New Book: Wolf Hall: A Novel

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Read: May 2022

Wolf Hall: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel is the first book in a three-part series on Thomas Cromwell. I am an amateur historian, and one of the characters I have always wanted to know more about was Cromwell. Although I might have achieved that by reading actual history textbooks, this three-part series seemed like the perfect next book for me to read. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.

At least this time, I am reading book one first instead of last. I highly recommend this book.

The Goodreads overview provides more details.

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Civil war could destroy the country if the king died without a male heir.

Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.

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Read: June 2024

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Reunion: A Novel

by Elise Juska

Today, I immersed myself in the distinct world of Reunion: A Novel by Elise Juska. This enthralling narrative, crafted by the esteemed author of The Blessings, transports us alongside three middle-aged friends as they live during a college reunion in coastal Maine. Reunion, my forty-eighth read this year and my 250th since January 15, 2019, stands out for its compelling storytelling.

It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England for the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate to return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam hesitates to leave his rustic but secluded life with his wife and young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.

Yet, the reunion takes an unforeseen path, shattering their preconceptions. Hope, renowned for her sunny outlook, is forced to confront the harsh realities of her life and the fractures in her friendships. Adam embarks on a journey of self-discovery, reigniting the spirit of his carefree contrast to his current responsibilities. A single mother, Polly is compelled to face the shadows of her past, youth, and a stark, long-kept secret. As the weekend takes a dramatic turn, all three are pushed to confront their past and its implications for the future, leading to profound personal transformation.

Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers. Elise Juska’s skill in portraying the intricate dynamics of friendship will leave you intrigued and wanting more.

Read: January 2025

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All the Water in the World

by Eiren Caffall

Today, I began reading “All the Water in the World” by Eiren Caffall. Like Station Eleven, this novel is a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s American Museum of Natural History in a flooded future. In the spirit of “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and “Parable of the Sower,” this adventurous journey offers hope that the most important things—love, work, community, and knowledge—will endure.

“All the Water in the World” is narrated by a girl who profoundly appreciates water. In the years following the melting of the glaciers, Nonie, along with her older sister, parents, and their researcher friends, remains in a nearly deserted New York City. They have established a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History with a strict rule: they may only take from the exhibits in cases of dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park while also working to preserve the collections of human history and science.

When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape northward along the Hudson River. They carry a book containing records of the lost collections. As they race down the swollen river for safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in various, sometimes frightening, ways to the new reality. Despite the challenges, they are determined to create a new world that honors everything they have saved.

Inspired by the stories of curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections during wartime, “All the Water in the World” mediates what we strive to preserve from collapse and an adventure filled with danger, storms, and a fight for survival.

Read: April 2023

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In Praise of Walking

by Shane O'Mara

I recently received a book from my family that combines two interests: walking and reading. The book, “In Praise of Walking” by Shane O’Mara, celebrates the joys, health benefits, and mechanics of walking. It emphasizes the importance of getting out of our chairs and discovering a happier, healthier, more creative self.

One of the most important insights I gained from this book is that walking can lead to mind wandering, focusing on autobiographical memory rather than the immediate environment. This realization helped me accept and appreciate Jan’s love and move forward with her passion.

The book also explores the significance of walking to our human identity. Walking upright has given us many advantages, including the freedom of our hands and minds. Walking has enabled us to spread worldwide and has many benefits for our bodies and minds, such as protecting and repairing organs, aiding digestion, and sharpening our thinking.

Overall, “In Praise of Walking” inspires us to start walking again and recognize its many benefits to our lives and societies.

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.

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Read: November 2023

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The Liberators

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.

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Read: February 2022

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A Train to Moscow

by Elena Gorokhova

A Train to Moscow by Elena Gorokhova is set in post–World War II Russia; a girl, must reconcile a tragic past with her hope for the future in this powerful and poignant novel about family secrets, passion, loss, perseverance, and ambition. In a small, provincial town behind the Iron Curtain, Sasha lives in a house full of secrets, one of which is her dream of becoming an actress.

When she leaves for Moscow to audition for drama school, she defies her mother and grandparents and abandons her first love, Andrei.

Before she leaves, Sasha discovers the hidden war journal of her uncle Kolya, an artist still missing in action years after the war has ended. His pages expose the official lies and the forbidden truth of Stalin’s brutality. Kolya’s revelations and tragic love story guide Sasha through drama school and cement her determination to live a thousand lives onstage.

After graduation, she begins acting in Leningrad, where Andrei, now a Communist Party apparatchik, becomes a censor of her work. As a past secret comes to light, Sasha’s ambitions converge with Andrei’s duties, and Sasha must decide if her dreams are genuinely worth the necessary sacrifice and if, as her grandmother likes to say, all will indeed be well.

This was a page-turner, as I held my breath to find out the next steps that Sasha would take. Her ambition combined with the secrets she learns keeps the reader focused on the next page.

I recommend this book.

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Read: February 2023

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I Have Some Questions for You

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.

Subscribe

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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.

New Book: Wolf Hall: A Novel

Wolf Hall: A Novel

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