Earlier this summer I began the Maisie Dobbs series. I am picking up Book 3 from the library tonight. Very well written, easy to get into. Finally caught up to The Handmaid’s Tale which somehow I had missed, very captivating quick reading and the paperback edition that I have has an outstanding essay by Margaret Atwood.
“Grant” by Ron Chernow is fascinating and well written. U.S. Grant was next to Lincoln the most important figure of the mid-19th century. History buffs will love it.
If you liked “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” try “What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw” by Lean Stewart. Lots of fun and very clever.
Just finished Sarah Vowell’s latest, “Lafayette In The Somewhat United States”. Loved it. I think this is my favorite book of hers so far. It is an interesting and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny account of Lafayette’s relationship with the US. Hamilton fans in particular might enjoy it (A. Ham is only mentioned a few times, but it a really interesting look at the same historical events from a different viewpoint).
She is a narrator of the audiobook, which I suspect is a great way to consume this book. I could definitely hear her voice in my head in the dry, sometimes snarky comments as I read the book.
^ totally agree - makes history so fascinating- years after reading this book my sister, who lives near the Monmouth county nj battlefield, visited. When the theater movie screen rose to expose the field where the actual battle took place, it was a " wow " moment, and I remembered Vowell’s description of that dramatic moment ! Fun !
I’ve heard Vowell interviewed and I think hearing her voice at book length would drive me crazy!
Written in 2015, so maybe not “years later”. 
But her battle descriptions are accessible and often funny.
@mathmom, you might be right. Maybe better to read and just hear her occasionally in your head!
Read in 2015 and visited in 2017 - seems like longer ago when published
A Place for Us by Fatima Mizra.
Beautiful story and beautifully written
I just finished We Need New Names by Noviolet Bulawayo. A well-written story about a young girl immigrating to the US from Zimbabwe. It opens with a bunch or kids running wild and searching for guavas. Told through the eyes of one young girl, it’s a up close view of what’s happened in Zimbabwe since its independence. Eventually, the narrator makes her way to the US and faces a very different set of challenges. I’m at the beach this month and read the book in two days.
One of my favorite reads in the last few months - The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland - quirky protagonist, takes place in a bookstore, what more could you ask for?
Also really liked this one -The Cactus by Sarah Haywood - again a quirky protagonist - a bit like Eleanor Oliphant
Well, I really like Anne Tyler and just read Vinegar Girl based on The Taming of the Shrew and I thought it was just adorable. Quirky and cute as could be. People on Goodreads were so-so about it. It’s part of a series by Hogarth Press to retell Shakespeare stories employing different authors. Interesting to explore perhaps.
I loved vinegar girl and didn’t understand why it didn’t get better reviews
(Some spoilers)
I just finished “educated” the memoir by Tara Westover! Her strange and sometimes really trying (to say the least) upbringing is truly unique, and against harsh family environment (without any traditional schooling that we CC’ers are used to), she managed to earn PhD from Cambridge. It is a personal tale that sometimes hard to read and a family that is difficult to understand.
On a slightly side note, it is kind of interesting that Tara self-studied ACT, her first try was 22 while her second was 28, good enough to get her into Birmingham Young U. Without a day sitting in a regular school!
Just read The Dinner by Herbert Koch. From 2013, but just got it at half price books. Now I need to look for the movie with Richard Gere. So disturbing.
another book I really like - the dinner by herbert koch - never saw the movie - might be fun to watch
I thought “The Dinner” (Herman Koch) was intriguing and disturbing. I tried to watch the movie and couldn’t get very far in; too disturbing on screen.
I recently read “Before We Were Yours” by Lisa Wingate and found it to be quite intriguing. It’s a well-told and touching story of family, secrets and survival. Based on the lives of families split apart by the Tennessee Children’s Home (It’s director was such a wicked person!) that took children from poor families and sold them to the highest bidder and closed the records. It’s quite upsetting to know such horrors actually took place and ‘officials’ looked the other way, allowing it to happen.
The book hops back and forth from the late '30s to present day. It follows a poor family that was torn apart and a privileged one that delves into how a dark secret might have changed their family’s life forever. The poor family’s voice is that of a compelling 12 year-old girl who tries desperately, and unsuccessfully, to keep her five siblings together inside the Home. A wealthy woman whose life ‘on top of the world’ is the present day voice and she is shaken after realizing her random meeting with an elderly woman in a nursing home has deep meaning for her and her political family.
I kept thinking about nature versus nurture as I read the book…Do genetics or environment have greater impact on who we become?
Sing Unburied Sing, by Jesmin Ward
It is this year’s selection for “Williams Reads,” in which every entering freshman at Williams College receives a copy of the book and they discuss it during First Days. There will be other events related to it during the year, including a visit to Williams by the author!
I read it after my son was finished reading it. It is an extremely well-written and provocative book about a black family in the south.