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by Leigh Newman
Nobody Gets Out Alive: Stories by Leigh Newman, set in Newman’s home state of Alaska and an exciting virtuosic story collection about women navigating the wilds of a male-dominated society. Nobody Gets Out Alive is a collection of dazzling, courageous stories about women struggling to survive, not just grizzly bears and charging moose but the raw, exhausting legacy of their marriages and families.
There are moments when characters in a story leap off the page and become, for a few moments, our soul mates. Ms. Newman, in each of these memorable stories, engages so fully that each character becomes so alive that I wanted to know more about their lives.
The stores span both the recent past and the founding of Anchorage. I found all of them to be stories I would happily read again. The recent stories highlight the common desire for a freer, more inclusive world for women. A woman forced to sell her home or a new bride testing limits on her return home resonates as themes of the modern world.
The final story is set in 1915 in a railroad camp. The story highlights the founding of Anchorage. As one who likes historical fiction, I was so engaged that I could not take a break. I was not expecting the outspoken heiress would stage an elaborate theatrical to seduce the wife of her husband’s employer.
I may never visit Alaska at my age, but I now know enough to feel I have lived in Seward’s Folly.
I decided to read this book after reading Ms. Newman wrote a review of The Faraway World. Ms. Newman is a skilled writer, and I highly recommend this collection and look forward to reading more of her stories in the future.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
In “Howl Palace”—winner of The Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize, a Best American Short Story, and Pushcart Prize selection—an aging widow struggles with a rogue hunting dog and the memories of her five ex-husbands while selling her house after bankruptcy. In the title story, “Nobody Gets Out Alive,” newly married Katrina visits her hometown of Anchorage. She blows up her wedding reception by flirting with the host and running off with an enormous mastodon tusk.
Alongside stories set in today’s Last Frontier—rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction—Newman delves into the remote wilderness of the 1970s and 80s, bringing to life young girls and single moms in search of a wilder, more accessible, more adventurous America. The final story takes place in a railroad camp in 1915, where an outspoken heiress stages an elaborate theatrical to seduce the wife of her husband’s employer, revealing how this masterful storyteller is “not only writing unforgettable, brilliantly complex characters, she’s somehow inventing souls” (Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light).
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Robyn Gigl
Today, I started reading “Nothing But the Truth,” the fourth book in Robyn Gigl‘s Erin McCabe Legal Thriller series. The New York Times has selected it as one of the Best Crime Novels of 2024. I have also read “The Hunter” and “Gods of Wood,” which are on the same list. Nothing but the Truth is a gripping and timely thriller exploring murder, prejudice, and police corruption.
One of the reasons I decided to read this novel is that it—and the entire series—takes place mainly in Union County, particularly in Cranford, my hometown! Erin McCabe and her law partner get salads from the Gourmet Deli, and she dines with her husband at the Cranford Hotel. In this installment, Erin McCabe, a transgender attorney from the Garden State, discovers that uncovering the Truth can be deadly.
New Jersey State Trooper Jon Mazer has been charged with killing Black investigative reporter Russell Marshall in a racially charged, headline-making murder. The evidence against criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe’s new client is overwhelming. The gun used is Mazer’s off-duty weapon. Fingerprints and carpet fibers link Mazer to the crime. And Mazer was patrolling Marshall’s neighborhood shortly before the victim took three bullets to the chest. Mazer’s argument? He’s a gay officer being set up to take the fall in an even bigger story.
Mazer swears he was a secret source for Marshall’s exposé about the Lords of Discipline. The covert gang operating within the New Jersey State Police is notorious for enforcing its code of harassing women, framing minorities, and out-powering any troopers who don’t play their rogue and racist games. With everyone from the governor to the county prosecutor on the wrong side of justice, Erin and her partner, Duane Swisher, are prepared to do anything to ensure Mazer doesn’t become another victim.
As Erin deals with an intensely personal issue at home and faces an uphill battle to prove her client’s innocence, she and Duane find themselves mired in a conspiracy of corruption more profound than they imagined—and far more dangerous than they feared.
by Paul Murray
I began reading “The Bee Sting: A Novel” by Paul Murray today, the seventy-fifth book I have read this year, one more than last year. This exuberantly entertaining novel is a tour de force that portrays post-crash Ireland, a tragicomic family saga, and a dazzling story about the struggle to be good at the end of the world.
The Barnes family is in trouble, with Dickie’s once-lucrative car business going under. However, Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyperson. His wife, Imelda, sells off her jewelry on eBay while trying to avoid the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike. Meanwhile, their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
If you were to change this story, how far back would you have to go? To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda’s wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? Or back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man?
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Louis P. Masur
The Sum of Our Dreams: A Concise History of America by Louis P. Masur is a book I got through my membership at One Day University. Professor Masur is one of the best teaches that One Day University has. He is the Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University.
Most concise histories leave out more than they include. I found the Sum of our Dreams to be an excellent book to read, and professor Masur conveyed the American experience concisely and clearly. The more recent history is complex as events like the Global War on Terror are still being analyzed and re-understood.
Evoking Barack Obama’s belief that America remains the “sum of its dreams,” Masur locates the origin of those dreams of freedom, equality, and opportunity and traces their progress chronologically, illuminating the nation’s struggle over time to articulate and fulfill their promise.
Masur lets the story of American tell itself. Inspired by James Baldwin’s observation that “American history is longer, larger, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it,” he expands our notion of that history while identifying its threads.
I recommend this book as well as any of Professor Masur’s lectures at One Day University.
by Patricia Engel
The Faraway World: Stories by Patricia Engel was released six days ago. The Faraway World is an exquisite collection of ten haunting, award-winning short stories set across the Americas and linked by themes of migration, sacrifice, and moral compromise. I highly recommend this collection of short stories. All ten are ones I would read again. As Leigh Newman wrote in her review in the NYTimes, The Faraway World is “a collection about the Latin American diaspora.”
In addition, Leigh Newman described The Faraway World proves that Engel, like one of her characters, is capable of noticing “that between two people, a look reveals more than a fingerprint.” The first story in the collection, “Aida,” is about two twins, one of whom goes missing. Once I read this story, I could not stop until I had read all ten.
The stories are based in Cuba, Colombia, and the US. I know a few NJ settings that gave more meaning to these stories. I felt like I was in Cuba and Colombia, which I had never visited.
NPR interviewed Patricia Engel. She described how she wrote the stories.
They came to me at different points when I was thinking about other things. But of course, they are connected by this – the motivating force for change, desire, and the ever-changing conditions of identity and movements and changing geography and landscape and diaspora. Those are things that I explore in all my writing, and it’s something that I explore in my life. So, of course, it permeates my stories.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
Two Colombian ex-pats meet as strangers on the rainy streets of New York City, both burdened with traumatic pasts. In Cuba, a woman discovers her deceased brother’s bones have been stolen, and the love of her life returns from Ecuador for a one-night visit. A cash-strapped couple hustles in Miami to life-altering ends.
The Faraway World is a collection of arresting stories from The New York Times bestselling author of Infinite Country, Patricia Engel, “a gifted storyteller whose writing shines even in the darkest corners” (The Washington Post). Intimate and panoramic, these stories bring to life the liminality of regret, the vibrancy of the community, and the epic deeds and quiet moments of love.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Sena Jeter Naslund
Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund is a book that I could not put down. It is a page-turner. The title is from the four girls killed at Sunday School in Birmingham. When that happened in 1963, I was only a few years older and the impact brought home to me that we lived in a broken world that required repair. Like Stella Silver in the novel, my life changed as a result of the bombing.
As my reading list may indicate, I have always preferred non-fiction with a preference for history. Picking this novel up combined my prior reading habits with my desire to read books that my wife, Jan, recommended.
Weaving together the lives of blacks and whites, racists and civil rights advocates, and the events of peaceful protest and violent repression, Sena Jeter Naslund creates a tapestry of American social transformation at once intimate and epic.
In Birmingham, Alabama, twenty-year-old Stella Silver, an idealistic white college student, is sent reeling off her measured path by the events of 1963. Combining political activism with single parenting and night-school teaching, African American Christine Taylor discovers she must heal her own bruised heart to actualize meaningful social change. Inspired by the courage and commitment of the civil rights movement, the child Edmund Powers embodies hope for future change. In this novel of maturation and growth, Naslund makes vital the intersection of spiritual, political, and moral forces that have redefined America.
Stella’s idealism reminded me of how I became the person I am. Change is not easy but, it takes all of us to risk our lives to repair the world so, it works for all of us.
The book’s critical focus on the “intersection of spiritual, political, and moral forces that have redefined America” makes this a must-read. The redefinition has made America a better country but, we may be retreating from that ideal.
by Elizabeth Strout
Lucy by the Sea: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout is a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown–and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart. Having lost Jan during Covid, I was apprehensive about reading this book. However, it was not only a page-turner but also a novel that gave me a new perspective on loss which helped me manage my grief.
With her trademark spare, crystalline prose, Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.
I highlighted several passages that specifically spoke to me.
We all live with people—and places—and things—that we have given great weight to. But we are weightless, in the end.
Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.
It has been said that the second year of widowhood is worse than the first—the idea being, I think, that the shock has worn off and now one has to live with the loss, and I had been finding that to be true, even before I came to Maine with William. But now there were times I felt that I was just learning of David’s death again for the first time. And I would be privately staggered by grief. And to be in this place where David had never been (!)—I was really dislocated is what I mean.
And I also understood: Grief is a private thing. God, is it a private thing.
We are all in lockdown, all the time. We just don’t know it, that’s all. But we do the best we can. Most of us are just trying to get through.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.
Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart–the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by E. J. Koh
I started reading The Liberators by E. J. Koh today. The book is a debut novel about Insuk, a 24-year-old Daejeon, a South Korean college student who falls in love with her classmate, Sungho. They get married with her father’s blessing. Still, things take a turn for the worse as the military dictatorship, martial law, and nationwide protests bring the country to the brink of collapse, and Insuk’s father mysteriously disappears.
After her father’s disappearance, Insuk escapes to California with Sungho, their son Henry, and his overbearing mother. Struggling to adapt to their new life, Insuk mourns the loss of her past and her homeland, only to find solace in an illicit affair that sets in motion a chain of events that will reverberate for generations.
The Liberators is a powerful family saga that spans four generations and two continents. E. J. Koh expertly captures the lives of two Korean families as they navigate love, war, trauma, and empathy. This debut novel is a gripping testament to the consequences of inheritance and the power of memory.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Regarding gifts made this month, I will match dollar for dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Octavia E. Butler
Today, I started reading Octavia E. Butler‘s acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel, “Parable of the Sower.” The book depicts a world in which global climate change and economic crises have led to social chaos, particularly in California. The state is plagued by dangers such as pervasive water shortages and masses of vagabonds who are willing to do whatever it takes to survive.
The novel provides a message of hope even in a gloomy environment. It tells the story of Lauren Olamina, a fifteen-year-old girl who lives with her preacher father, family, and neighbors in a gated community. They are protected from the chaos happening around them. However, in a society where everyone is at risk, Lauren suffers from hyperempathy, a condition that makes her highly sensitive to the emotions of others.
Lauren is a young girl who is wise beyond her years and acutely aware of the dangers that her community refuses to acknowledge. She must speak up to protect her loved ones from the impending disasters that could otherwise harm them. However, her fight for survival leads to something much bigger—the emergence of a new faith and a profound insight into humanity’s destiny.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
Read: October 2023
by Jonathan Lethem
I recently recommended reading “Brooklyn Crime Novel: A Novel” by Jonathan Lethem. The story is set in 1970s Brooklyn, where a daily ritual occurs on the streets. This ritual involves exchanging money, surrendering belongings, and asserting power. Violence is promised everywhere and becomes a currency itself.
Regardless of race, the street is like a stage in the shadows for the children. In the background, other players hide, including parents, cops, renovators, landlords, those who write the headlines, histories, and laws, and those who award this neighborhood its name.
Although the rules seem apparent initially, in memory’s prism, the roles of criminals and victims may appear to trade places. The voices of the past rise and gather as if in harmony, then war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its shimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget.
Jonathan Lethem has written this story with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit, making it a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers. He has crafted an epic interrogation of how we fashion stories to contain the uncontainable: our remorse at the world we’ve made. He is known as “one of America’s greatest storytellers” by the Washington Post.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Kaveh Akbar
Today, I started reading “Martyr! A Novel” by Kaveh Akbar, the last of one of the five finalists for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction I have read. This is also the 79th book I have read this year, surpassing my record from last year. Kaveh Akbar‘s “Martyr!” is a tribute to our pursuit of meaning in faith, art, ourselves, and others. The story follows Cyrus Shams, the newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants.
He is guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings as he embarks on a search for a family secret, which leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.
Cyrus Shams, our protagonist, grapples with an inheritance of violence and loss. His mother’s tragic death and his father’s limited life in America have left him with scars. He’s a drunk, a person with a substance use disorder, and a poet, but above all, he’s a human being on a journey of self-discovery. His fascination with martyrs leads him to explore the mysteries of his past, including his uncle’s inspiring yet haunting role on Iranian battlefields and a painting that suggests his mother may not have been who or what she seemed.
“Martyr!” is a novel that’s not just electrifying and funny but also wholly original. It’s a testament to Kaveh Akbar‘s unique storytelling and heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. Get ready to be captivated by his narrative prowess.
by Katie Kitamura
Intimacies: A Novel by Katie Kitamura is about an interpreter who has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities is finally looking for a place to call home.
Intimacies: A Novel is the second book by Ms. Kitamura that I have read this year. The multiple intimacies of the novel overlap and at times seem confusing, but in the end, it makes sense even if it is unclear how or where she will live the next phase of her life. A Separation is also written hypnotic, making it difficult to stop reading.
I not only highly recommend Intimacies: A Novel but have become a fan of Katie Kitamura and look forward to reading more of her books.
Goodreads summary provides a good overview.
She’s drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim’s sister. And she’s pulled into explosive political fires: her work interpreting for a former president accused of war crimes becomes precarious as their relationship is unbound by shifting language and meaning.
This woman is the voice in the ear of many, but what command does that give her, and how vulnerable does that leave her? Her coolly impassioned views on power, love, and violence, are tested, both in her personal intimacies and in her role at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her; it is her drive towards truth, and love, that throws into stark relief what she wants from her life.
When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Mark Haddon
Today, I started reading Dogs and Monsters: Stories by Mark Haddon. The collection features eight captivating and imaginative stories that blend Greek myths with contemporary dystopian narratives. The stories explore themes of mortality, moral choices, and various forms of love, including romantic, familial, and self-love. Haddon’s clear-eyed vision is infused with deep empathy.
In addition, Haddon’s fluid prose showcases his remarkable powers of observation, both of the physical world and the inner workings of the human psyche. Greek myths have fascinated people for millennia with their timeless appeal and enduring lessons about fate, hubris, and life’s uncertainties. In Dogs and Monsters: Stories, Mark Haddon delves into the heart of these ancient fables and presents them in a fresh light. For instance, in one story, the dawn goddess Eos requests that Zeus grant her lover Tithonus eternal life but forgets to ask for eternal youth. In “The Quiet Limit of the World,” Haddon imagines Tithonus’s life as he ages over thousands of years, transforming this cautionary tale about tempting the gods into a spellbinding meditation on observing death from the outside. This tale ultimately explores how carnal love evolves into something more profound and poignant over time.
In “The Mother‘s Story,” Haddon reinterprets the myth of the Minotaur, born of the monstrous lust of King Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë. He turns it into a heartbreaking parable of a mother’s love for a damaged child and the more tangible monstrosities of patriarchy. In “D.O.G.Z.,” the story of Actaeon, who was transformed into a stag after glimpsing the naked goddess Diana and was subsequently torn apart by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor for the continuum of human and animal behavior.
Other stories in Dogs and Monsters: Stories play with contemporary mythic tropes—such as genetic engineering, attempts to escape the future, and the cruelty of adolescent ostracism. These stories showcase how modern humans are subject to the same capriciousness that concerned the Greeks but in a fresh and intriguing light. Haddon‘s tales cover a wide range of themes, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, and explore love alongside stories of cruelty. They take readers from battlefields to bed and breakfasts and from dogs in space to doors between worlds, all bound together by profound sympathy and an insight into how human beings think, feel, and act when pushed to their limits.
by Alice Hoffman
Today I started reading The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman. It’s a story about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the magic of books. The Invisible Hour is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while, it came true. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.
Mia Jacob finds hope in the power of words on a brilliant June day. She reads The Scarlet Letter, a novel written almost two hundred years earlier, which mirrors her life. Mia and her mother, Ivy, live inside an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts called the Community, where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s words perfectly capture the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her.
As Mia journeys through heartbreak and time, she breaks free from the rules of her Community. Along the way, she discovers the power of reading to transport and connect people, the fluidity of time, and the strength of love to overcome any obstacle.
As a young girl, Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a woman, she falls for a writer as she travels back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote “The Scarlet Letter”? What if Mia never found the book on the day she planned to end her life?
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Anne Applebaum
Today, I plunged into the captivating world of “Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World” by Anne Applebaum. I listened to an engaging discussion between her and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research‘s Executive Director, Jonathan Brent. Their insights left me eager for more, and I couldn’t resist making this book my next read. I’m thrilled to dive deeper into her thought-provoking perspective!
This compelling New York Times bestseller by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author paints a chilling picture of how autocratic regimes join forces to erode democracy globally. Applebaum sheds light on this pressing issue and offers insights on how we can unite to fight back.
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: An all-powerful leader is at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators and maybe some brave dissidents.
But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.
International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don’t stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc. aren’t linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather by a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan’s essay calling for “containment” of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to reorient their policies to fight a new threat fundamentally.
In the video, Jonathan Brent asks Anne Applebaum to read the last paragraph of “Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.”
There is no liberal world order anymore, and the aspiration to create one no longer seems real. But there are liberal societies, open and free countries that offer a better chance for people to live useful lives than closed dictatorships do. They are hardly perfect. Those that exist have deep flaws, profound divisions, and terrible historical scars. But that’s all the more reason to defend and protect them. So few of them have existed across human history; so many have existed for a short time and then failed. They can be destroyed from the outside and from the inside, too, by division and demagogues. Or they can be saved. But only if those of us who live in them are willing to make the effort to save them.
After finishing Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World,” this closing paragraph should be a call to action. Failure to respond to the challenge will doom our future to an unacceptable one. I recommend this book and encourage people to read it, discuss its contents, and take action to save our collective future.
by Bea Setton
I’ve begun reading Berlin: A Novel by Bea Setton. After finishing Kairos, a book set in a divided Berlin, Setton’s debut novel is witty and insightful, with a young woman battling a sense of emptiness who moves to Berlin for a fresh start. However, things go differently than planned.
Daphne, the protagonist, moves to Berlin hoping for a new beginning but deals with more drama than she left behind. She knows she needs to make friends, learn German, and navigate a new way of life. She even expects to spend long nights alone with Nutella and experience the difficulties of online dating in another language. But one night, something unexpected and unnerving happens in her apartment, and Daphne’s life suddenly turns dangerous.
Setton captures the modern female experience with sharp observations and wit, making Berlin a must-read for her generation.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Mohsin Hamid
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid is a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change. One morning, Anders, the novel’s protagonist, wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. At first, he tells only Oona, an old friend, newly a lover. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land.
In Mohsin Hamid’s “lyrical and urgent” prose (O Magazine), The Last White Man powerfully uplifts our capacity for empathy and the transcendence over bigotry, fear, and anger it can achieve.
I highly recommend this book. It was a page-turner that kept me thinking about love, loss, and rediscovery. All three are subjects close to my heart since Jan’s death.
I decided to read the book after hearing an interview with the author on All of It on WNYC.
One morning, Anders wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. At first he tells only Oona, an old friend, newly a lover. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land. Some see in the transformations the long-dreaded overturning of an established order, to be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance to see one another, face to face, anew.
Hamid’s The Last White Man invites us to envision a future – our future – that dares to reimagine who we think we are, and how we might yet be together.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Amy Bloom
Having surpassed my Goodreads 2022 reading goal, I wanted a lite, historical fiction book and found this one in the e-library. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom is a book that hooked me on the opening line – “My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.” I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it.
The first section in Hollywood was the one I found less appealing. Partly that is because I identified with Eva, and she does not fulfill her leading role until the last two sections. Its depiction of how people survived the way years by sometimes is a reminder of our inner resilience.
Goodreads provides the following summary.
So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called “a literary triumph” (The New York Times). Lucky Us is a brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny novel of love, heartbreak, and luck.
Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star and Eva the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris’s ambitions take the pair across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, and to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.
With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life, conventional and otherwise. From Brooklyn’s beauty parlors to London’s West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.
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by Hillary Jordan
When She Woke, a fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future by Hillary Jordan, Bellwether Prize Winner. Hannah Payne, the protagonist, embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith. The premise of When She Woke seems to be happening as I read the novel. It is also the one hundred books I have read since the beginning of 2019 and the forty-fifth this year.
Hannah Payne, like Hester Prynne, is attacked for her actions by extreme religious beliefs. Instead of wearing a scarlet letter, Hannah’s chroming (i.e., having her skin altered) makes her skin red from head to toe. The chroming might have been a good theme for a science fiction novel. Still, Ms. Jordan has written a captivating book in which Hannah confronts who she is and, after questioning the values she once had, discovers that Hannah is more vital than she believed she could be.
I highly recommend this novel.
As Ms. Jordan describes the book,
Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmare: she finds herself lying on a table in a solitary confinement cell, her skin turned bright red. Cameras are broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing newly made “Chromes”—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to reflect their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red, a murderess. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and she’s determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.
A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate a dystopian America. In this not-too-distant future, the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned, but “chromed” and released back into the population to survive as best they can.
As she seeks a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by N. K. Jemisin
The City We Became: A Novel by N. K. Jemisin is my first science fiction and urban fantasy novel in quite some time. It is a story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City. Jan and I had lived in New York City, and the book brought back fond memories.
Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children.
But every City also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the City and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
As Jemisin writes:
A city is never alone, not really — and this city seems less solitary than most. More like a family: many parts, frequently squabbling … but in the end, against enemies, they come together to protect one another. They must, or die.
The challenge is when evil forces threaten the City; the entire community needs to unite, and the City’s avatars for each of the five boroughs.
Initially, this is supposed to be one for each borough and one for the entire City. In the end, one of the avatars for the five boroughs chooses not to unite with the others. Without all six, they stand no chance to defeat the forces of evil.
How do they solve this? By adding the sixth borough – Jersey City.
I recommend this book without reservation.
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by Rebecca Makkai
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai is a book that, from page one, pulled me into the story and made me believe I was embedded with Bodie Kane as she returned to her boarding school and worked with students to review the murder of her roommate twenty-three years ago. I Have Some Questions for You was more than a page-turner as I was an unnamed participant. I highly recommend this book and, as Ms. Makkai does, buy it at an independent bookstore.
I had not heard of the book until I read a review in The New Yorker by Katty Waldman, who writes, “The new book, a murder mystery set at an élite boarding school, is being marketed as an irresistible whodunnit. But it also joins a growing number of critiques of true crime.” Once I finished the review, I ordered the book and did not put it down until I finished the novel.
Do not “read this book if you”are looking for a whodunnit. It is a critique of true crime and an assessment of the “me too” era. How do we judge the past by the standards of the present?
Every book I have read since Jan died is one I wanted to discuss with her. But I Have Some Questions is one that would have been helpful for both of us to read simultaneously and share our thoughts. Jan’s work with the YWCA of Union County’s Domestic Violence program would have given her a unique perspective. But my lifetime efforts to free me from male blindness would have been a good counterpoint.
Please read this book, share it, and discuss it.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s murder and the conviction of the school’s trainer, Omar Evans, are online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie.
But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. As she falls down the rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t an outsider at Granby as she’d thought, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there?
In I Have Some Questions for You, award-winning author Rebecca Makkai has crafted her most irresistible novel yet: a stirring investigation, timely, hypnotic, and populated with a cast of unforgettable characters, I Have Some Questions for You is at once a compulsive page-turner and a literary triumph.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Ann Napolitano
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano is a gorgeous, profoundly moving portrait of what’s possible when we choose to love someone, not despite who they are but because of it. Although several sources recommended Hello Beautiful, I chose the novel based on the title as it is how I always greeted Jan. I highly recommend this book as it is one of the best I have ever read.
Hello Beautiful is an exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic, Little Women. Knowing it was not him, William Waters’s experience growing up as an only child was an engaging character in the early portion of the novel. However, my hero was Sylvie, the dreamer who pursued true love and found it in a place one would less expect to find it. The consequences of her love reverberate over decades in their families.
The following passage is one example of a well-written book.
We’re separated from the world by our own edges,” Charlie Padavano says to Sylvie in “Hello Beautiful.” He continues, “We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is.
The interconnections of the characters make this novel one of the best I have read. If only more of us could learn the lessons that Charlie Padavano shared with Sylvie.
As a man on a lifetime grief journey, this exchange echoes my experience.
When an old person dies,” Kent said, “even if that person is wonderful, he or she is still somewhat ready, and so are the people who loved them. They’re like old trees, whose roots have loosened in the ground. They fall gently. But when someone like your aunt Sylvie dies—before her time—her roots get pulled out and the ground is ripped up. Everyone nearby is in danger of being knocked over.”
Grief is love.” Now Alice thought: Forgiveness is too.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s artist; and Emeline, who patiently takes care of all of them. Happily, the Padavanos fold Julia’s new boyfriend into their loving, chaotic household.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Olivia Hawker
The Fire and the Ore by Olivia Hawker is a novel set in 1856 when three women—once strangers—come together in unpredictable Utah Territory. Hopeful, desperate, and willful, they’ll allow nothing on earth or Heaven to stand in their way. I have always enjoyed the history of the movement of people across the plains. Tamar, Jane, and Tabitha, along with their shared husband, Thomas Ricks, were real people, and Olivia Hawker compellingly describes them as people living in difficult times.
Olivia Hawker is a descendant of Jane and a former Mormon. She writes eloquently about the unnecessary Utah War (AKA Buchanan’s Blunder) and how the sister-wives grow to love and support each other. Tamar’s sister Patience, although a minor character, wrote a memoir of the time that the author used as a resource.
Reading a compelling historical fiction novel about family, sisterhood, and survival about three women like Jan was an easy choice. It was a page-turner from the first page to the last.
The Washington Post bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow is a compelling novel of family, sisterhood, and survival.
The Goodreads summary provides a good overview,
Following the call of their newfound Mormon faith, Tamar Loader and her family weather a brutal pilgrimage from England to Utah, where Tamar is united with her destined husband, Thomas Ricks. Clinging to a promise for the future, she abides a surprise: Thomas is already wedded to one woman—Tabitha, a local healer—and betrothed to another.
Orphaned by tragedy and stranded in the Salt Lake Valley, Jane Shupe struggles to provide for herself and her younger sister. Out of necessity, with no love lost, she too must bear the trials of a sister-wife. She is no member of the Mormon migration, yet Jane agrees to marry Thomas.
But when the US Army’s invasion brings the rebellious Mormon community to heel, Tamar, Jane, and Tabitha are forced to retreat into the hostile desert wilderness with little in common but the same man—and the resolve to keep themselves and their children alive. What they discover, as one, is redemption, a new definition of family, and a bond stronger than matrimony that is tested like never before.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Imogen Clark
Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark is about dealing with the past—and finally facing the future-a topic that was appealing to me. Thirteen months into my grief journey, I live between a perfect past and an unknowable future. Will Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark help me manage these two worlds?
Surprisingly it did. Unlike the two protagonists, I am mourning losing Jan, the love of my life. However, the neuromapping in my brain made it impossible to understand how to continue to love Jan and separate that from the time and space connections that made me believe she would return at any moment.
Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark helped me understand that grief should and cannot define us forever. I recommend this book to all readers, not only those on a grief journey like mine.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview.
Pip Appleby seems to have it all, with her prestigious job as a human rights lawyer and her enviable London home. But then a tragic accident stops her life in its tracks, and everything changes instantly. Retreating to her family’s rural farm and the humble origins she has been trying to hide, Pip is haunted by what she has done.
When she discovers the diary of actress Evelyn Mountcastle in a box of old books, Pip revels in the opportunity to lose herself in someone else’s life rather than focus on the disaster that is her own. But soon, she sees parallels—Evelyn’s life was also beset by tragedy, and, like Pip, she returned to Southwold under a dark cloud.
When Pip and Evelyn’s paths cross in real life, they slowly begin to reveal the hidden stories holding them back. Can they help each other forgive what happened in the past and, perhaps, find happiness in the future?
When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Audrey Niffenegger
My wife had asked me to read – The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – on several occasions. When we first met, we both liked to read fiction and non-fiction. As we aged, I focused almost exclusively on non-fiction, and she focused on fiction. Since her passing, I have started reading more of both genres. We could now have a book club!
Both Jan and I have always enjoyed books and movies about time travel. If I could travel back in time, there are tens of thousands of days I would love to spend with her again. But time travel is not possible. Or is it? Her spirit returns to me whenever I am paralyzed and encourages me to dust myself off and keep going. Maybe one day we will time travel together!
I enjoyed reading this book, even if it was difficult to keep track of the periods. It is very much the type of time-traveling book that both of us would have liked to read, and it has helped me to imagine a world in which Jan and I will meet again.
But what if it is not time travel as imagined by H. G. Wells. As the Hasidic story foretold, God split our souls at birth and placed one part of my soul in her body and placed the rest into my body. Very few people are lucky enough to find the person who has the other half of their soul, and Jan and I did.
When my life ends, what if God takes a portion of our two souls and places them into new bodies. Each of their souls would include a part of each of us. Those two new people would have to find each other in the future to connect as we did. They might not see each other and forever hunger for true love. Whatever happened, they would not know that they once were very much in love.
