Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

The author of The Devil in the White City, which is about the Chicago Worlds Fair, brings us another historical novel that is a real page turner. Thunderstruck is about the struggle of Guglielmo Marconi as he launches his wireless communication business. His efforts are interwoven with the story of a murder in London. Good read by an excellent writer.

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

A young doctor named Natalia leaves her work at an orphanage to go to the hospital where her grandfather had just died. Her goals were to retrieve his personal items and to find out more about the circumstances of his death. Along the way she reflects on the tales her grandfather had told her, especially one about a deaf-mute woman who befriended a tiger which had escaped from a zoo. There is a good dose of magical realism in the story her grandfather had told her about a man who could not die. These stories are sometimes hard to follow and don't seem to relate to each other very well. The writing is very clever and evocative, but this reader was left confused and somewhat turned off by this novel even though it was a finalist for the National Book Award and named one of the best books of 2011 by several publications.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

St. Petersburg, Russia, is the setting for this World War II story that provides sometimes painful descriptions of the desperation of citizens during the German army's siege of the city. A couple of young men who have run afoul of the law are assigned the task of finding a dozen eggs in a city which has very little food and no eggs. Their efforts take them behind German lines where they join with some members of the Russian resistance trying to make their way back to the city. Excellent novel.

Evening by Susan Minot

I read this book for a second time looking for description of a particular scene that was in the movie. It wasn't there. Meryl Streep's conversation with the dying protagonist was totally missing from the novel. However, it is still a good read. Some may object to how time is scrambled and the reader must pay close attention to identify time, place, and characters. Pulling it all together, you come out with a compelling story of the dying woman's lost love and on the three husbands she married instead.

Only Receive by Michele Longo O'Donnell

Meant to be an inspirational work, Only Receive received a fair amount of criticism from our church reading group. Mostly it was seen as being dualistic and anthropomorphic. Even though O'Donnell does not believe that God is a being separate from the universe and the rest of us, her writing sometimes belies that basic understanding of God.

On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt

This teeny-tiny hardcovered book (4" x 6", 67 pages) was written by a Princeton professor of philosophy. It is serious in tone as the professor tries to define his subject. However, about two-thirds of the way through, I was gobsmacked by the thought that "This is bullshit on bullshit." Then the author pulls it together with a rather reasonable ending and the reader is left wondering if it is parody or not.

Brownstone & Ivory by Peter Stephen Benton

This novel was written by a man from Longmeadow, MA, so for me it is very local. As co-editor of Reflections of Longmeadow and great granddaughter of an East Longmeadow quarryman, I know a little of the history of the area and was delighted to see it as background to this story of a young man whose life takes him to New York City and into architecture and music. I would probably not have read this book were it not for the local connection.

Hot Lights, Cold Steel by Michael J. Collins

Subtitled "Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years," this book is the memoir of a doctor who struggled with shortcomings in his earlier education when he came to the Mayo Clinic in for his first year of residency. It is a fascinating glimpse into medical education and the hard lives lived by residents who do not earn very much money. Collins struggled not only with study, but also with supporting his ever-growing young family. He drove very old cars and moonlighted at a neighboring clinic in the effort to keep body and soul together. But his native optimism and cheerfulness carry him through the hard parts leaving in their wake a trail of stories well worth reading.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks

In 1666 England was hit by bubonic plague. Year of Wonders is an wonderfully imagined story of what happened in a small town when the disease was brought there from London. It is based on the actual experience of the town of Eyam in Derbyshire. The fictional protagonist is a maid whose life takes fascinating twists and turns as she tries to help people around her who are dying. It is a crisis that brings out the best and worst of human behavior. Good read.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I am not a Kingsolver fan. Her writing is excellent but she's a little too preachy and judgmental for my taste. But this non-fiction work was chosen by my book club so I diligently read it. It tells of the year that Kingsolver and her family decided to eat only locally grown food. They moved to a farm they owned in Kentucky and became growers of much of their own food and learned to participate in the kind of marketing the local farmers were doing. An interesting amalgam of research and personal memoir, the book also contains small sections written by the author's husband and daughter.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

A young Scottish woman running a vintage clothing shop suddenly discovers she is next of kin to a great aunt she never knew she had. For more than sixty years Esme had been kept in an insane asylum, never acknowledged or spoken of by her family. When the novel's protagonist, Iris, receives notice that she is now in charge of Esme, she is forced to deal with the closing of the asylum and placement of the seventy-year-old woman who is a total stranger to her. Iris, of course, wants to know Esme's story and is shocked to learn of the painful circumstances endured by her grandmother's generation. This novel is a great read.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

A love triangle that developed when the novel's main characters were at Brown University complicates things as the young people try to find purpose and direction in life. One is bumming around Europe, one is in biology, and one is a scholar of Victorian literature. The book is packed with literary references which makes it enormously fun if you're an English major, but which might put off others. This English major thought it was a terrific read.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The tangled relationships of three young men with each other and with a particular young woman weave a subtle mystery in this novel by Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes. The story is told in the first person by a character named Tony Webster who is looking back over the course of a long life at relationships that started before his years at Oxford. He sees the young men coming of age, plodding through middle age, and being reflective in old age. Barnes is brilliant as usual in his writing of this compelling tale.

The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter

Love in all varieties is featured in this wonderful novel which won a National Book Award for author Charles Baxter. Straight love, gay love, parental love, hot love, cool love, requited love, and unrequited love. For those with faith in literature as a pathway to truth, Baxter's novel with inspire insight. The author is smart enough to know that "The problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesn't annihilate them instantly with the wrong words, with untruth. In this sense, love and God are equivalents." Excellent book.