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".