of her disappearnce are told, and as you are reading these, they become very real.
Nora becomes the symbol of the loss of innocence for these young people. Once she is gone, their youth is never the same.  They spend so much time speculating on what happened to Nora, that they never really look at themselves and what they want of their life. The novel jumps back and forth in time and covers the span of about 25 years. At the end, the boys are in their mid forties, with wives and children of their own. But they still have this one tie that binds them: their obsession with Nora Lindell and what became of her.
Although at times there were too many voices in the collective "we" that this novel speaks through, I really enjoyed the writing and look forward to more from this young writer. This was Hannah Pittard's first novel.

Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

How is it that my last post was so long ago? Did I miss a book? Probably.

Well, I so looked forward to reading Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison. And I did enjoy it but it did not meet my expectations.

Being a Russian major, maybe I knew too much. But I wanted more drama, more intrique, more mystery.

I didn't know that Rasputin had a daughter who lived to emigrate to the united states.  Nor did I know that she became a horseback performer in the US.

Are these things true?

State of Wonder by Anne Patchett

What a remarkable book!
Ann Patchett's new novel, State of Wonder, tells the story of Marina Singh, a pharmacologist whose company sends her to the  Amazon jungle to look into the supposed death of her colleague, Anders Eckman. He had been sent to the Amazon to bring back news of Dr. Annick Swenson, who, in the company's employ was developing a miracle fertility drug. Dr. Swenson had become uncommunicative about  the progress of her study and her whereabouts. Unfortunately, Enders never returned to tell the story.
Marina is sent by her boss (who is also her lover), Mr. Fox, to get answers. She is quite perturbed by this, as she was once Dr. Swenson's obstetrical medical student and performed a cesearean section that caused a baby to be disfigured. She resigned from that field after and went into pharmacology
What she encounters in Brazil is beyond anything she could imagine. And the crux of Dr. Swenson's research turns out to be quite different from what anyone up north is aware of. 
There are so many issues beneath the surface here, most notably the struggle between preserving the habitat of the indigenous people who harbor this miraculous "drug" and sharing that miracle with the rest of the world who could benefit greatly from its healing power.
Don't miss this book. It's really a treasure.

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

I hadn't read about this book but when I found it in the Library, I immediately took it out. I recall reading The Gathering by the same author and recall liking it. And, it won the Man Booker Prize a few years back.
So I was not at all disappointed in this new book by the same author. I read it in just a day and a half! It was short, but also very readable, interesting and full of interesting characters. The author got the reader involved and thinking about marriage, infidelity, and family. Even though most of the characters were not particularly sympathetic,  the story was quick-paced and kept the reader involved. And then there's Evie, the child who quite silently, inhabits every scene.

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

I expected (and wanted to) love this book. It has all the right elements: Russia, mystery, romance, political intrigue, Stalinist USSR background, ballet. I thought I would LOVE it. But somehow, I just didn't care much for the characters. The only one I really liked much was Grigory. And I wanted to really care what happened in the end; how were Nina and Grigory connected? But I just didn't get absorbed in the story.
Nina, the main character, in her old age, seems bitter, angry and withdrawn. I suppose that because of what she endured in Soviet Russia under Stalin, she deserves to be that way. Plus, the added burden she must endure having been a prima ballerina most of her life has made her body ache and throb, and she is confined to a wheelchair most of the time. But I just wanted to like her more and I just couldn't. Even as a young woman, I didn't find her character particularly sympathetic.
Her friend Vera, was the more sympathetic character for me. Her parents "disappeared" suddenly one day and she was pretty much an orphan for her whole life. Nina's mother takes a special interest in her, understandably, but Nina's jealousy of that situation didn't seem right to me, somehow.
Anyway, Grigory, the university professor, was the most real and sympathetic character, at least for me.
The ending? I was not even that interested to find out how these characters were connected.
PostScript: Just found this blog post and it's making me rethink my review.... or making me want to pick up the book again and try all over.