The action starts in the first few pages of this debut novel with the birth of a baby in the desert. Eva continues her story of living at a mission in a remote village in China in 1923 through her journal of notes intended for publication as a travel book. The hardships and intrigues of this adventure pull the reader in immediately.
   The alternating third-person account of Frieda, a businesswoman in present-day London who is left a mysterious inheritance, is a little slower to get into, but about halfway through the book I could not put it down and was eager to find out what happens to both of these women.

This is a very good book about a group of Harvard graduates at their 20-year reunion and how that weekend influenced and changed the course of their lives. The characters and storylines grabbed me and I wanted to keep reading until I found out what happened to all of them. What more can you ask for in a book?

Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman is a good mystery set at a remote and unusual boarding school. The plot grabs the reader and moves fast enough to keep the pages turning. It’s a good vacation read and the fairy tale element could make for good discussions in book clubs. I enjoyed the book so much that I have read another book by Goodman – The Lake of Dead Languages.

The daughter of a Vietnam war veteran travels to Ho Chi Minh City to run a center for street children. She takes along a childhood friend who was disabled in the Iraqi war. Together they confront a language barrier, corrupt police and a host of unsavory characters to get the center up and running. It was a good read, although I was put off by the anti-American sentiments and some of the dialog was tedious. This is one of those rare books that will make a better movie.

This book is the story of life in Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, as told by the family and friends of a general under his command.

The general, Kamel Satchet, was a hero of the Iran-Iraq war, but later became reluctant to follow the orders of an increasingly brutal and unbalanced leader. His military career is related through interviews with his widow, his oldest daughter who was never allowed to marry, his second son who studied to be an imam, and several generals and other military men who had known and served with General Satchet. Some of these individuals were living in Iraq when the author interviewed them. She had to disguise herself as an Iraqi woman and take other precautions to avoid being kidnapped as a foreign journalist.

I could not put this book down. It is a chilling account of the internal destruction of a country and its culture. It is a very timely topic and offers insights not seen in the usual media outlets. The stories are presented as told and the reader can draw his/her own conclusions. A glossary at the back of the book was very helpful with definitions of different political and religious factions and individuals.

This is a novel about the removal of classic sculpture and art from the Greek Parthenon in the early nineteenth century. Lord and Lady Elgin, while serving as ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire, excavated and removed dozens of pieces and shipped them to England to save them from further deterioration and ruin. They are still displayed in British museums and are known as the Elgin Marbles.

Although the book is very informative, switching back and forth in time between the original building of the Parthenon and design of the sculptures to their later removal, it made for tedious reading. None of the characters are very likable. Information about the marbles found on the Internet was much more interesting and easier to read.

This is a very good book, full of quirky characters and descriptions that make you feel you are there. Each chapter makes you want to continue with the next one to get further information on a plotline, except the next chapter is about a different character or in a different time period. Like a jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces fit together nicely at the end.