I just finished The Prisoner in the Castle (Maggie Hope Mystery #8) by Susan Elia MacNeal and really liked it. It is an homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. I have read all the Maggie Hopes but this one is the best - I think it could be read alone without having read the earlier 7 and thoroughly enjoyed.
I am on the library list for White Houses. I have read a number of ER biographies (Blanche Wisen Cook, Joseph Lash, and Doris Kerns Goodwin—last two focus on both ER and FDR). Agree with Ivygrad—a visit to Hyde Park to see FDR’s home/birthplace along with a Val-Kil, ER’s cottage, reveals much about them.
^^^ Finished Sara and Eleanor by Jan Pottker the other day. The author defends Sara from the predominantly negative opinions I’ve heard and read elsewhere. It’s thought-provoking. I think Pottker could have made her point more effectively if she hadn’t indulged in what felt like digs at ER. A little more detachment and compassion would have made her argument no less compelling. Ultimately I wound up thinking ER had less an MIL problem and more a husband problem – FDR sounds like a feckless people-pleaser, and I say this as one who reveres his work. But I revere Eleanor’s more.
@Bromfield2 the first of the Blanche Wisen Cook volumes is on my sofa table, I’m looking forward to it.
Making my way through Victoria’s Daughters now. It’s from, oh Deity, twenty years ago but new to me. I still find myself reading about events of the decades leading to WWI and wanting to scream, “No! Don’t do that thing!!!” at people in the book.
Okay, this is going to sound really strange - but one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time is a YA novel, Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt. It’s a coming-of-age story set in upstate NY during the Vietnam War, told by a teenage boy from the wrong side of the tracks. I’ve never read a book quite like this - a blend of comedy and sadness; an appreciation for Jane Eyre, baseball, and James Audubon’s bird prints; a glimpse into the horrors of war and family dysfunction; and a story about loss, love, and the glorious persistence of the human spirit.
There were times when I actually gasped out loud, times when I cried, and times when I burst into laughter. It’s an amazing book.
Nothing strange about liking a YA novel. 
I’ll put it on my list!
Gary Schmidt is a great writer. I read his Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy for a class and really liked that novel, too. There are a few parts of Okay for Now that were a little too much, but a very satisfying read overall. .
Okay for Now is the companion book to The Wednesday Wars.
I’m reading Inverting the Pyramid; The History of Soccer Tactics. If you’re a soccer nerd (I don’t mean casual fan), then this is right up your alley.
Yes, @ignatius - I haven’t read The Wednesday Wars yet but I’m going to now. Apparently the two books can be read independently.
Have you read The Wednesday Wars? Is it good?
@scout59 I’ve had that book on my goodreads TBR list for a few years. I occasionally read YA novels so glad to hear this one is worthwhile.
I’m putting The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now on the list for the YA book club I’m in! They both sound really good.
I am always up for a good YA novel!
I read YA - my recent favorites that I highly recommend:
One of Us Is Lying - McManus, Karen - a cross of the breakfast club and Agatha Christie (locked room death)
Down and Across - Ahmadi, Arvin - coming of age story
I’ll Give You the Sun - Nelson, Jandy - a story of twins and what happened to change their relationship
Reading Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood with great pleasure. He has an excellent ear for dialogue.
@kiddie our book club read I’ll Give You the Sun last year and we all loved it! Thanks for the other recommendations as well.
Another recommendation for I’ll Give You the Sun.
Okay - I just put I’ll Give You the Sun on the wait list at my library!
Just downloaded “I’ll give you the sun” from our library!
About 3/4 done with Chris Bohjalian’s The Flight Attendant. It’s pretty interesting. If I didn’t have to work (or sleep, or do laundry, or cook…), I’d probably have finished it in one sitting.
Another book I enjoyed. As an FYI, it’s also in development as a mini-series starring Kaley Cuoco.