Secrets…oh, so many secrets! And when those secrets are revealed in a most horrifying way, life as they know it implodes.

Written by Paul Murray, this award-winning literary novel is the story of a smart but unhappy man named Dickie Barnes. Dickie is the elder of two sons, but he has always lived under the big shadow cast by his larger-than-life father, Maurice, and athletic, handsome, and popular younger brother, Frank. Cerebral Dickie is a bit of a misfit in his small and insulated Irish town where Maurice owns a successful car dealership and garage and Frank plays football for The Gaelic Athletic Association. It's always been known that Dickie will succeed Maurice in the business, whether he likes it or not.

Dickie is the first in the family to go to college, and while he is just as unpopular at Trinity College in Dublin as he was at home, he does well in school, until something horrific happens and sends him fleeing for home in sheer terror. Meanwhile, Frank is falling in love with Imelda, a gorgeous woman, albeit one with no education from a poverty-stricken, disreputable, and dangerous family. In addition, Frank has his own problems as he succumbs to drink and drugs and gets kicked off the team.

When Frank is killed in a horrific car crash, everything changes for the surviving members of the Barnes family and Imelda. It's not a spoiler to reveal that Dickie and Imelda get married and have two children, Cass and P.J. What happens 20 years in the future is when all Dickie's secrets from Trinity College and beyond, all Imelda's disillusionments, all Cass's worries for her future and bad-girl ways, and P.J.'s terror from two men who are trying to harm him come crashing down on the family, just as the Irish economy is collapsing in 2008.

The novel is written in five sections, four of which are told from the point of view of each of the four members of Dickie and Imelda's family, beginning with Cass. The fifth section is a mixture of all four telling their troubling stories as the novel climaxes with each character swirling into their individual tornadoes of big feelings and angst…until the ending, which is bone-chilling.

This is a novel of desperate secrets, disconnected loved ones who don't communicate, the brutality of inner demons, and shallow lives lived without true fulfillment. It is about love and distrust. It is about good and evil. Most of all, it is deeply tragic tale of dysfunctional family drama. But it is also a study in human nature: One person's reality can be wildly different from another one—even married couples and parents and children who all live together—when they erect walls of denial and secrecy between them.

The writing is remarkable. Most of the book is written as readers would expect, but not all of it. Imelda's tale is a told in a stream-of-consciousness with very little punctuation or capitalization, so it takes a bit of work to read, while the final section is mostly told in the second person, which is an especially tricky point of view for author and reader.

Checking in at about 650 pages, this novel is a commitment. And while it truly is high-brow literary fiction, it is also a compelling and riveting story about the power of secrets to destroy us.

This is an eye-opening book about the real world, but it's a world many of us have never inhabited. It's a scary world. It's almost an underworld. This is the world of an abortion clinic told from several points of view, but primarily from that of a dedicated clinic employee and two protestors, one of whom is on the premises and one of whom hatches online his peculiar form of terrorism against women.

The novel, which was published in February 2022 prior to the June 2022 demise of Rowe v. Wade, is set in snowy Boston, Massachusetts as the city is slammed with five nor'easters in five weeks. It opens on Ash Wednesday. Lent is the favored time for protesting in front of abortion clinics.

Written by Jennifer Haigh, this is the story of Claudia Birch Landau, a divorced 43-year-old who works as a counselor at a Boston clinic officially known as Women's Options but colloquially known by its address of Mercy Street. Claudia helps women, many of whom are teenagers or abused or poor or terrified (or all of the above), with their unplanned pregnancies. She views it as so much more than a job or even a career; it is her mission, her life's work. Claudia's mother, Deb, was 17 when she had her in 1971 and was shunned by her horrified parents. Deb and Claudia lived in an isolated town in Maine in a single-wide trailer, accompanied by Deb's assorted boyfriends and assorted foster children whom Deb took on for the extra money. It was Claudia's job—even as a little girl—to care for these fosters.

Claudia smokes marijuana to numb the anguish and fear caused by her job, making regular visits to her friendly dealer, Timmy, who is about her age. Timmy lives in squalor and smokes all day. He is always high and always on alert for getting caught. He dreads the day weed is made legal in Massachusetts, as he has no idea how he will earn a living. With an ex-wife and son living in Florida and no steady (legal) job, Timmy has a full-blown midlife crisis.

Anthony, whom Timmy calls Winky because of a facial tic, is 39 and lives with his mother. He was injured in an accident in the Big Dig and lives on his disability check. He spends his time going to early morning Mass at the local Roman Catholic Church, followed by coffee and doughnuts in the fellowship hall with elderly ladies, and then protesting outside the Mercy Street clinic. One day he shoots a video of Claudia who goes ballistic when she sees a sign that says: "Abortions Cause Breast Cancer." And then the 68-second video is posted online.

The video is posted by Victor Prine, a 65-year-old man living in "Nowhere" Pennsylvania, who is lonely, angry, and beaten down by life. While he desperately wishes he could have married and had children, he is a fierce, unapologetic misogynist. Using the screenname Excelsior11, he is determined that the white race populate itself and does all he can to fight abortions of white babies. He is filled with hate, angst, and anger against women. Now he is ready to risk everything for his beliefs.

This is a timely and perceptive novel about one of the country's most polarizing and divisive political issues, and it succeeds for two reasons: excellent storytelling and vivid and bold characters. The topic is harrowing and unsettling, but the story is unflinching, sharp, and triumphant.

An unhoused young teenager seeks refuge in a church one dark night and falls asleep in a pew. The child of indeterminate background, age, gender, and race is awakened when a family of five sits in the pew on a Sunday morning awaiting the start of worship services.

And so it begins. This chilling, haunting novel by Catherine Lacey is a cross between Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" and the movie "Pleasantville," starring Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. On one level it is emotionally complex and introspective, but on another level it is dark and unsettling. It is a profound fable about the meaning and necessity of identity in human interaction.

It is the Bonner family—Steven and Hilda and their three sons—who find the child in the pew. Since the child won't speak and tell their name, the preacher names them "Pew." The novel takes place over one week—from Sunday to Saturday—in an unnamed Southern town. The residents think it is idyllic.

Pew is found on Sunday, but the whole town is abuzz about the annual Forgiveness Festival that will take place on Saturday, a ritualized event first organized years ago by the small town's churches. The week before this mysterious festival can be dangerous—and this is the week Pew has arrived—because some people think they can do whatever they want and then be forgiven for it a few days later. In addition, there is an unsettling rumor about the festival, one that is intensified by the presence of many police officers lining the streets on Saturday.

Pew's backstory is murky at best, since they can't remember anything about their prior life or parents—just fleeting glimpses and snapshots that don't lead to any kind of revelation. So even if Pew were willing to talk, there isn't much to share.

While some think Pew is an angel sent to them by God and one woman believes Pew is Jesus, the inability to identify Pew in the ways we humans think of as required causes misunderstandings and anger for some people. Almost everyone who encounters Pew one-on-one—from small children to the elderly—confesses their deepest secrets and thoughts. Pew takes it all in. Pew is able to see things in people that pierce through the protective masks we all wear; it's almost as if Pew can see into others' souls.

I'm not sure I understood the ending; it was as indeterminate as Pew's identity—confusing and ambiguous, which is a bit poetic since it aligns with everything about Pew.

This genre-defying novel by Olga Tokarczuk is a literary murder mystery and a fable and a philosophical discourse on life and death that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. It is strange. Very strange. But it was also strangely good once I got into its rhythm.

The novel is charmingly told in the first person by the eccentric Janina Duszejko, an elderly woman living alone in the wilderness in a remote Polish hamlet near the Czech border. The story, which begins in winter and ends the following November, focuses on a series of unexplained deaths that look like accidents. Janina spends her days in these harsh winter months calculating horoscopes, reading and translating the poetry of William Blake, and caretaking the nearby homes that are only used in the summer months. She has a propensity of giving bizarre nicknames to those closest to her. Her only two neighbors she calls Oddball and Big Foot, while the manager of a resale store she calls Good News and a former student who regularly visits is nicknamed Dizzy.

Janina is devoted to her astrology and is convinced that she can determine an individual's date of death based on his or her horoscope. She is also devoted to animals, angrily screaming at hunters in the nearby fields and forests. In fact, Janina firmly believes that it is the animals who are murdering these men who turn up dead, taking revenge for their frequent abuse. She shares this quirky theory with others, including the police, a conversation that inevitably results in funny, furtive looks of ridicule. Janina truly thinks there is a special, almost sacred, relationship between animals and humans and that the animals understand us. Virtually no one takes her seriously. She knows that others think she is "just an old woman, gone off her rocker…useless and unimportant."

Most readers will figure out about halfway through the book not only that the deaths were not accidental and were, in fact, murders, but also the identity of the murderer. And the revelation of the murderer makes the story all that more creepy and sinister.

The style of writing was a bit off-putting to me at first, until I figured out that it is prose written in the poetic style of William Blake. That is, random words are capitalized in sentences, just as Blake did in his poetry. Each chapter begins with a few lines of Blake's poetry, making this book a love letter to the 18th century British poet and visionary. Even the title of the book is from Blake's poem "Proverbs of Hell."

This literary novel is indeed unconventional, as well as highly creative and imaginative. If you're looking for something a little different, do read it.

This book made me laugh. And cry…and then laugh again (a lot). Oh, and best of all, it made me think (a lot).

Written by Anne Lamott, this book of essays on living and dying, love and loss, mothering and being mothered, and, most of all, faith, is a compendium of thoughts that will speak to everyone no matter your religious affiliation or lack thereof.

Lamott is an unlikely spiritual guru. She grew up in a dysfunctional home in 1960s California, but as a child she was cared for over and over again by good friends and their mothers. She catapulted into life wanting to be a writer, but before she could get a toehold in that precarious profession, she became an alcoholic and drug addict. She wanted to fall in love and get married, but before that happened at the unlikely age of 65, she had a series of love affairs—some with strange (and scary) married men. But in 1986, she sobered up, and her life changed. She got pregnant in 1989 by a man who didn't want to be a father, so by herself Anne had that baby, whom she named Sam. He became not only the love of her life, but also gave her a new purpose.

So this book, reflecting this rough and tumble life, is not your typical spiritual guide. And that makes it better. It's real. It's tough. It's often irreverent. It's insightful. And it's hilarious—well, when it's not tragic and sad.

Lamott is brutally honest about so much, be it the state of her soul or the state of her hair. She divulges in excruciating personal detail her struggles with bulimia, drug abuse, alcoholism, her messy conversion to Christianity, wearing a swimsuit in middle-age, the intense grief she suffered when her father and best childhood friend died, the difficulties and joy of being a single mom, and so much more.

And while there is much sorrow and suffering, there is also healing and hope. Lamott demonstrates how to pray, and like her book "Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers," her methods are unusual but quite effective. It just might be worth trying!

And the title? It comes from a prayer that is said in Anne's church when someone is traveling: "Traveling mercies: love the journey, God is with you, come home safe and sound." I love that!

This is a fabulous soap opera of a book starring gods, goddesses, and a few hapless mortals thrown in the mix. There is love, sex, violence, intrigue, gossip (oh, those gods love to gossip!), and petty infighting—and that is just in the first few chapters.

Written by Natalie Haynes, this is a highly imaginative retelling of several Greek myths told from a decidedly feminist point of view that turns the classic stories upside down, making the women the heroes and the men the villainous monsters.

There are three main stories that eventually intersect with several minor ones just for our entertainment:

Story No. 1: Medusa, a mortal Gorgon (yeah, it's complicated), is raped by the sea god Poseidon in Athene's temple. Athene is furious—at Medusa and seeks to severely punish the girl/Gorgon. Athene turns Medusa's hair into snakes and transforms her eyes so that when Medusa looks at any living creature, it turns to stone. Medusa lives in a cave along a cove by the sea with her two immortal sister Gorgons, Euryale and Sthenno, who love her and care for her and are appalled by what has happened. And then it gets worse. Much, much worse.

Story No. 2: Perseus is a 16-year-old boy whose mother, Danaë, is a mortal and whose father is Zeus. (Another rape.) Danaë's father, Acrisius of Argos, was told long ago that his daughter would have a child who would grow up to kill him, so he sequestered his daughter in a homemade prison to prevent her from ever getting pregnant. Zeus, as a god, was not stopped by a homemade prison. Danaë escapes the wrath of her father by seeking shelter on the isolated island of Seriphos, living with a kind fisherman named Dictys. One day, the king of Seriphos, who is the fisherman's brother, comes to Dictys's home and announces that Danaë must marry the king against her wishes. The king agrees to let Danaë go free if Perseus brings him the head of a Gorgon. So sweet, sheltered Perseus sets off on this nearly impossible quest with Medusa in his sights. Problem No. 1: Perseus has no idea what Gorgon looks like. Problem No. 2: He has no idea where the Gorgons live.

Story No. 3: Andromeda is the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope, the king and queen of Ethiopia. All are mortals. Cassiope is stunningly beautiful, and in the early days of their marriage Cepheus would spend hours just staring at her. Andromeda is just as beautiful as her mother. Her parents arrange for her to be married to her old uncle, Cepheus's brother, which fills her with anguish and disgust. Meanwhile, Cassiope brags that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, 50 sea nymphs of changeable temper. This enrages them, and they convince Poseidon to punish the royal family, but it is Andromeda who ends up potentially paying with her life. Then—just in time—Perseus stumbles onto the coast of Ethiopia as he is returning home with the head of Medusa.

Humorous in parts, appalling in others, this is a refreshing, albeit somewhat quirky, feminist take on a classical story, told with empathy and understanding for the female characters—perhaps a first in mythology. The women are the ones who are strong, smart, and cunning. The result is that we readers have to rethink who is the hero and who is the monster…and the answer isn't that obvious.

Oh, how clever and creative! Written by Susan Vreeland, this is the story of a painting—ostensibly by the renowned Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer—and all the people who have owned it over the decades since it was painted sometime in the 1600s. Even though this is a novel, each chapter is more like a short story as we share in the tale of the painting's owners from the present day and extending back to the time when Vermeer painted his lovely daughter Magdalena, including why he chose this scene and what she was thinking about while her father painted.

The opening chapter is startling and disturbing. The owner of the painting, Corneilius Engelbrecht, is a high school math teacher, who has closed himself off to the rest of the world, all because of the painting. He knows it has come to him under the most horrifying of circumstances, and he lives in fear he will be found out and the beautiful painting snatched away. Each subsequent story reaches further back in time about the various owners, some of whom are desperately poor and others of whom are wealthy and deceitful. But they all have one thing in common: The painting has in some way affected or even transformed their lives.

This imaginative and impressive book is as much a story about humanity as it is about the provenance of a painting, albeit a fictional one, and the impact art has on our souls.

Bonus: The painting is just a figment of Susan Vreeland's imagination, but when Hallmark made a film of the novel, it commissioned artist Jonathan Janson to paint it as Vreeland describes it in great detail in the book. Google "Girl in Hyacinth Blue Jonathan Janson" to see the extraordinary result. The Kindle cover is a smaller, cropped version of Janson's painting, but it appears (at least on Amazon) that the hardcover and paperback versions do not have the painting on the cover.

This beautifully written book of just five short love stories captured my heart. Each is very different from the others, as each one focuses on a different kind of love in poignant, almost visceral ways. But they have one thing in common: They are all about the pain of loneliness and the salvation of love.

• "Love Begins in Winter" tells the story of a famous and accomplished cellist, who still mourns the loss of his childhood friend, Anna, when she was 12 years old. This achingly lonely man senses her presence with him on stage until one day in the oddest of ways he meets Hannah, a woman who is mourning her own childhood loss. These two people find each other and in the process find themselves.

• "Tiger Tiger" is the story of a woman in a committed relationship—with no intention of marriage—and how they navigate her partner's parents' rocky marriage and divorce. Let's just put it this way: The woman has a bizarre way of showing her affection.

• "The Missing Statues" tells the tale of a single mother and her four-year-old son, who are waiting outside a Las Vegas casino for her latest boyfriend, who has taken all her money for gambling. They wait all night. And then near dawn a gondolier from the Venetian Hotel and Casino approaches them and something magical happens in the love and care he shows them.

• "The Coming and Going of Strangers" is the story of young Walter, who takes one look at a young orphan girl from Canada who has moved with her younger sister to Walter's hometown of Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland and falls hopelessly in love. The ending is both predictable and surprising. And the backstory of Walter's family is a study in the love of community when prejudice should have gotten in the way.

• "The City of Windy Trees" tells about the life of sad, lonely, and isolated George Frack of New York City who receives the most unexpected news in a letter from Stockholm: He is the father of a five-year-old girl, the result of a one-night stand six years ago at a truck stop in upstate New York. What he does next is life-changing for him, the girl, and the girl's mother.

As different as these stories are from one another, the shared thread is the tendency of each of the main characters to give up, to live their life in isolation. Instead, when strangers come into their lonely world, they are able to find their dreams. Author Simon Van Booy writes with keen insight into the human heart…witty, wise, and tender.

This profound book of historical fiction by Alice Hoffman has it all: In addition to fascinating characters, lush descriptions, and meaningful dialogue, this is an intriguing story of forbidden, scandalous love on a tropical island.

Taking place in the 1800s on verdant St. Thomas, this is the story of Rachel Pomié Petit Pizzarro, the only daughter of a doting Jewish father and a disdainful, strident mother. It's a time when girls and women had no rights and a future that consisted only of marriage, a tough path for a sassy and bossy little girl who wants so much more. In order to save his failing business and shop, Rachel's father forces her into a marriage of convenience to a much-older widower with three children. And while Rachel does not love Isaac, she does love his three children very much. After having three children of their own, Isaac dies. A fourth child is born after Isaac's death.

The family business falters and with Isaac's death, it is given over to his distant family in Paris. That family sends one of their own, 22-year-old Frédéric Pizzarro to manage it. It's love at first sight for Rachel and Frédéric, but since she is his aunt by marriage, this passionate union is an incestuous scandal to St. Thomas society and is forbidden under Jewish law. But obstinate and rebellious Rachel will fiercely fight with all she has to get what she wants most in this world even as she and her beloved are shunned from the community. On a very small island, they are outcasts.

This is only a bare description of the compelling plot that also includes the riveting stories about a host of other characters that are shrouded in deeply guarded and shocking family secrets—all of which are entwined with Rachel, Frédéric, and their 11 children, one of whom is the renowned Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, whose artist friends included Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Cézanne. (Google "Camille Pissarro paintings" to view some of his incredible artwork.)

Bonus: The lush descriptions of the flora, fauna, weather, and stars of St. Thomas will have you feeling the heat and wondering if you should enjoy the book with a drink mixed with rum.

This creative and provocative story that is based on historical fact is storytelling at its finest. It is steamy and smart, enchanting and entertaining, impressive and imaginative.

I am in awe.

I am in awe of author Isabel Wilkerson and her masterful ability to write this impressive epic account.
I am in awe of this remarkable book. If all history books were written like this one, everyone would read history—and love it.
I am in awe of all those who made the Great Migration—for their courage, fortitude, and ability to envision an unknown future in a strange land that was not particularly welcoming.

The Great Migration had no leader. It was not organized. It just happened. One by one they walked away from their homes. Wilkerson describes it as a "leaderless revolution." Over six decades from about 1916 to 1970, about six million Blacks living in the South left the only place they had ever known for various northern and western cities. Some had relatives or friends who had made the journey ahead of them so that is why they escaped to Cleveland or New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, as opposed to any other city. And an escape it was. Escape from harsh conditions, both economic and physical. The Jim Crow laws ensured no Black could ever truly prosper or reach his or her full potential. Lynchings were commonplace and used to terrify Blacks and keep them in their place. Even though they were no longer enslaved, many felt they still had to leave in secrecy under the cloak of darkness or they would be stopped—perhaps violently.

When all these Blacks started leaving the South, the South didn't notice at first until seemingly overnight no one was left to pick cotton or tend the fields. Huh? Where did they all go?

The most riveting part of this book is the focus on three people who made the great migration, whom Wilkerson selected from among 1,200 people she interviewed:
• Ida Mae Brandon Gladney (migrated in 1937), a pregnant sharecropper's wife with two young children, who fled Mississippi for Chicago.
• George Swanson Starling (migrated in 1945), a hotheaded man who was seeking his own form of justice and skipped out of Eustis, Florida for Harlem, New York hours before angry white men wanted to hang him.
• Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, M.D. (migrated in 1953), a surgeon who was not allowed by Louisiana law to practice in a hospital and so he drove all alone across the country to California in search of a place where he could be a physician.

These three never knew each other. Their stories are unconnected. But their stories—what life was like for them in the South, why they made the decision to leave, what happened on their treacherous and long journey north or west, and then how they adapted—are fascinating and the stuff of the best novels. Except it's all true.

Bonus: Be sure to read "Notes on Methodology" at the end of the book, which admittedly sounds very academic, but it's fascinating—and even made me cry at the end.

This is a captivating history book—officially, the genre is called narrative nonfiction—that is as riveting and compelling as the best novels. Highly recommended!

If you're a daughter who has lost her mother, this is a must-read. And while much of the focus of this very well-written and intimate memoir is on Korean-American culture and food (lots and lots of food!), the underlying themes of love, guilt, grief, and the often tetchy relationships between mothers and daughters (especially in the teen years) are universal.

Author Michelle Zauner is the only child of a Korean mother and an American/Caucasian father. Her parents lived in several places worldwide during the mid-1980s before landing again in Seoul where Michelle was born. When her father received a job at a truck brokerage company in Eugene, Oregon, the small family immigrated and stayed there. Michelle was a year old. She grew up in this small college town with a mother named Chongmi who fully embraced her Korean heritage, especially the cuisine. As is the case with many daughters, the relationship with her mother was fraught. Michelle wanted to be a rock star--literally. Her mother wanted her to go to college and get married. They bickered. They made up. They loved each other. They hated each other. It's a common story.

But when Michelle's mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of terminal cancer when Michelle was 25, their world as they knew it falls apart. Michelle, having graduated from Bryn Mawr College (chosen for its far distance from Eugene), was creating a life for herself in Philadelphia as an indie singer, songwriter, and guitarist in a band. But when she received the fateful call, she dropped everything and flew home to Eugene to care for her mother.

And while there are plenty of flashbacks to Michelle's growing-up years, this is primarily a memoir of a devoted daughter caring for her beloved mother in her last months of life. That reversal of roles—the daughter caring for the mother—is so poignant. This tender and transformative memoir is riveting. While much of it is very sad, there is a lot of humor and heart woven throughout as Michelle shares her very personal journey of living, grieving, and healing, including how she worked through her grief with music and Korean food.

And the title? H Mart is an Asian grocery store chain. Whenever Michelle would step foot in the store after her mother died, she would just stand there and cry because it was the food sold in these aisles that would forever tie her to her mother.

This is a charming, delightful, and highly imaginative novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley. This sweet and endearing bit of fantasy is ideal for animal lovers, as the three main "characters"—a winning thoroughbred racehorse named Perestroika, an elegant German shorthaired pointer named Frida, and an imperious raven named Sir Raoul Corvus Corax.

Taking place in Paris in 2008, the story, much like a beloved fable, is more whimsical and heartwarming than it is riveting. After winning a race, the filly Perestroika, or Paras for short, notices the door to her stall is not locked. Curious soul that she is, she walks out, picks up a purse loaded with cash (winnings from racing bets), and canters away…far, far away. She ends up on the streets of Paris and eventually the Champs de Mars, a large public green space located near the Eiffel Tower. It is here that she meets Frida, a dog whose human (homeless and a busker) has recently died. Adding to this eclectic mix is Raoul, an aging, know-it-all raven. Eventually, a lonely orphan, who is eight years old and named Étienne, discovers them and lures them to his very large home where he lives with his 97-year-old great-grandmother, who is blind and deaf. Kurt, a rat who lives in the walls of the house, as well as two loud, quacking mallard ducks named Sid and Nancy, also join in the fun.

Shenanigans ensue. Paras lives partly inside the great salon of the house (yes, inside!), as well as the private outdoor courtyard. Frida takes over the purse of cash and is able to buy food for everyone. Raoul flies over them all, revealing dangers only he can see from his vantage point in the sky. The final action and conflicts occur when the humans intervene. After all, it's not normal for a horse to be seen in a very open Parisian park or for a sweet boy, secluded in his home, to be the sole caretaker of his great-grandmother.

Of course, the animals speak to one another. Of course, they have human feelings and wishes. Smiley has discarded all notions of reality with this fantastical and enchanting anthropomorphic tale that requires you to leave your good senses of logic and reason at the door. But one of the things I most enjoyed is the obvious research Smiley did in her portrayal of these animals, the talking chatterboxes aside. We do learn how they live, what they eat, and how they act and that all seems quite true to life. So you'll get a short zoology lesson, too!

Also, pay attention to the meaning of the name "Perestroika." This isn't random. It points to the theme on which the novel is grounded: a restructuring or reformation of lives and the emotional growth we enjoy when we are open to new experiences.

Above all, this is a story about freedom—what it means to be free, what it means to give up things in order to be free, what it means to love and be free, and what it means to deeply trust others and be free.

This is a feel-good book that lightened my heart.

This highly unconventional twist on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a thought-provoking and beguiling examination of beauty, race, stereotypes, and prejudice told from the evil stepmother's point of view—minus the dwarfs, poisoned apple, and awakening kiss.

But more than anything, this is a book about mothers and daughters and their often fractured, tenuous relationships, as well as the angst, but importance, of bringing truth to light.

After enduring years of horrific abuse by her often drunk father, a rat-catcher in New York City, Boy Novak runs away. She has never known her mother. It's 1953, and she is 20 years old. She only wonders why it took her so long. She boards a bus, taking it as far as it will go and steps off in the small town of Flax Hill, Massachusetts. It is gently snowing. She knows no one. No one knows her. And she doesn't even know where she will sleep that night. But Boy, who is searching for happiness, makes Flax Hill her home. It's a magical place where Boy says the air tastes like palinka, although it tastes like lemon curd to her boss.

She marries Arturo Whitman, a widower and jewelry maker, who has an adorable and stunningly beautiful six-year-old daughter named Snow. Instead of an engagement ring, he makes Boy a snake bracelet. She and Arturo have their own daughter, whom they name Bird. Surprise! Bird is Black. And with her birth, Whitman family secrets come spilling to the fore. In her confusion and distrust, Boy becomes the evil stepmother, sending little Snow away—banishing her from the only home and people she has ever known.

As Bird grows up and hears stories of Snow, she manages to contact this mysterious sister. Through secretly exchanged letters, the sisters get to know one another. Among other things, they realize they share a weird quirk: Sometimes—not always and not even most of the time—they are not visible when they look in a mirror. But how important are appearances after all?

With touches of magical realism, a wildly imaginative plot, and profound wisdom, this beautifully written, original story is as much disquieting and alarming as it is revelatory and transformative.

Wow! Wow! Wow! This is a tale that everyone should read. It is important, but it's also so riveting and compelling that I could barely stop reading. Oh, and it's nonfiction.

Written by Dave Eggers, this is the astounding, heartbreaking, and rage-inducing story of one family's life in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina.

It's 2005. Abdulrahman Zeitoun (pronounced Zay-toon), a Muslim from Syria, owns and operates a highly successful painting and contracting business in New Orleans. Everyone calls him Zeitoun—even his wife, American-born Kathy. The couple have four children, Zachary, who is 15 and is Kathy's son from her first marriage, and three girls, Nademah, 10; Aafiya, 7; and Aisha, 5. Kathy helps Zeitoun run the business. They are happy. The business is financially sound. All is well. That is, until Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on August 29, 2005. And then their safe, secure, happy world cracks wide open.

Two days before Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, Kathy packed up the four kids and their dog in their minivan and escaped to Baton Rouge, along with her sisters and their families. Ever since she converted to Islam before she met Zeitoun, her family of born-again Christians could not understand or fathom her religious choice. It was so difficult staying in Baton Rouge with her family's frequent verbal scorn that Kathy fled to Phoenix where her best friend from childhood, Yuko, lived with her husband and four children. They welcomed Kathy and her children.

Meanwhile, Zeitoun refused to leave New Orleans, no matter how much Kathy hammered him. He wanted to stay and look after their home, their rental properties, and their business. A resourceful man, Zeitoun weathered the storm and the aftermath, helping to rescue people in his small canoe, feeding abandoned dogs trapped inside homes, and assisting others in any way he could—from bringing food and water to alerting authorities of special needs. He thought he was doing God's work. Happily, the landline in one of his rental properties still worked so after his cell phone battery ran out, he called Kathy every day at noon—until one day he didn't call. Or the next day. Or the next.

What happened to Zeitoun borders on the unbelievable, but it's all true. He was arrested inside his own rental property and eventually charged with petty theft, but it was assumed that because he is Middle Eastern he was a terrorist. What he endured for 23 days is the stuff of nightmares. It is the story of a third world country—but it was the United States.

Ingeniously plotted with the story told from both Zeitoun and Kathy's points of view, this is a highly readable, provocative, and haunting account of what happens when society and our legal system break down. Masterfully written with razor-sharp prose, this gritty and brutal story is spellbinding. And it's all true.

Update: Published in 2009, the book was received to great acclaim, winning a number of prizes, including the American Book Award. Zeitoun is portrayed as a hero in this book, and his actions deserve that designation. But his life disintegrated from there. In 2012, he and Kathy divorced, and Zeitoun was found not guilty of plotting to murder her and her son. In 2016 he was convicted of felony stalking his ex-wife, and Zeitoun went to prison for two years.

Oh, the writing. Oh, the language. The words alone will transport you to December 1962 in rainy, windy, and cold Faha in the far west of Ireland. Read a few pages, and you'll want to snuggle under a blanket just to warm up. To heck with the story, the book should win an award just for the exquisite, hauntingly lyrical prose by author Niall Williams.

But the story is excellent, too—with one important caveat (see the paragraph below). The plot: An abandoned newborn is discovered in a cemetery on the night of the busy Faha Christmas fair, and she is so cold she must be dead. Without anyone else knowing, three people—two men and a boy—take the baby to the town doctor, who lives and works in a house with his eldest daughter, a 29-year-old who has never married. The baby isn't dead. The widowed doctor sees the joy this little girl brings to his own child and must concoct a way for them to keep the baby—something the Roman Catholic church and the Irish authorities would never allow of a spinster. Meanwhile, the infant's presence in their home must be an absolute secret so the baby isn't taken from them, but secrets are not kept long in tiny, gossipy Faha.

To get to this point in the book, one has to read the set-up, which places the reader into the center of Faha where we get to know its charming ways, eccentric people, and myriad mysteries. And it's a very long set-up at approximately 150 pages. Even with the extraordinary writing, I imagine some readers will be tempted to give up on the novel for the simple reason that nothing happens. This is one of those times that I urge you not to give in to that temptation. Keep reading because the payoff is remarkable.

Beginning on the first Sunday in Advent, this is an ideal book to read in December with allusions throughout the story to this liturgical season of waiting and expectation. There are themes of regrets for the past, but these are balanced with themes of hope and second chances for the future. Most of all, this is a book about family love.

This is a novel that I will think about long after I finish the last page. "Time of the Child" is a literary treasure.

This novel cast some kind of spell over me. This is literary fiction at its finest with parts unfolding in ways that seared my soul. It is a philosophical study in grief for what might have been and will never be again, but it is also a study in forgiveness even when the hurdles to forgiving seem impossible.

Written by Irish author Sally Rooney, this is the story of two brothers who are grieving for their much beloved father who has died of cancer. The brothers have rather complicated personal lives, which their grief seems to magnify as they take it out on each other in rather cruel ways, both physical and emotional.

Peter is 32, a successful solicitor in Dublin, Ireland. He is in love with Sylvia, a former girlfriend who is his real soul partner in life. Sylvia was in a terrible accident when she was 25, and it has left her unable to have sex without pain; for this reason, she broke up with Peter, but their intense emotional relationship continues. Peter relies on Sylvia for guidance, advice, and succor. Meanwhile, he is involved with a much younger woman, Naomi. While she is not a prostitute, Naomi has a sexual relationship with Peter that is predicated on his paying her living expenses. She has what Peter views as an embarrassing past, posing for online pornographic photos. To Naomi, everything is a big joke, not to be taken seriously. Life gets very complicated when Naomi is evicted from her shady apartment and moves in with Peter.

Peter's much-younger brother, Ivan, is 22, a chess prodigy, and recent college graduate. He is painfully shy and socially awkward. He is often at a loss for words, having no clue as to the proper thing to say in certain situations. The only work he can find is freelance data analysis. He is floundering as he tries to become an independent adult. Soon after his father's funeral, Ivan is invited to a chess demonstration and workshop at an arts center in Leitrim, a small rural town in northwestern Ireland, where he will play 10 opponents simultaneously. The opponents are part of a local chess club, including a 10-year-old girl, and he handily wins all the matches. The program manager of the arts center, Margaret, is enthralled by Ivan, which is thrilling for him since no woman has ever felt this way about him. Margaret has her own troubled story. In addition to being 36 years old, she is separated from her alcoholic husband who doesn't want a divorce. She insists that she and Ivan keep their relationship a secret, as she is worried about the small-town gossip. Of course, these things never stay secret for long.

How Peter and Ivan grieve for their father while falling in love is the heart and soul of the story. The brothers have never been particularly close, but when Peter finds out about Margaret he says unforgiveable things, and Ivan cuts him out of his life. Yes, it's all a messy, soap opera, but in Sally Rooney's sophisticated and talented hands, the story is much more about feelings and emotions than an unseemly focus on the bad boy behavior.

The chapters alternate between the points of view of Peter, Ivan, and Margaret. Peter's chapters are written in a stream-of-consciousness style, while those featuring Ivan and Margaret are a more typical narrative style. The raw messiness of families—those in which we are born and those we create with dear friends—is on full display.

An "intermezzo" in music is a short light piece between the acts of a serious drama or opera, and the story told here is an interlude in Peter and Ivan's lives—an interlude of grieving that will either launch them into the future or break them with all the anguish from their past.

This is a profound literary novel. It is provocative and tender with elegiac overtones that are so emotionally rendered that we readers feel Peter and Ivan's pain and joy. And isn't that the point of great literature?

Because I read a lot of books, I am often asked, "What is your favorite book?" Well, that is an impossible question! Who is my favorite child? But I do have a list of my top 10 favorite books, and this one just catapulted onto it. In addition to good old-fashioned storytelling that kept me turning the pages, this novel is filled with solid life advice, a compelling plot, and characters I fell in love with.

Written by Ann Napolitano, this is the story of the four Padavano sisters: Julia, the organizer and leader who is expert at solving everyone's problems; Sylvie, an avid reader with deep romantic yearnings; Emeline, the nurturer who loves children; and Cecelia, an artist who sees in her soul the palette of colors that make up the world. In a salute to Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," the novel, which takes place from 1960 to 2008, is a modern-day version of the four March sisters with many plot twists, turns, and surprises that are not in that classic novel.

The Padavano family lives in Pilson, an ethnically-diverse working class neighborhood in Chicago. Julia lives at home while attending Northwestern University where she meets William Waters, a six-foot seven-inch basketball player. She decides they will marry, and they do, mostly because William enjoys having Julia organize his life. And William, who is estranged from his family for heartbreaking (actually, somewhat shocking) reasons, is thrilled to be part of the chaotic and loving Padavano family. Life is good…for a while. But something happens to William that may tear apart not only his marriage to Julia, but also shatter the entire Padavano family, who rely on their love and loyalty to make their lives whole again—even if it takes decades.

With vivid and bold characters, this novel just grabbed me from the first page and wouldn't let go. It is emotionally searing but filled with life wisdom, devastating but insightful, tender but fierce. Most of all, it inspires a sense of hope after grief and loss—even when everything feels hopeless. The novel about our human need for connection to one another made me smile…and laugh…and cry. It's everything. It's nearly perfect.

Bonus: The book cover is gorgeous! And it has a special meaning that you'll figure out in the second half of the book.

Trigger warning: There is an attempted suicide in the novel.

Oh, the travails of marrying the wrong person.

It's an unseasonably warm and sunny day on Sunday, November 3, 1957 in Newark, Delaware. The Russians have launched Sputnik 2, and the news is buzzing with it. When Kathleen and Virgil Beckett awaken, she tells him she doesn't feel well enough to go to church but encourages him to take their sons, Nathaniel and Nicholas. After they leave, she receives two disconcerting phone calls—one from her cranky father-in-law who lives in California and one from a woman who asks for "Charlie" and won't leave her name. The family lives in a rundown apartment complex with a small pool in the center courtyard. Kathleen decides to take a swim, donning her old red swimsuit from college nine years ago. She takes a towel and a transistor radio, slips into the pool and stays there. Virgil and the boys come home. Virgil goes out to play golf with his work buddies. And Kathleen remains in the pool. It gets dark. She's still there.

That story is only the surface of this novella. The depth and real power of the book is under that surface as we learn Virgil and Kathleen's backstories, including their days as students at the University of Delaware. We find out their past joys and hurts, their previous loves, their infidelities, their most private thoughts, and their motivations. We find out they are both harboring some pretty big and potentially explosive secrets—secrets that could tear apart their marriage, which is already at the breaking point.

It's also an unsettling story of the so-called idyllic 1950s when dads went to work and moms stayed home and everyone was happy. Hmmm…maybe not everyone. Kathleen's dissatisfaction and disappointment with her life and the intense regrets she has of all she gave up when she became Mrs. Beckett are roiling her emotionally and psychologically. She's acting out in bizarre ways—and the daylong swim is only part of it. Still, she knows when she gets out of the pool, everything will go back to normal. And normal is no longer acceptable.

This compact but mighty novel takes place over eight hours. Rife with imagery of bridges that is simply masterful, this fierce little book is a real literary treasure.

Oh, this is a sad book. But it's also a book about real life, and some of real life IS sad. Very sad. Author Jean Thompson has written a magnificent story about mothers and daughters over three generations that will resonate with virtually every woman.

The novel, which takes place from World War II to the present day, is set in an unnamed small college town in the Midwest—the kind of town where the college dominates everything and those who live there are called "townies."

• Evelyn is the matriarch. She married Andrew soon after the war ended, but she never recovered from her anger and frustration at having to settle for marriage instead of a career. After all, in those days it was one or the other. She has two children, Laura and Mark, both of whom came later in an already later-in-life marriage. Her husband is an attorney and an esteemed member of the college faculty.

• Laura grew up in this small college town and went to college there. After graduation, she got an unimportant, boring job, waiting to fall in love and get married. One night in a bar she meets Gabe, who is a graduate student. Gabe is good looking and will soon be gainfully employed, even if he does drink too much. They marry. They have two children, Grace and Michael. Laura lives her life to serve her family, but she is left exhausted and often harried. She feels invisible. Laura has a secret—a big, big, big secret that she has carefully guarded most of her life. Under the direst of circumstances, she reveals to Grace a clue to the secret.

• It's modern day, but if it were the 1960s, Grace, who is 26, would have been a hippie. Fiercely independent as she tries to emotionally and physically separate from her family, she only eats health food, works as a cashier in a health food market, and teaches yoga. She and her live-in boyfriend, Ray, are slowly slipping apart. Grace has no idea what she wants to do with her life, but she doesn't want to be like her mother, subservient to her husband and children. Grace's brother Michael is a talented musician and a drug addict, who has been in and out of rehab. Her relationship with her mother is fine, but her father's rage and resentment about his life and Michael's addiction is so intense, Grace avoids him. And then two things happen that will forever change Grace's life in tragic and confusing ways.

This is a family saga about the lives of these three unhappy women—from all the small joys and heartbreaks to the big secrets they hold close. Although Evelyn, Laura, and Grace are all stuck in their lives, seemingly unable to change things, they each desperately try to find happiness. The title is brilliant. Laura twice thinks of herself as a shape-shifting cloud (a cloud in the shape of a girl), and that metaphorically describes all three women as they shift their place in the world to please others first.

Written with great emotional insight, this is a novel about unfulfilled lives, difficult marriages, family dysfunction, and the inexorable ties that bind mothers and daughters through it all.

Just be prepared: It is sad…very, very sad.

When it comes to life, the one thing you can be sure of is change. This novel by Ken Follett, the fifth in the incredible Kingsbridge series of historical fiction, embraces this adage as the primary theme of the 750-page book.

Taking place from 1792 to 1824 in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge, this is the story of a large cast of characters rich and poor, male and female, young and old at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The story opens with a horrific scene as a beloved husband and father is killed through a wealthy man's negligence and the rippling effect that has on the dead man's survivors.

Among others, we meet:
• Sal Clitheroe is a tough and resourceful widow. She is the mother of 6-year-old Christopher (nicknamed Kit), who is forced to go to work at his young age.
• The wealthy and influential Riddick family. The squire is the old father of three young men, one of whom is evil and one of whom is good.
• The Anglican bishop, his wife Arabella and daughter Elsie. Arabella is much younger than her old husband, and she has a torrid affair that is kept secret…until it can't be suppressed any longer. Elsie is in love with someone who thinks of her as only a friend so she marries another man in haste.
• Amos is a good-hearted man who owns a mill in the town, employing many people. He is madly in love with Jane Midwinter, who spurns him.
• Spade, whose real name is David Shoveller, is a prosperous weaver and a good soul. He is close to his sister Kate, who is the town's premier dressmaker. Kate harbors a big secret that could ruin her reputation and business.
• Jane Midwinter, the daughter of the Methodist minister, is only interested in a lavish, comfortable life, but the marriage she makes to achieve that is fraught with despair and little love.
• Alderman Hornbeam, the requisite bad guy, who values money and his own style of living above all else, isn't afraid to bash others to get what he wants—even if it means hanging them in the public square.

The book is filled with the history of this period, beginning with the invention of the spinning Jenny that radically changed the way cloth was made, transforming it from the labor of individual spinners working alone in their homes to a mechanized process done in a mill. How this invention changed employment, culture, and society is a primary focus of the book, including the rise of worker unions as employees are summarily displaced by technology. The characters embody what is needed to both force and embrace the radical changes that are taking place.

Since lawbreakers in England could join the army to escape prison, the story ends with several of our more nefarious, as well as patriotic, Kingsbridge friends fighting for Britain against Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. If you enjoy war stories, this battle is quite the tale—but not for the squeamish.

Filled with intrigue, violence, love, sex, passion, scandal, and lots of drama, this is an engaging and engrossing book to savor and enjoy. (Even though the last book in this series, you don't have to read the books in order, although each one is special and worth reading.)

Bonus: Find out where the term "Luddite" comes from and how the Luddites had unsuccessfully tried to squash the industrial revolution in England.