Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

 Poignant exposure of some of the atrocities perpetrated during WW2 through the stories of both a perpetrator and her victims. The myriad horrors of WW2 need to be described and hopefully absorbed by readers, only then will future generations perhaps not repeat such abominations. 

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

 Incredible book. Informative and poignant. I could not put this book down. I read until my eyes drooped, and then read some more until I finished around 2:30 am.

Lucy By The Sea by Elizabeth Strout

 

Thoughtful musings from the main character, Lucy Barton as she isolates from the Pandemic in Maine. Living with her former husband who now past his third divorce declares he wants to save her from Covid, she discovers a new pace of life and new acquaintances. Covid is not something I ever imagined reading about as a "main character" in a novel, yet this book captivates with its descriptions about a world retreating from normal into a new "normal". Lucy reflects on her entitled retreat from Covid ravaged New York City, and considers issues previously lost amid a sometimes frenetic urban existence. Small scale life on the Maine coast is isolated but so evidently not safe from the increasingly chaotic world that surrounds it yet it affords the slowed pace of life that opens her mind to the wonders of Nature, a couple of trees growing on a tiny island off the coast, and crashing waves hitting rocks. This novel resonated with me so much because I had retreated a couple of years before the Pandemic to the California coast, and have enjoyed a rhythm of life cushioned by the beauties and solace of Nature. This is a wonderful book.

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

 This novel describes the horrors of war descending upon the civilian population of London but the core of the story is the main character, a compassionate individual who offers a transitory sanctuary for her neighbors at the bookstore where she works and through her passion for reading aloud wonderful stories. The importance and delights of reading manifests as an essential ingredient in life, allowing frightened, despairing people to experience vicariously other times and places. The recurrent image of people spending nights in underground shelters and reading even as the sounds of bombs falling terrify them is powerful. Definitely a feel good story.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

 A beautiful title for a powerful story. This historical fiction reveals much about the horrific life of the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War and the subsequent reunification of the North and South. Three generations of one family are held together by love and memories and a grandmother of incredible fortitude and determination despite separation and loss, and their story viscerally impacts the reader.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Septys

 Human history is full of tragedies perpetrated by one group of humans on another. The justifications are many and all are brutal. This historical fiction is filled with fictional characters who represent the millions of people killed by Stalinist Russians during forty-seven years of "Annexation and Sovietization". The main character from the Baltic State of Lithuania is a young girl whose family because her father is an "educated elite" is rounded up and sent to work camps in Siberia. The descriptions are powerful and filled with details about being transported in cattle cars for weeks, starved and fed bread rations only when they work, and housed in flimsy shelters they have to build for themselves out of discarded materials. However, the human drive to survive despite horrendous suffering also shines through this poignant narrative. Today, our world is still full of inhumanity so this story seems timely, and important to read. Winston Churchill famously remarked, "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".

Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiaverini

 I enjoyed this historical fiction about women who served as essential telephone switchboard operators in France during World War 1. These women endured harsh and dangerous living conditions so they could ensure that vital communications between all the military units and their leadership enabled successful military operations. Fiction and fact weave in a balanced narrative that provides yet another perspective on a historic World War

The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin

 "Words have power". In this historical fiction, the main characters operate within the World War 2 Resistance movement taking place in France and Portugal. One character is part of a group in Lyon printing and distributing facts about the horrific German War Machine. Another character represents the efforts of a group of librarians recruited to obtain "intel" on the enemy. These individuals traveled to Lisbon to gather and copy information from a variety of foreign publications. Connections to other characters within the Resistance Movement reveals the horrible consequences to these brave individuals who endured constant fear, discovery and capture by the Nazis, and if rounded up, horrific torture and often execution. While many novels about wars focus on the horrendous experiences of soldiers or in the instance of World War 2 the tragic victims of the Holocaust, it is essential to also understand how civilians away from the battlefields confront the pervasive consequences of wars. This novel provides an affecting perspective.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi

 An eye-opening fictionalized glimpse at the largely secretive society of Afghanistan. This story takes place during the first years of the 20th century when girls and women faced extreme limitations and ends with the advent of a era under King Amanullah when women's rights appeared set to expand. The main characters are two women, related but from different time periods whose lives describe the horrific reality of a country that relegates women to a life that places them in the category of slaves. Each woman struggles to rise above her seemingly doomed status. Compelling and poignant.

How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior

 A wonderful story about an 85 year old woman who awakens to a new world of possibility as she meets a grandson she did not know existed, travels to the Antarctic to delve into the world of penguins, and opens up to a young female scientist to reveal the horrible sorrows she faced as a young person during WW2.

Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict

 I was shocked and disturbed as I read this historical fiction about Rosalind Franklin, a female scientist who works over many years in the fifties to unravel the mystery of DNA. According to the author who carefully researched her work, the three men who later won the Nobel prize "stole" some of Dr. Franklin's significant work. I can believe this although, reading a few accounts on Google about the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, Rosalind is not generally even credited for her work. The author is a lawyer so I imagine she knows what she can suggest in her books. I will be interested to see if this denouement is taken up by others in the know.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

 I enjoyed this book immensely. It brought the creation of the OED to life in a delightful blend of history and fiction. Esme is the main fictional character, and at age six already hides for hours below the work table in the Scriptorium, "a place for writing" listening intently to the men including her father who were reviewing the words being considered for inclusion in the first edition of the multi-volume OED. Esme develops a passion for the words, collecting scraps of paper with discarded or lost words which she saves and savors. Her story unfolds in the context of Victorian era Oxford, the Suffrage movement, and World War 1, and explores the inherent bias of the OED as created by men who did not include words that were reflective of language used by women and the poor. This narrative brims with life, describing the time period with assurance, and the characters both real and imagined carry the narrative forward energetically and engagingly.

The Ride of her Life by Elizabeth Letts

 WOW! This is an incredible story about the cross-country journey of Annie Wilkins by horseback from Maine to California, beginning in Fall 1954 and ending in 1956. Poor, unwell, alone, she makes a decision to travel to see the Pacific Ocean in California. She sells off her assets, acquires a sturdy horse and sets off south with her young dog. Relying on the kindness of strangers, she most often is able to find a place to stable or pasture her horse and shelter overnight sometimes in a home or even a jail cell. This is a story about her courage and fortitude, and positive attitude, and a different time period where there were often caring, welcoming people along her route to help her along, and even rescue her on occasion. This is the mid-fifties when automobiles were beginning to dominate on newly built highways, and horses were no longer used for transportation. There are harrowing descriptions of trucks barreling down on her as she clings to the sides of roads. She even travels on route 66. Her story captures the interest of first local communities, gradually reaching further out into the country at large, and she is waylaid for interviews, and asked to help promote local towns. She earns pocket change along the way to pay for things she needs but is also gifted services like shoeing her horse or vet care. Fascinating account of an ordinary person who becomes extraordinary for about a year and a half as she travels over five thousand miles on horseback.

A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson

  I enjoyed this book very much. A man newly separated from a partner of many years quits his job and moves to a small rural town in Northern Canada to a home he has inherited from a woman he barely remembers. A seven year old girl secretly continues taking care of the old woman's cat as the man remains unaware he shares the home with a cat. Soon, however, the new homeowner although he appears to want to just be left alone, finds himself "adopted" by the little girl and caught up in the mystery of both his inheritance and the disappearance of a teenager. This is an uplifting story that makes the ordinary seem special as individuals interact with one another.

Sisters of Night and Fog by Erika Robuck

 This historical fiction provides a descriptive and poignant story that focuses on two women who participated in the WW2 resistance effort in France. Their courage despite ever present danger to move among the Nazi occupiers and rescue downed Allied pilots, or deliver and collect important information for the Allied leadership enabled them to participate in a vital part of the struggle to defeat the Germans. The two main characters come alive in this skillfully balanced portrayal of their lives that highlights their resistance work but also places them in the context of family life with all its competing responsibilities. 

Forever Young by Hayley Mills

 A poignant memoir by this actress whose father was a famous actor, and mother was a playwright, and she was signed by Walt Disney to a multi-film contract at age twelve. She describes both an exciting life filled with celebrity and celebrities but also haunted with the anguish and typical insecurities of an adolescence spent alternating between intense months of film making and then returning to a boarding school where she was often behind academically and out of sync with her schoolmates. This memoir is also filled with generous and admiring portrayals of many of the accomplished people she worked with, or met at parties and events she attended. Her peripatetic life sounded glamorous but was clearly also exhausting for a young girl who enjoyed spending alone time riding her pony in the English countryside. Her iconic film, The Parent Trap with its infectious song, let's Get Together, yeah, yeah, yeah remains a pleasant memory from my childhood, and I enjoyed reading this memoir.

Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

 Descriptive, pensive, often melancholic vignettes of the author's life. Ruminations on the significance and meaning of her experiences. Beautifully written. 

Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

 I have returned to this book multiple times over my lifetime, having first read it when I was a teenager back in the sixties. Today, as human beings slaughter people in the Ukraine, I felt the need for it once again. It is often hard to see beyond the horrific headlines which relentlessly record the cruelties we humans inflict upon other living beings and the destruction we wreak upon our Environment as we pursue our goals in life. I awaken in the predawn in my comfortable home, my mind filling with the anguish I feel everyday as reality again intrudes with its evidence of horrific suffering. My propensity to despair does not accomplish anything but feed my ever present depression. Frankl offers his readers, a pathway to responding to this anguish reminding his readers that our freedom to make choices even under the unbelievable suffering Holocaust survivors endured is the freedom we can never relinquish. What choices can I make today that might propel my anguish into meaningful actions to make our World a better place?

Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin Darznik

 A poignant story about the Iranian female poet, Forugh Farrokhzhad, which describes her struggle to live, create, and publish her astounding poetry in the patriarchal society and totalitarian state of Iran under the last Shah. Forugh tells her own fictionalized story, enhanced by the inclusion of excerpts of her poetry, giving the reader a very visceral exposure to her remarkable life. 

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

This is a deeply moving story that leaves me feeling and thinking intensely about, "there but for fortune go I". The author takes us back to the beginning of a criminal life unfolding, the tragedy behind a horrific mistake that sends a fifteen year old boy to prison. The consequences that ensue for the many, a girlfriend, a best friend, even future generations fill a back story that is both engaging and disturbing. This is a story about the incredible complexity of human life, impacted by events and other people with their emotions, actions, choices, pain and hope that sends the reader both to a place of sorrow and also to experience a level of compassion that is significant and uplifting.