Book Recommendations

Here is a list of books recommended by Beth Hart's sister who is a librarian.  She gives the author's last name, the title and a brilliant synopsis of each book.  Thanks for sharing this Beth!

> GOOD READING 2011
> 
> Aird, Past Tense. Catherine Aird is not that well-known in this country,
> but follows the classic British mystery tradition of Christie, Sayers,
> Allingham, and Tey. Most of her novels feature Chief Inspector Christopher
> Dennis "Seedy" Sloan and his frequent sidekick, the somewhat dense Detective
> Constable Crosby. They've been compared to "a quaint English combination
> resembling Abbott and Costello with an accent." Similar authors include
> Peter Lovesey and Robert Barnard.
> 
> Ali, Untold Story. What if Princess Diana survived that Paris car
> crash—then, with the help of an aide, staged a believable death and
> disappeared? Lydia is an intrepid, resourceful character who's managed to
> reinvent herself and establish a fragile peace, until the past threatens to
> destroy her new life. This is a novel about the price of fame and the
> meaning of identity, inspired by the cultural icon Ali's called "a gorgeous
> bundle of trouble." Another story about Princess Diana, set over the
> weekend she's killed and told by an American woman of a similar age and
> background, is His Lovely Wife by Dewberry.
> 
> Bauermeister, Joy For Beginners. When six women gather to celebrate Kate's
> recovery from cancer, Kate strikes a bargain with them: she'll do the one
> thing that's always terrified her, white-water rafting down the Grand
> Canyon, if each of them promises to do something new, difficult, or scary
> during the next year. The catch: Kate gets to pick the challenges,
> which—tailor-made for each woman—range from baking bread to taking a trip
> alone. What meaningful personal project, small or large, would you choose,
> or would a friend choose for you? Readers will also enjoy books by Claire
> Cook, Kate Jacobs, Melissa Senate, and Sarah Strohmeyer.
> 
> Durrow, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. Sent to live with her strict
> African-American grandmother after a family tragedy, Rachel—daughter of a
> Danish woman and a black GI—struggles with her identity in this poignant
> account of race, class, and memory. Rachel's story is unsettling, but it is
> also thoughtful, hopeful, and "achingly honest." It won the Bellwether
> Prize for socially conscious fiction, and is in the tradition of Kincaid's
> Annie John, Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Smith's White Teeth, and Cisneros'
> The House on Mango Street.
> 
> Genova, Left Neglected. Genova, noted for her book Still Alice, has been
> called "the Michael Crichton of brain science." This fascinating, powerful
> novel features career-driven supermom Sarah Nickerson, whose life is
> drastically changed after a traumatic brain injury from an automobile
> accident erases the left side of her world. How do we react when we're
> forced to alter our perception of everything around us? Genova explores
> issues of finding abundance in the most difficult circumstances, paying
> attention to the details, and nourishing what truly matters. Similar
> authors are Kim Edwards, Sara Gruen, Jodi Picoult, and Jennifer Weiner.
> 
> Hilderbrand, The Island. What happens when two sisters, two daughters,
> assorted ex-lovers, and long-kept secrets come together on a remote island
> off the coast of Nantucket? This fast-paced story about a summer of
> upheavals and revelations is filled with heartache, laughter, and surprises.
> It's not great literature, but it's "deliciously addictive" and perfect for
> a day at the beach. Hilderbrand's been compared to Dorothea Benton Frank,
> Kristin Hannah, Susan Isaacs, Anita Shreve, and Nancy Thayer.
> 
> Hodgkinson, 22 Britannia Road. Following World War II, Silvana and her
> 7-year-old son travel from Poland to England to reunite with her husband
> Janusz. Despite their determination to make a fresh start, the hidden
> secrets of the past threaten to destroy their dreams of becoming a family
> once again. "A sweeping tale of survival and redemption." Other books
> about WWII include The Zookeeper's Wife (Ackerman), Sarah's Key (de Rosnay),
> Sophie's Choice (Styron), Suite Francaise (Nemirovsky), The Invisible Bridge
> (Orringer), and Skeletons at the Feast (Bohjalian).
> 
> Morgenstern, The Night Circus. Two illusionists, Celia and Marco, are
> trained from childhood to compete in a "game" to which they're forever bound
> by their capricious masters. The fantastical, spell-binding Cirque des
> Reves—Circus of Dreams—is the stage for this magical battle of imagination
> and will. It's a remarkable tale of greed, fate, and love, set in the late
> 19th century. Morgenstern says her reading taste is "very eclectic"; her
> favorite writers include Douglas Adams, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Alan
> Lightman, Tom Robbins, and Donna Tartt. "I'm very fond of Shakespeare and
> I've recently developed a rather ardent literary crush on Dashiell Hammett."
> The Night Circus was influenced by Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, and Charles
> Dickens, among others.
> 
> Norman, What Is Left the Daughter. Realizing that one of the most important
> gifts a parent can give a child is an honest picture of himself, Wyatt
> Hillyer writes his memoirs as a letter to his daughter on her 21st birthday.
> With clarity and simplicity, he describes his parents' scandalous deaths in
> 1941; his teenage years living with his aunt and uncle in rural Nova Scotia,
> Canada; a wartime love triangle; the joys of fatherhood; and what led to his
> abandoning his only child and her mother. Norman has been described as "one
> of America's three or four best novelists, with a uniquely wise and tolerant
> vision." His book has been compared to The Optimist's Daughter (Eudora
> Welty) and The Moviegoer (Walker Percy).
> 
> Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic. This short, poetic novel relates the
> stories of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as "picture
> brides" nearly a century ago. There is no single narrator or primary
> thread—chapters are arranged by common experiences, such as the boat ride
> over, the first night with the new husbands, working, having babies, raising
> children, and so forth. At book's end, Americans watch the Japanese
> disappear to internment camps following Pearl Harbor; Otsuka's previous
> novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, evocatively describes that ordeal.
> Moving up a generation, How to Be An American Housewife by Dilloway tells of
> Shoko, a Japanese woman who marries an American GI in the 1950's, as she
> adjusts to life in the U.S. and endures family conflicts.
> 
> de Rosnay, A Secret Kept. As a surprise for her 40th birthday, French
> architect Antoine Rey takes his sister Melanie to the island where they
> vacationed as children. While driving home, Melanie is gripped by a
> shocking repressed memory regarding their mother, who died young, and loses
> control of the car. Antoine investigates this twist in the past and copes
> with an upsetting chain of events in the present in a perceptive portrait of
> a middle-aged man and his delayed coming-of-age. De Rosnay (author of Sarah
> 's Key) was named one of the top ten fiction writers in Europe in 2009,
> joining Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, Paolo Giordano, Carlos
> Ruiz Zafon, Camilla Lackberg, Herman Koch, Henning Mankell, and John
> Grisham.
> 
> Shin, Please Look After Mom. A family searches for their mother after she
> goes missing in a crowded Seoul subway. Told through the perspectives of a
> daughter, son, husband and mother, it's both a picture of contemporary life
> in South Korea and a timeless, universal story of a mother's love for her
> family. Shin is one of South Korea's most widely-read and acclaimed
> novelists, and this was a huge bestseller in that country. Another recent
> book about Korea is The Surrendered by Lee; it traces June Han's life from
> that war-ravaged country in the 1950s up to present-day America and Italy,
> exploring themes of identity and belonging, war and memory, love and mercy.
> 
> Ann W. Moore
> October 2011
> 

Janene

"Reading good books ruins you for reading bad ones."   from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by MaryAnn Shaffer