The Writing Circle by Corrine Demas

Corrine Demas is an English professor at Mt. Holyoke College and a member of a writing circle which, I believe, is highly unlike the NYC one she depicts in her novel. While the literary aspect of The Writing Circle is interesting, the story is mostly about the private lives of the writers. The stories of their relationships meld and lead to a slam-bang ending which catches the reader totally by surprise. Fun read. I was amused to learn that Ms. Demas is a Tufts graduate who is represented by a firm called McIntosh & Otis.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The son of a blacksmith, Thomas Cromwell led an adventuresome life that made him wealthy and put him in the position of close counselor to King Henry VIII. Based on actual history, the novel Wolf Hall portrays Cromwell's life in 1500s England with colorful detail that won it Britain's prestigious Booker Prize. The writing is modern, almost telegraphic in its succinctness. At times it is difficult to identify the antecedent of some pronouns; one gradually catches on to the fact that random references to "he," "his," or "him" can be assumed to be Cromwell. It is a writing style that did not appeal to me.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Part biography, part medical history, Rebecca Skloot's true-life story of Henrietta Lacks' gift to humanity is both fascinating and well written. Lacks was a young African-American woman struggling with a virulent form of cancer in 1951 when her doctor (unbeknownst to her) harvested some of her cancer cells to use in research. Those cells, called HeLa cells, reproduced very easily and soon other researchers started requesting them. They were sent to labs all around the world and became a product of companies whose business is to provide biological samples to scientists. Unfortunately, Henrietta's family of poor and unsophisticated people were not told about all this. Suspicious of what had gone on at the hospital, they came to wonder if they had been cheated of the profits that eventually accrued to companies selling the cells. A wonderful human story.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

There are many books about Alzheimer's disease, but the novel Still Alice puts the reader in the mind of a brilliant university professor who begins to notice odd moments of forgetfulness and feeling lost. She is a victim of early-onset Alzheimer's. With the support of a husband and three children, she stuggles against the disease, but the deterioration is inevitable. The reader feels her despair as she is conscious of her mental decline until gradually she gets to the place where nothing much matters anymore. Genova, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard, presents a very accurate and compellingly readable account of problems encountered with Alzheimer's.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

Calling it a "true life novel" Jeannette Walls has pulled together stories of her grandmother and uses them as the basis for this first person "memoir" Grandma was a tough girl and woman who grew up on a ranch in New Mexico and at age five started helping her father train horses. She had her feet pulled out from under her when she was fifteen and her father decided he could no longer afford her education. But by then she had had just enough education to qualify to teach in rural schools where it was difficult to place teacher, so she left home and was able to sustain herself as she bounced from town to town eventually finishing up a bachelor's degree. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane, and she married a good man. Very homey down-to-earth writing in a wonderful book.