Oh, this book! This is classic Richard Russo: a really good story written with wit, verve, and so many life-truths that I was nodding my head in wonder when I wasn't laughing out loud or reaching for the tissues. There is a reason this gifted writer won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature (for "Empire Falls").

This is the story of a year in the life of 50-something Jack Griffin, bookended by two summer weddings—the first in Cape Cod, Massachusetts where his parents vacationed every summer when Jack was a child and the second on the coast of Maine where his wife's family vacationed when she was a child. Griffin, as he is called throughout the book, is a former Hollywood screenwriter of B-list TV shows and movies who is now teaching screenwriting in a B-list liberal arts college in New England. He is bitter, deeply unhappy, and incessantly questioning his life choices. As he and his wife, Joy, go the Cape Cod wedding of their daughter Laura's best friend, he plans to scatter his father's ashes on the cape. (He's been toting them around in the trunk of his convertible for almost a year.) But the ghost of memories, centering largely on his dysfunctional parents and childhood, echo all around him, dredging up previous hurts that have the unsettling effect of unraveling his marriage of 34 years. The following summer is his daughter's wedding, and it is here that Russo's writing chops are on full display. The scene of the rehearsal dinner where half the guests end up in the emergency room is worth the price of the book alone!

In typical Russo style, the characters own this story far more than the plot. They seem so real, so authentic, and so human that I just couldn't wait to rejoin them each day. This really is an introspective and highly entertaining novel about the meaning of life—what we inherit from our parents, what makes us truly happy, what cuts us to the bone with heartbreak, and how we handle it all to wake up another day and start all over again.

An aside: In 2018, I had the privilege of hearing Richard Russo speak at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., and he mentioned that "That Old Cape Magic" started out as a short story, but when he finished writing it, it was a novel. I'm so happy it turned out that way because this novel is a literary treasure.

A book about a racehorse from the 1850s? Well, that doesn't interest me. But a book by Geraldine Brooks? That I cannot resist. She is one of my favorite authors, and this novel is yet again a reason why.

Quite simply, this is a masterpiece. It's a truly imaginative, multilayered story that is a gripping, can't-put-it-down read.

The book is several stories in one, but the common thread is the true story of Lexington, a powerful, legendary racehorse in the 1850s that transformed the sport. With Lexington as the centerpiece, Brooks has crafted multiple stories, each of which is riveting:
• Lexington, Kentucky, 1850: Jarrett, an enslaved young man in Kentucky, has a special talent for training horses. At a young age, he is given responsibility for Lexington, and the two develop a special bond that is never severed. One night during the Civil War, Jarrett's courage and passion are supremely tested.

• Lexington, Kentucky, 1850: Thomas J. Scott is an itinerant painter specializing in horses. His chapters are written in the first person just as he would have spoken.

• New York City, 1954: Martha Jackson is one of the very few female art dealers. Although she specializes in modern art, she comes across an oil painting of Lexington of mysterious origin.

• Washington, D.C., 2019: The unlikely pair of Jess, an Australian bone specialist with the Smithsonian who finds Lexington's preserved skeleton in a Smithsonian warehouse attic, and Theo, a Nigerian American PhD student in art history at Georgetown University who finds one of Scott's paintings of Lexington discarded in a curbside junk pile, meet and develop both a professional and personal relationship.

But this is more than a horse story. Throughout the book, Brooks deftly deals with racism—from the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery to the piercing and hurtful racial microaggressions that taunt Blacks today. How Jarrett and Theo feel and how they are treated is as important a part of the story as what they do.

The chapters bounce back and forth in time and place, but Brooks, the consummate storyteller, always has it under control so it's never confusing or disjointed. Rich historical detail, complex characters, and writing that is pitch-perfect together make this an extraordinary novel—even for those of us who know nothing about racehorses.

An aside: The dedication made me cry. Truly. So much that I couldn't turn the page right away.

ANOTHER book on Jackie Kennedy? Oh, yes, and it's a must-read! This is a delightful twist on the tale we all know about this beloved former first lady. Here's the twist: The "me" in "Jackie & Me" is Jack Kennedy's best friend Kirk LeMoyne Billings, or Lem as he was known, and the time he spent with Jackie in the year before she was married.

Lem met Jack Kennedy when they were both in prep school at Choate and became best friends. Theirs was an unlikely friendship: Jack was a philandering lady's man and Lem was a closeted gay man. Lem was poor and an Episcopalian. Still, the very Catholic Kennedy family "adopted" Lem; Rose even referred to him as her fifth son. When Jack's father instructed Jack in no uncertain terms that it was time he was married for the good of his political future, Jack settled on Jackie Bouvier. He really couldn't be bothered with all the time and effort in courting Jackie, so he enlisted Lem to befriend his future bride while Jack worked as a congressman, ran for the U.S. Senate, traveled extensively, and all the while sought out other women for his bed. This was an ingenious ploy to keep Jackie occupied and out of the arms of other men until Jack was ready to actually get married.

That's all fact. Now for the novel part.

Author Louis Bayard, who freely admits in the acknowledgements that this is "an exercise in alternative history," has richly imagined this unusual friendship between Lem and Jackie—what they did, what they said, what they meant to each other—and the result is an engrossing, intriguing story that brings a new perspective to the age-old Jackie story. Narrated by Lem as a 64-year-old man looking back on his life, the stories he tells are of the love, sacrifice, and betrayal of two outsiders who were both intimately drawn into the magnetic Kennedy orbit.

This is, after all, Jackie before—Jackie before Jack, Jackie before the White House, Jackie before Caroline and John Jr., Jackie before the tragedy that forever defined her and our country. This is a different Jackie, and one I really enjoyed getting to know.

Bayard is a brilliant storyteller, which makes this almost magical historical novel a real page-turner. Read it!

Sometimes the best books are the books that make you uncomfortable. Make you squirm. Make you rethink what you thought was true. Make you realize that myths are not facts and should never be treated as such. Make you realize the harm of not holding history and historians to the highest level of fact-checking.

This is that book.

Written by Clint Smith, this is a most unusual book about the history of chattel slavery, and I dare anyone to read it and not feel uncomfortable—as in guilty by association. But don't be daunted by that because this really is a unique way to look at the tragedy and horror of slavery in the United States. And note that I did not write "slavery in the Southern United States." That is one of the surprises of this book. Slavery was also alive and well in the North. Did you know that in 1855, the mayor of New York City pushed for the city to become an independent city-state so it could secede from the Union along with the Southern states to protect the city's slaveholding interests? I didn't.

To write this book, Smith became a tourist, visiting sites in the United States and Senegal that commemorate in some way the slave trade, slavery, and its aftermath, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, Angola prison in Louisiana, Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, as well as Galveston, Texas, New York City, and Gorée Island off Senegal. He also interviewed historians and experts. He interviewed other tourists like himself. He researched in libraries. He validated some myths, while extinguishing others.

Here are some of the many things readers will learn from this most unusual travelogue:
• Find out the extreme dichotomy between the legends and myths of Thomas Jefferson as a benevolent slaveholder and the reality of how he actually treated his slaves.

• The largest slave market in the United States was in Charleston, South Carolina. No surprise there. But this may shock you: The second largest slave market in the United States was in New York City.

• Find out the little-known relationship between the Statue of Liberty and the abolition of slaves. This was one of its first symbolic meanings, but it didn't stick. Why?

• Learn the history of Juneteenth and how Texas, not known for its liberal propensities, led the rest of the nation in establishing this as a federal holiday.

• Find out how spirits and bodies were first broken in the House of Slaves on Gorée Island off Senegal that has now become a place where people of all colors are forced to confront the history of the transatlantic slave trade.

• Learn how modern-day European economic prosperity is directly related to Africans who were enslaved on plantations in the United States 200 to 300 years ago.

One of the distinguishing features of this book is the nearly poetic descriptions of everything from someone's hair, eye color, or trails of sweat (yes, sweat!) to the sunlight's colorful rays on a building. I was so entranced by this that I did a little research of my own and discovered that author Clint Smith is not only a scholar, but also a published poet. Yeah, that makes sense!

This is a book that broke my heart many times over. It shocked me. It was an emotional sucker punch. And it is a literary masterpiece.

Written by Jesmyn Ward, this is the story of the Batistes, a poor Black family living in a rundown house on rundown land peppered with rundown junk in the rural Mississippi coastal town of Bois Sauvage as Hurricane Katrina looms at sea, taking direct aim on them. And while that hurricane is churning in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, an emotional hurricane is churning in the lives of this family.

Each of the 12 chapters covers a single day, leading up to Katrina's landfall on day 11 of the book. The novel is written in the first-person voice of Esch, a 15-year-old girl who thinks she does only two things well: She can run really fast, and she enjoys having sex. And while Esch has allowed several of her older brothers' friends to have sex with her since she was 12, she has fallen in love with Manny, who is 19. Now only he is allowed to touch her. But Manny is cruelly using her, which becomes a real problem since Esch is pregnant with Manny's baby. She has no one to tell and no one to help her. Meanwhile, her older brother Skeetah, who has groomed his pit bull, China, as a prize-winning fighter, is doting on the dog as she has her first litter of puppies. Randall has thoughts only for basketball, while the littlest one, Junior, follows Esch and Randall everywhere. Their mother died in childbirth with Junior, and their father is an alcoholic who is obsessed with the coming hurricane. And then that hurricane blasts its wrath over the vulnerable land.

"Bois Sauvage" is a fictional town, meaning "wild wood" in French. It is indeed wild and almost savage. But the love and care that family and friends offer each other is what tames those wild woods where white neighbors shoot at them and the pit bulls viciously tear each other apart for their owners' financial benefit. It's not an easy life, and the characters grab at happiness wherever they can find it, be in a bottle of booze, sex, basketball, or a dog.

Masterfully written in prose that is so lyrical and expressive it is almost poetic, this novel is destined to become a classic read in English classes a century from now. It is a literary gift. The book has everything: a gripping, wrenching plot, authentic characters, the powerful symbolism of the intensity of mother love juxtaposed with brutal, bloody violence, and imagery so vivid you will feel the oppressive heat, the howling wind, and the sting of red ants. Also, it should win an award for the best similes; some were so beautiful they almost made me weep.

Perhaps the most brilliant part of the novel is how Ward has interwoven the ancient Greek myth of "The Golden Fleece" throughout the story. In this myth, Medea killed her two children by her husband Jason for revenge after he was unfaithful. Esch, who is reading Edith Hamilton's book "Mythology" for her summer assigned reading, identifies with Medea as she slowly accepts the fact of her pregnancy and shakes off the cloak of apathy.

Most of all, this is just a really, really good story about the brutal struggle for survival—one that grabbed my heart and wouldn't let go.

Read it while you can! This is one of the dozens of books the state of Texas wants to ban. The specific reason cited for "Salvage the Bones" is the explicit descriptions of 15-year-old Esch having sex. Meanwhile, those defending the book insist it has important literary value and therefore is not obscene.

This debut novel by Chip Cheek is about seduction and sex, as well as the scandal, sorrow, and reverberating effects of betrayal.

It's late September 1957. Henry, 20, and Effie, 18, who are from the rural and somewhat backwards town of Signal Point, Georgia, have just gotten married and are spending their two-week honeymoon in Effie's uncle's cottage in Cape May, New Jersey. Unbeknownst to them until they arrived, it's the off season. While a few stores and restaurants are open, the place is pretty much deserted. After one boring week, they are ready to hightail it back South when these naïve newlyweds meet sophisticated New Yorkers Clara, Max, and Alma, who live in the house across the street. Gin-soaked, party-hearty evenings follow one after another as the entire town becomes their bacchanal playground and nothing is seemingly off limits. When Effie gets a cold and takes to her bed with a fever and the sniffles, Henry and Alma start what becomes a torrid love affair. Of course, this secret is exposed, and the scandal and betrayal that result are intense and powerful.

While it's a compelling, albeit overplayed, story of passion gone wrong, I found it difficult as a reader to watch Henry destroy through his uncontrolled lust what we were led to think he held so dear: his love for Effie. Henry was a virgin when he married Effie, and it seems unrealistic that in a matter of days after having sex for the first time he is so capable and willing to destroy the marital boundaries he only just vowed to obey.

The characters are quite colorful, and the descriptions of Cape May are delightful. In addition, I do give the author credit for the last chapter. It was nothing like what I was expecting, but it works surprisingly well. Still, the novel relies far too much on the many explicit sex scenes to carry the plot forward and keep the reader engaged, and somehow this just feels cheap. Hence, four stars instead of five.

When we make the effort to see so many things in life—joyful and tragic—through the eyes of a child, our viewpoint shifts. Think of the magic of Christmas or the tragedy of death as a child would see these. That is this book.

Written by Qian Julie Wang, this is the story of her immigration to the United States from China and her experiences as a little girl living with her parents in New York City in the 1990s. Residing on long-expired temporary visas, none of them has legal documentation. In China, her parents were both professors; her father taught English, while her mother taught mathematics. In the United States, they have the lowest level of jobs, none of which are particularly stable and all of which are boring and sometimes dangerous.

Qian is trained from age seven when she first immigrated to never trust anyone other than her parents. She is to avoid—to the point of running in the opposite direction—all police, as well as anyone in authority. Her father, Ba Ba, sternly instructs her to tell anyone who asks that she was born in the United States. After all, it only takes one unguarded moment, and the family will be deported. They live in poverty in New York City's Chinatown, renting just a single room or later two rooms with a kitchen and bathroom they share with multiple families. Qian doesn't have the basics that other children take for granted, including enough food to eat or shoes that fit her properly. "Shopping day" means scavenging on the sidewalks through trash cans. Qian grows up consumed by adult worries as she learns to survive by lying and keeping secrets. But even with this as the foundation of her life, her story isn't all sad because she tells it as she remembers it through the eyes of a child.

From teaching herself English by reading picture books and "The Berenstain Bears" to riding the subway alone to eating at McDonald's for the first time, this is a memoir of both the familiar and unfamiliar, filled with joy and heartache as Qian is denied so much simply because she is a poor undocumented immigrant. As a child, Qian works in a sweatshop literally earning pennies for her efforts, while she goes hungry most of the day. Still, her world is rocked when she discovers the New York Public Library and all the free(!!) books. After Qian adopts a black cat that she names Marilyn (after Marilyn Monroe), her father blames the cat for their bad luck. When Ma Ma becomes seriously ill requiring a long hospitalization and surgery, Qian's small world nearly collapses. The health and financial strains become too much for her parents' marriage, and when Ba Ba does the unthinkable, Ma Ma and Qian leave him for Toronto where they are considered "legal" and enjoy the opportunities that entails.

The book is focused entirely on Qian's childhood from first grade through sixth grade, but at the end, we learn how she made such a success of her life by first earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Swarthmore College and then her law degree from Yale University. She now works as an attorney specializing in education and civil rights impact litigation meaning this book has the happiest of endings.

Beautifully written in a lively narrative style, this profound memoir reads more like a novel. It is a remarkable story about a brave, smart, resilient, and creative child who grew up in the worst possible conditions. This is a book that everyone should read.

Warning! This book is so good, so compelling, so delightful that you won't be able to stop reading. It is the perfect ChickLit with a gripping, multilayered plot that will keep you turning the pages long past your bedtime.

Written by Jennifer Robson, this novel is a deeply affecting story about the power of friendship, the pain of betrayal, and the pleasure of redemption.

On the surface, the story of the embroiderers who helped make Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown for her November 20, 1947 nuptials to Philip Mountbatten seems rather, well, benign and possibly boring. It is the opposite! The tale is told through three fictional characters:
• Ann Hughes, a longtime employee of Norman Hartnell, the gown's designer. She is a loving and good young woman, but she's lonely.
• Miriam Dassin, a psychologically damaged young Jew who has emigrated to England from France and is guarding deep, tragic secrets.
• Heather Mackenzie, the granddaughter of Ann Hughes, who lives in Toronto.

Ann and Miriam keep the story going through 1947, while Heather's story takes place in 2016 as she tries to piece together the confusing mystery of her grandmother's deepest life secrets. The juxtaposition of the two time periods works seamlessly without being jarring as sometimes happens with this plot device.

World War II and the incessant bombing of London are over in early 1947, but there is severe rationing and shortages. It's a very cold winter, and everyone is shivering because there isn't enough coal or tea. It's a difficult time for everyone. In addition to their challenging jobs at Hartnell's, both Ann and Miriam each begin dating, but one of the men is a scoundrel who commits two heinous acts, setting in motion a series of events that forever changes one of their lives.

The novel is exquisitely written in such a way to transport readers into this slice of time with lots of historical details about everything from the gown's fabric to the rooms of Buckingham Palace. You're guaranteed to crave a cuppa!

An aside: Do Google photos of Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown to better appreciate the grandeur and intricacies of the embroidery.

This book by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward scraped my heart raw. She is unflinchingly honest in her portrayal of life on the Gulf Coast, a life of poverty and hardship, a life where Black lives—especially men—are not valued. Raw and brutal though it may be, this should be required reading for anyone who wants to know the answers to a lot of questions that begin with "Why?".

The formatting of this memoir is genius. It's essentially two books in one, two sides of the story. Because of the way it is written, the two sides enhance each other, making both stronger than they would be as standalone books. And when the two converge it is brilliant and heartbreaking.

As the title suggests, this is a book about five men in Ward's life, including her brother, who died too young, taken away through violence, drugs, accidents, bad luck, and suicide. Five men in the space of four and half years. All were victims of the poverty and the hardship in which they grew up. Their deaths almost seemed inevitable, and that is the deepest and truest tragedy underlying it all.

Juxtaposed between the chapters about the five young men is a memoir of Jesmyn Ward's life, beginning with her birth. She was born in April 1977, three months premature. The doctors told her parents she would die. She did not. She was a fighter from the start, which served her well. Her parents' marriage fell apart several times before ending in divorce, a younger sister had a baby at age 13, and her brother was killed by a drunk driver, who was never charged with his death. The family may have been poor, but she and her siblings were loved, and they were embraced by a large, extended family of aunts and cousins. Ward broke out of the cycle of early pregnancy and loving men who left their families, by being smart and having lucky breaks. Today she is a bestselling author of seven books (and counting) and a professor of creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is also the youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, which was awarded to her in 2022 at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. It is her amazing trajectory in life that also makes this a story of hope.

This is not an easy book to read because of its unrelenting sense of tragedy and doom, of the scourge of racism and poverty, of the plague of drugs and alcohol. It is dark. And it is very disturbing. But it is an important book and one that will make a difference by giving us all a greater sense of understanding, knowledge, and empathy.

Magnificently written, this is a powerful tale that seared my heart and soul and will remain with me for a long time to come.

Quite simply, this novel astonished me.

It's just words on a page, but those words are so powerful, so entrancing, so visceral that they seemingly affected every one of my senses. I felt the searing heat of the desert, tasted the gritty sand in my mouth, smelled the lilies, heard the doves cooing, and saw the mountaintop palace-fortress of Masada that was built on a rock cliff impossibly high in the air. This book is a literary masterpiece that will haunt me for some time to come.

Written by Alice Hoffman, this is a novel based on the siege of Masada. In 70CE, nine hundred Jewish rebels occupied the mountain fortress of Masada in Judea that had been built by King Herod. They were holding out against the Romans, who were killing Jews en masse all over the region. The ancient historian Josephus writes that as the Romans prepared to attack Masada, the Jews entrenched there committed mass suicide with only two women and five children surviving. From this spare bit of information, Hoffman has woven a majestic tale of four women of different ages and backgrounds, all of whom care for the doves toiling daily in the dovecotes. Their stories, focused largely on their religious faith and mystical superstitions, the danger and joy of sex, and the brutality and violence of the constant battles of war that surround them, combine to tell the big story of life and death on Masada from 70CE to 73CE:
• Yael, the daughter of a cold-blooded assassin, whose mother died in childbirth and whose father has blamed her for this her entire life.

• Revka, the beloved wife of a baker who was brutally murdered by the Romans in their village. Fleeing into the desert from this destruction, she witnesses the horrific rape and murder of her daughter.

• Aziza, the daughter of a warrior, who carries deep secrets about her true identity.

• Shirah, a wise woman who is labeled a witch for her seemingly magical potions and powers.

The book's splendor is in the tone and voice of the writing, which combine to be so powerful that mere words transport the reader to this ancient time and place.

This is a story of survival and the strength of women who continually suffer in a brutal and terrifying time. This is a story of feminism and friendship. This is a story of love and pain. This is historical fiction at its finest.

Kelly Corrigan is a courageous woman.

In this collection of very personal essays, she tells deeply private stories about herself, many of which don't cast her in a positive light. As she herself says in the "Reading Group Guide" at the end of the book, the stories show "how foolish, selfish, and tiresome I can be." Usually when we tell total strangers our life story, we gussy it up a bit. Not Kelly Corrigan. She is brutally honest—so much so that when I read some of these story-essays, I didn't like her very much. And then I remembered how courageous she is for sharing this way, stripping away the fake veneer and showing us who she is and the lessons she has learned.

The 12 hardest things Corrigan is learning to say are also the 12 hardest things we ALL must learn to say. From admitting "I don't know" to "I was wrong" and from lovingly saying "tell me more" to "I love you," this is almost a guidebook of how to use what you say to be a good human, a responsible human, a loving human.

The writing is magnificent. The story-essays are all intriguing. And the resounding messages—it's fine to say no sometimes, you really are good enough even when you mess up big time, and grief is hard work—aren't based on cheesy 1970s inspirational posters but rather Corrigan's hard-earned life experiences.

Just know this: The first chapter, titled "It's Like This," is difficult to read. Corrigan is in the throes of grieving for her beloved father, and she takes out her denial, anger, and sadness about his death on those she loves best, including herself. For anyone who has ever experienced intense grief, this chapter will resonate. Just know going in that this is not the tone of the rest of the 11 story-essays.

Read it and then share it with a friend. It's that kind of book.

This novel by Jamie Ford is both a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit, especially in children, and a testament to the power of love to transcend so many of life's deepest hurts and tragedies.

Loosely based on something that actually happened, this is the story of a boy named Yung Kun-ai, whose destitute and dying mother does something horrific from sheer desperation: She gives him away. Yung is taken on a ship and packed into a cage with other Chinese children where they are transported to the United States. After being tossed overboard, he is miraculously rescued and sent to a Seattle home for orphans and then a boarding school. His life is miserable. But his wealthy sponsor has an idea, and Yung, who is renamed Ernest Young, is given away in a raffle that is a publicity stunt for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. The winning ticket is selected by none other than President Taft. The lucky winner of 12-year-old Ernest is Madam Flora, the owner of one of Seattle's best brothels. And now the story really begins. As horrific as it may sound, Ernest finally experiences the love of a family living and working with the "upstairs girls" and the servants. The only other man in the house is Professor Troubadour, who plays the piano during the parlor evenings. Although he's barely a teenager, Ernest falls in love with two of the servants, Fahn and Maisie. But something happens to both servant girls in this brothel—one of them is given a somewhat dubious opportunity of a lifetime, while the other is forever scarred physically and mentally.

Bookended by Seattle's two world's fairs—the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and the 1962 Century 21 Exposition—the novel digs deep into the culture and lifestyle of the city's red-light district, the life of a working prostitute, and the politics of the early 20th century when Seattle was a hotbed for vice—from brothels to opium dens. The author deftly jumps back and forth in time, primarily focusing on the 1910s and using the chapters that take place in 1962 to show what eventually happened to Ernest, Fahn, and Maisie.

While there is a strong plot, albeit one that is not a page-turner, the primary focus of this haunting and tender historical novel is on the colorful, complex, and unique characters. This richly imagined book is both brilliant and beautiful.

Bonus: Do take the time to read the author's note at the end of the book to better understand the genesis of this most unusual story.

As I was mentally struggling with the best way to describe this book, the perfect line was uttered by one of the younger residents of Natchez, Mississippi: "This whole town is like a Southern Twin Peaks." Indeed.

Englishman Richard Grant was promoting one of his books when he met Reginia Charboneau, a cookbook writer and chef from Natchez. She invited him to visit her hometown. He did. And took notes. This is his ultimate outsider-looking-in story of a deeply Southern town that is unlike any other in Mississippi:
• Gays are not only welcome here, but also they are beloved citizens.
• From 2016 to 2020, the mayor of Natchez was Darryl Grennell, a gay Black man who was elected with 91 percent of the vote.
• From 1930 to 1990, a Black woman openly ran a highly successful brothel right in the middle of town until her death at age 87. (An aggrieved customer set her on fire, but that's another story.)
• Oh, the gossip! Devout Christians attend prayer meetings where they actively engage in prayer gossip. As in, "Jesus, I'd like to pray for a dear, dear friend of mine, because I'm just worried sick about her. She's been seeing a married man, and I mean every day. What if her husband finds out?" Of course, everyone knows who the "dear, dear friend" is without her ever being named.

The only way to understand White Natchez society is to first understand there are two garden clubs. The elite White women who join these clubs don't actually garden. (Dirt? Worms? Ew!) Oh, and the two clubs have been in an intense, ugly feud for several generations. These clubs are a big deal. For example, the Pilgrimage Garden Club has 650 members and an annual operating budget of $1.2 million. The competing clubs host the annual event called Pilgrimage in which the grand antebellum mansions open their doors to paying visitors for tours led by Confederate-era costumed guides. To give the out-of-town visitors something else to do, the garden clubs put on a theatrical production about the history of Natchez, a production that is fraught with in-fighting and bad acting and resembles something more appropriate for a middle school play. Oh, and there are lots (and lots!) of libations all the time.

And then there is the other side of this Mississippi town. The Blacks, rightly so, view the segregated garden clubs as bastions of White supremacy. Grant says racial divisiveness is the "ongoing curse of Natchez." Racism means a far lower quality of life and economic prosperity for the town's Black population—from education to jobs. Grant offers an in-depth and very personal discourse on both the history and current situation of what it's like to be Black in Natchez, Mississippi—from slavery to the Civil War and Jim Crow to the civil rights movement.

In addition, Grant intersperses the chapters about modern-day Natchez with some of its colorful history, including the story of a Natchez slave that was an African prince. It's a riveting tale that reads like fiction, but it's true.

Throughout the book, the author discusses the legacy of slavery that built the town and the antebellum homes, as well as provided the economy that allowed Natchez to thrive. He spots overt and covert racism and calls it out. He isn't afraid to ask the White residents the hard questions, including their almost universal denial of slavery and racism, although the answers are often just steely looks.

This is an eye-popping, almost unbelievable, and fascinating narrative about an eccentric small town in Mississippi populated with outlandish characters that has somehow managed to hang on to its Southern charm, history, and tall tales. Grant's observations are pithy, hilarious, and perceptive.

This enchanting novel is a book lover's delight that doubles as a ghost story. It's magical!

Written by Louise Erdrich, this is the story of Tookie, a Native American woman from the Ojibwe tribe who has just been released from prison (She was set up! It wasn't her fault!) and gets a job at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. This isn't any old bookstore. It's the one that is owned (in real life) by Louise Erdrich. Adding to the fun, Louise herself is one of the minor characters in the novel. Tookie spent her years in prison reading "with murderous attention," and she is a wonderful addition to the staff. Tell her the kind of book you want to read, and Tookie can name a title or 10.

The book takes place from All Souls' Day 2019 to All Souls' Day 2020. Flora, who was white and one of the bookstore's best but also most difficult customers, dies. And then something odd begins to happen on All Souls' Day 2019. Tookie realizes that Flora's ghost is haunting the bookstore. Tookie and the other employees hear Flora shuffling through the store, her bracelets clicking and clacking as books mysteriously fall off the shelves, and paper towels in the bathroom are scattered. It isn't long before things turn more sinister as Tookie fears Flora is trying to possess her. Meanwhile, Tookie's stepdaughter arrives on their doorstep in late December with a newborn baby and an eyepopping story she doesn't want her father to know.

And then the story does a sudden, but incredible shift, with the advent of Covid and those scary first months of the virus when we didn't know much about it, including how it was spread. Just as they're getting used to wearing masks and spritzing hand sanitizer all day long, George Floyd is murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. Protests and violence follow. This is possibly the best part of the book as it fully personifies those tragic, horror-filled weeks, putting the reader in the heart of those protests in a way that transcends news stories and just feels so real, poignant, important, and scary.

What turns this into a literary novel (besides the fact that it's written by Louise Erdrich, which is enough) is the multiple symbolic meanings of the title: "The Sentence." Woven throughout the story are specific references to "the sentence," and they are different. It's fun to keep track.

This is a story of and for our times. It is a novel about everything that can haunt us—not just ghosts—and all the ways the people we love are the ones who exorcise those hauntings so we can keep living our lives.

Bonus: Dozens of titles are mentioned throughout the story, and Erdrich has helpfully assembled them and many other into several wonderful lists at the end of the book. Get ready to add to your TBR list!

This fast-to-read psychological thriller is the perfect book for a cool autumn evening. Light a fire and get comfortable because this novel by Thomas Christopher Greene is so riveting you won't be moving for a while.

This is an astonishing read, and about halfway through the book, the story will knock you between the eyes--and you'll never see it coming. It is an astounding and unexpected plot twist that left me in tears at the end.

Since this book is all about the plot, to tell you more than this is to give away spoilers: It is a story about Arthur and Elizabeth Winthrop. He is the headmaster at an elite Vermont boarding school. She is the headmaster's wife. The book opens as Arthur is walking naked in New York City's Central Park during a snowstorm. The police bring him in for questioning, and he explains everything. This a novel that fully celebrates the joy of love and embraces the tragedy of death and the harrowing effect both can have on the human psyche.

I first read this book in 2014. I am rereading it now because it's a selection for my book club. Knowing what happens made this second read even more powerful because I was looking for the clues.

And do note this: Even though the title makes it sound like ChickLit, it's not. Men will enjoy this as much as women.

There is only one word to describe "The Headmaster's Wife": Extraordinary.

Elizabeth McCracken may very well be the queen of the short story, and this collection is why she deserves that crown. Each story is a little gem with a solid plot, interesting and fully developed characters, and an underlying theme, which is often about the bonds of family—the ones that tie us with love and the ones that break us with sorrow.

When I read this, I felt like someone who was granted a wish. The first story is titled "The Irish Wedding," and it was such a wonderful little read with two characters, Jack and Sadie, I really enjoyed. I wished this were a novel, so I could spend more time with Jack and Sadie. Well, guess what? Four more of the dozen stories in this collection are about Jack and Sadie. Wish granted!

Some of my other favorites:
"Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark": A gay couple, one of whom is much older than the other and fast on his way to becoming a grumpy old man, take their young son to a waterpark in Galveston where the older man has a revelation caused by intense fear that will forever change their lives for the better.

"It's Not You": A young woman decides to spend the night alone in a garish hotel to heal her broken heart. The plan is to drink, cry, and soak in the tub. At breakfast the next morning, she meets an older man who is a radio psychologist. The two go up to his room, and what happens next is most unexpected.

"Mistress Mickle All at Sea": A 49-year-old woman who plays a villainess on a children's TV show, visits her brother in Rotterdam for New Year's Eve and returns home on a ferry where she encounters another children's performer who is entertaining the young travelers, but this time she's part of the audience.

Beautifully written with diverse settings and wide-ranging plots, this collection of short stories is simply wonderful.

The "Outlander" series is my bookish guilty pleasure. What a delight! Although each of these nine books is very well written by master storyteller Diana Gabaldon, there is minimal literary value. It's all about suspending your sense of reality and just going with the impossible, coincidence-laden, very romantic, and very sexy time travel storyline. Oh, and enjoy every minute!

This is the ninth in the series, and the books must be read in order for two reasons. If you skip around, you won't understand the continuing plot developments, which build on what happened previously. Worse, there will be spoilers. Begin with "Outlander: A Novel" and proceed from there.

The basic premise is that in 1945, war nurse Claire Randall was wandering in the Scottish Highlands and accidentally traveled through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles and ended up marooned in 1743 with nothing but her wits to survive. She meets and falls passionately in love with Jamie Fraser. And the story moves on from there…

In book No. 9, it's 1779 and Claire and Jamie have returned from Philadelphia to Fraser's Ridge, North Carolina. Much to their surprise and delight, Claire and Jamie's daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their two children, Jem and Mandy, travel back in time and join them with a harrowing story to tell. Life is unsettled as the Revolutionary War comes to the Southern states, and all residents must choose sides to back the rebels or the king. This naturally pits neighbor against neighbor, and Fraser's Ridge is no exception. There are multiple plotlines in this novel—so many it's a little dizzying. Bri and Roger head south to Charles Town and Savannah at Lord John's request and decide to do something dangerous and illegal on the way. Ian and Rachel head north to New York state to check on Ian's first wife, a Mohawk Indian. William Ransom, Jamie's son and Brianna's half-brother, shows up in Savannah, with dire news. Of course, the plot points all come together in the end, leaving a nice cliffhanger for the next novel in the series. (And presumably there will be one, as Diana Gabaldon has repeatedly promised to make the story come full circle with an important scene that happened very early in the first "Outlander" book in which Frank Randall sees the specter of Jamie Fraser dressed in full Scottish regalia.)

This book has it all—heroes and villains, and one villain who will knock your socks off (so pay attention!), extraordinary plot twists that keep you reading late into the night, colorful descriptions that place you in the middle of the action, complex and interesting characters, and sex. Lots of sex.

The "Outlander" series of books is the ultimate reality escape. They are long books with convoluted, not-quite-believable but ingenious plots, and are an absolute delight to read.

Oh, I just want to hug this book!

This is a lovely, heartfelt, deeply endearing story about the Covid lockdown as experienced by one of Elizabeth Strout's most beloved characters, Lucy Barton. And while each of us has our own unique story to tell about this unsettling time, somehow Lucy manages to speak for many of us about the isolation, fear, uncertainties, anxieties, disruption, and political unrest, as well as the newfound friendships, love, and personal growth that defined 2020 and 2021.

It's March 2020 and this strange, fearsome virus is making its presence known. Lucy is still reeling from the death a year ago of her beloved second husband, David, when her first husband, William, calls her and tells her in no uncertain terms that he is whisking her away from New York City to the wilds of coastal Maine to save her life. Lucy is confused. Figuring that William's odd trip to Maine with her in tow will last a few weeks at most, she packs only one small suitcase. The two rent a house and set up platonic housekeeping, while also trying to rescue their two married daughters, who live in New York City.

The heart and soul of the story is how Lucy and William adjust to the isolation, make new friends, and discover new things about themselves as individuals and each other as a couple. In addition to dealing with grief for those close to them who die of Covid, Lucy wrestles with being the mother to grown-up daughters who don't particularly need her, as well as horrifying memories of her terrible, abusive childhood.

But the most brilliant parts of the book are how Strout addresses the disparities of the lockdown—the ultimate haves vs. the have nots, as well as the vast and stark political differences of the country. Her prose should be read by everyone for a greater understanding of how "the other" thinks—no matter who "the other" is for you.

Written in Lucy's first-person voice, this ingenious novel reminds me of two friends conversing about the details of their day. It is filled with both joy and sorrow, and at times it is brutally raw with human emotion.

A really fun bonus: Characters from other Strout novels make appearances big and small, including Bob Burgess from "The Burgess Boys" and Olive Kitteridge from the "Olive Kitteridge" and "Olive, Again." While you can totally appreciate "Lucy by the Sea" as a standalone book without having read any of the others before it (it is fourth in the "Lucy Barton" series), it's a much richer experience if you know what comes previously.

This novel resonates with wisdom, insights, and a deep, almost visceral, understanding of what it means to be fully human. Reading this book is the literary equivalent of a soft, comfortable blanket. It will make you feel warm and good all over, knowing that even though we all felt so alone and lonely at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, we are not alone and lonely. We still have each other. And we still have Lucy Barton.

There are two types of readers: Those who finish a book—no matter what—just because they started it and those who give a book a few pages—10, 20, 50—and then give up if it's not that good. If you fall into the latter category, be cautious reading this novel by Juhea Kim. It's very slow-going until about one-third of the way through. That's about 135 pages for something that can feel like a slog at times. But then, almost like magic, the story picks up. While I wouldn't describe this book as "riveting," it is still very good.

This is a love story, mostly about the heartbreak of unrequited love. This is a story about the cruelty and vagaries of the most basic kind of human survival. This is a story about family bonds and tests of loyalty. This is a story about patriotism and honor. But most of all, this is the story of the Korean independence movement after decades of suffering under Japanese rule. Throughout the book, author Juhea Kim cleverly weaves into the story abundant symbols of the tiger—for courage, ferocity, strength, and ambition.

Taking place from 1917 to 1965, the four main characters around which the story revolves are:
• Jade Anh and Miss Lotus, who are little girls when they first meet in Pyongyang at a school for training courtesans. Lotus was born into it, while Jade's mother sold her into it and then told her to never return to her family because she would forever be a disgrace to them.
• Nam JungHo, an orphan who migrates to Seoul with two pennies in his pocket and two mementos given to him by his dying father: a silver ring and a silver cigarette case. He survives by joining a gang.
• Kim HanChol, a desperately poor rickshaw driver who is trying to better himself against almost insurmountable odds.

This is a profound and haunting novel that is exquisitely written and cleverly uses the seemingly unimportant lives of the characters to tell the bigger story of history and politics. Just know that when you start this novel, it will probably take a while to really get into it.

Historical novels, by their very nature, offer facts, but this novel by Alan Brennert far exceeds that basic standard. Painting a vivid, colorful picture with words, Brennert takes the reader on a fictional journey to Kalaupapa, a leper colony located on the remote island of Moloka'i, Hawaii. He presents not only fascinating information about Hawaiian history and culture, but also the startling medical facts about leprosy when it was still a greatly feared and incurable disease that left its victims horrendously deformed and likely to suffer an early death.

Even so, this is an uplifting and inspiring novel about the human spirit—both our need to survive and our even greater need to love.

It is 1891. Rachel Kalama, the youngest child in a family of four children, is only 7 years old when she contracts leprosy. Although her parents do their best to conceal her terrifying condition, she is discovered and summarily banished to Moloka'i where she will never see her family again. There will be no escape from Moloka'i. Filled with drama and suffering, as well as joy and courage, this is the heart-wrenching story of Rachel's life as she grows from a child to a rebellious teenager to a beautiful young woman who finds romantic love in a most remarkable place. The cast of characters is brilliant—from the troubled and doubting Sister Mary Catherine, a young nun who cares for the children, to Leilani Napana, a fashionable and gorgeous woman who has a deep and shocking secret. Most incredibly, there is a happy ending.

While there are graphic and somewhat gruesome descriptions of the bodily impact of leprosy, Brennert never uses this to exploit the story. I give him a lot of credit for this. When he does use such depictions, they are not only warranted to further the story, but also they are written so the characters maintain their dignity.

Advice: Do read the "End Note." At least in the Kindle version the last chapter and the "End Note" are separated by critics' praise of the novel. The "End Note" should be the final chapter as it ties together the last loose ends of Rachel's life. It would be easy to miss it because of how it is arranged in the text.

The captivating—albeit sometimes appalling—subject matter keeps the book moving even when the plot drags out a bit. Some tighter editing would have been helpful in a few areas, but overall, this is an intriguing, intelligent story told in an imaginative way that is rich in historical detail.

Best of all, the story continues in "Daughter of Moloka'i: A Novel.