Have you ever watched a horror movie with your hands covering your eyes, but your fingers weren't actually touching-- just so you could see through them a little? Yeah, that's this book.

Let's back up a bit.

Written by Emma Donoghue, this is the story of Julia Power, a midwife/nurse in an overwhelmed Dublin hospital in 1918 at the height of the flu pandemic. The Great War is still raging, creating intense deprivations for the residents of Dublin—from too little food to too little fuel. The story takes place over three days—October 31, November 1, and November 2—when Julia is suddenly placed in charge of a small three-bed overflow ward of pregnant women who have developed the flu. Working tirelessly by her side is Bridie, a young volunteer with a mysterious background that is slowly revealed. Dr. Kathleen Lynn, a physician who is part of the fledgling and violent Sinn Féin political movement, makes occasional appearances on the ward.

Back to covering your eyes…a very large part of the story's narrative is detailed descriptions of these flu-infected women giving birth prematurely, a common complication of the 1918 flu. At times it's fascinating, but it's also almost always graphically gruesome. This is not a book you can read while eating lunch. If the sight of blood is too much for you, then reading this book will probably be difficult.

This is a very fast read. The action moves quickly as the plot—death, life, doom, hope—relentlessly unfolds, much like someone suffering with the flu. At times, it's almost too much to read, too much to take in, but the gripping, provocative story will not be left alone for long.

This is a story about the power of the human soul to survive and the body to fight for life. It is about finding love in unexpected places, and the joy and hope that brings even as death scurries around the corner.

A note for 2020: Even though it was written before Covid-19, this is a pertinent book for our times. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that the world has previously experienced and recovered from a pandemic—one far worse than Covid-19. And even in our turbulent, politically divisive times, we are not experiencing a world war as well as a deadly illness that killed between 3 percent and 6 percent of all humans worldwide. It was worse in 1918 than it is now. We will survive this, too.

This book is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Written by Anna Solomon, it is the story of three women from vastly different times, and when their separate stories merge into one, it is creative genius.

The three stories:
• Lily: It's 2016, and Lily and Adam and their daughters Rosie and June live in a New York City rental apartment. Lily is 46. She has given up her dreams of becoming a writer to be a stay-at-home mom, but she is horribly conflicted about it. Her inner turmoil only becomes more tumultuous when she develops a crush on a friend's husband.

• Vee: It's the early 1970s in Washington, D.C. Vee is married to Alex, a U.S. senator from Rhode Island. Alex enjoys rough sex, but nothing prepares Vee for the shocking and shameful request Alex makes of her during a party they host—and her response changes absolutely everything in her life.

• Esther: It's about 475 years before the birth of Christ, and Esther, a poor Hebrew living in tents in Persia, is chosen from dozens of women to replace the banished queen Vashti. While the story of how Esther saved her people is well known, the author sketches out a stunningly imaginative backstory that weaves a uniting thread through the stories of Lily, Vee, and Esther.

This is a fierce and smart book. The characters are vividly drawn, the multilayered plot is riveting, and the underlying message about the power of women in a world where they are dominated by men is provocative and profound.

This remarkable, heartwarming book by James McBride is truly an original. It's a masterpiece of a story that is unlike anything I have ever read. It's funny. It's tragic. And it's nearly perfect.

The book is a character-driven roller-coaster ride through a bleak, poverty-stricken part of Brooklyn just as heroin and the violent drug dealers who peddled it got a firm foothold. And, oh, what characters they are! From two old drunks named Deacon King Kong (also known as Sportcoat) and Hot Sausage, to the church ladies who rule and care for their insular world, to the teenagers who are just coming into their own and are being lured into a drug-fueled world of money and expensive sneakers, these characters together create a microcosm of society. And, you, the reader, are thrust into the middle of it.

Taking place in massive housing project in the fall of 1969, the book opens with an inexplicable—but not too destructive—act of violence when Sportcoat shoots 19-year-old Deems, a boy who can pitch a baseball at 90 mph but has decided selling heroin is a better way to live. Deems, whom Sportcoat has always treated as a son, is injured but not badly. Now…imagine that shooting scene as the hub of a wheel. The rest of the book is the spokes—the convoluted, fascinating, head-scratching stories, backstories, and actions of a slew of characters who are somehow related to this shooting. And every single one—from the white Irish cop to Sportcoat's dead wife to the Italian mobsters who are taking over the drug business—is vivid, real, and very colorful. Amazingly, even though there are what seem like a bajillion characters (give or take), it's easy to keep them all straight, which is a tribute to the terrific storytelling ability of James McBride. (And Kindle users can always use the X-ray feature if they need help with that.)

Parts of the book are hilarious. Parts of it are deadly serious. It's even part slapstick. But absolutely all of it is really, really good. This is a richly imagined story that drew me in slowly until I got wound up tight in it. The writing is extraordinary, a powerful force field of its own.

While the society in which the story takes places is fractured and destructive, there is also a deeply spiritual goodness that permeates over the despair and evil, leaving in its wake hope and love and faith. It's everything you want in a novel. Read it!

Bah humbug! Reading this book—and even though it's very short, I still had to force myself to finish it—is turning me into Scrooge. Author John Grisham should stick to writing legal thrillers.

I bought this book several years ago, but never read it. The title made it seem like the perfect book for 2020, since it feels like we're all skipping Christmas this year. I was wrong.

It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Luther and Nora Krank have just bid farewell to their only child, Blair, who has begun service in the Peace Corps in the jungles of Peru. Because she won't be home for Christmas, they decide to skip the celebration this year, as well as all the frenzied work that goes along with it, and go on a cruise instead. Thanks to ridiculously nosy neighbors, coworkers who pay far too much attention to Luther's personal life, and weirdly offended friends, their quest to skip Christmas is met with everything from concern to disbelief to outright hostility. And then the most unexpected and potentially calamitous thing happens.

The writing is part sappy and part snarky, the plot is groaningly predictable, and the characters are mind-numbingly one-dimensional. Paper dolls have more personality!

Don't skip Christmas, but make sure you skip this book. I'm being generous giving it three stars.

This very short, light book is hilarious! And it's also heartwarming. I laughed. I teared up. I loved it. But what's not to love about the author, Betty White?

Published in 2012 soon after Betty White's unlikely career resurgence following that classic Snickers ad that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl, which was followed by an Emmy award-winning gig hosting "Saturday Night Live" and a leading role in the TV Land sitcom "Hot in Cleveland," the book is combination memoir, life advice, and funny bits.

• Her exercise routine: "I have a two-story house and a bad memory."

• Her innuendos: When asked by an interviewer the very common question, "Is there anything you haven't done in your career that you would still like to do?" She answers, "Robert Redford."

Find out what it was like to host "Saturday Night Live," her honest take on the red carpet, what happens backstage at awards ceremonies, how the sexy homemaker character of Sue Ann Nivens she played on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" totally changed her career, and Robert Redford's response to her quip above.

The best chapter is the one titled "Animal Kingdom" in which Betty extols her love of animals in some quite unusual experiences she has had, including making good friends with Koko the gorilla and Beethoven, a Beluga whale at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

Written in a conversational tone, this book is a fast read laced with fun photos of Betty White's personal life and career. If you want an easy, short, feel-good read, grab this one!

This book consumed me. Often, I would look up after reading and like waking from a deep sleep, I wondered where I was. Or my husband would talk to me while I was reading, and all I wanted to do was tell him what had happened—not because I wanted to tell him about the book, but because I felt as if we both knew the characters as real people and I needed to tell him what they were doing now. Yes, this book consumed me.

Magnificently written by Louise Erdrich, this is the story of a group of close-knit Chippewas living on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. The novel begins in September 1953 and continues through the spring of 1954. Although Thomas Wazhashk, who works as a night watchman, might be considered the lead character, there are others who are just as important and prominent in the story. There are two major plotlines:
• Thomas works as a night watchman at the new jewel bearing plant so he can spend his days working for the tribe to better their poverty-stricken lives. When the U.S. Congress writes legislation to terminate the tribe, take their land, and relocate them to cities, Thomas enjoins the tribe to fight the government—with every brilliant trick he can muster.

• Patrice just graduated from high school and has a job at the jewel bearing plant to support her family as its only source of income. Her father is a drunk, who only comes home to steal their money and terrorize his wife and children. Patrice's sister, Vera, relocated to Minneapolis but is now missing, and her family is terrified for her. Patrice ventures to Minneapolis in an attempt to find her sister, and what has happened to her is truly horrific.

• More minor plotlines include two Mormon missionaries who want to convert the largely Roman Catholic tribe to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the conflicts and passions of friends and lovers; and the wrestling with death—those deaths that are sudden, those that are feared, and those that are expected.

This is a masterpiece that I will long remember. It is not only a riveting story, but also an exposé on what it truly meant to be a Native American in the 1950s when government-sanctioned discrimination and deprivation of basic life services kept the tribes mired in deep poverty and often alcoholism. (Of course, how much has really changed in nearly 70 years?)

But in the hands of the talented Louise Erdrich what could be a dark, melancholy tale based on historical events becomes one of redemption and hope sprinkled with just enough laughs to make this book a real treasure.

This is what great literature does: It helps us appreciate and value other cultures and makes us better human beings.

This is a true horror story. It is impossible to read this book and not feel blessed—no matter what you're dealing with in your life.

This is the story of the Galvin family. Mimi and Don Galvin had 12 children—born from 1945 to 1965. Ten boys, two girls. Six of the boys developed schizophrenia, which not only wrecked their individual lives, but also wreaked permanent havoc on the rest of the family. When mental illness strikes a family, especially of this severity, everyone is irreparably touched, and often damaged, by it.

Author Robert Kolker does an extraordinary job dividing the tale into two parts: the personal and the scientific. First and foremost, this is the very personal, very tragic family story of the Galvins and how what seemed a picture-perfect life went astoundingly askew. In addition, he offers extensive factual information about schizophrenia, the disturbing history of its treatment, and the progression of medical research about the disease over the years, which is still frustratingly slow, as well as the vital role the Galvins played in that research.

The book is imminently readable—even the medical information, which speaks volumes about Kolker's talent for "translating" scientific data, facts, and figures into an understandable and interesting narrative.

But the gem of the book is in the family stories, their 14 individual personalities, the horrific childhoods the Galvin children had, especially the two girls, and all they have done as adults to overcome those unspeakable circumstances. It is the story of two parents—a mother who was a demanding perfectionist with an uncanny ability to ignore the horror in front of her but was also the ultimate caregiver and a father who purposefully absented himself from the chaos and confusion of home through demanding work and numerous love affairs.

This is a story of suffering and heartbreak, but it's also a story of human resilience and the power of love. As much as it's a story of mental illness, science, and medicine, it is most of all a human story. A family story. And while it left me gasping in anguish, I was also filled with hope.

It all started with a lie. It was a spiteful, cruel lie that a vindictive man convinced his young daughter to tell against the father's hated rival. This remarkable novel by Anita Shreve is a lot of things—a psychological tale, a historical novel, a love story—but most of all, it is a story about one woman's quest for independence in an era that shunned such things.

It was the horrific lie that sent a young American wife and mother to flee her New Hampshire home for the Great War battlefields in France in 1916. She wanted to find the young man, Phillip Asher, whom her family had so wrongly ruined with her daughter's lie. With his reputation shattered, Phillip, too, had fled overseas to the war where he worked as an ambulance driver. Eventually, they do find one another. Phillip suffers a horrific injury, and when she sees his disfigured, ravaged face, she collapses. When she wakes up days later, she is in a different city in France with no memory of who she is or why she is there. But something deep inside her tells her to go to London to the Admiralty. She has no idea why or what it is she is seeking there. She makes up a name for herself: Stella Bain. How Stella physically recovers from the shell shock, how she emotionally recovers the life she once had, and how she finds true love are the gems of this magnificent story of the past, present, and future.

This is a moving, eloquent story that captures the emotional nuances of memory, loss, love, family, and a woman's right to live her life independently.

This is a 10-star book in a five-star world. This exceptionally well-written novel by Ethan Canin has it all: a compelling plot, fully-developed characters that just pop off the page, and a wise philosophical message about how we reconcile our life's dreams and hopes with what really happens.

It's the early 1970s and Corey Sifter, a working-class 16-year-old who actually thrives on physical labor, is helping his father repair a busted sewer line on the massive estate of Liam Metarey in Saline, New York. Meteray is quite taken with young Corey and hires him to work that summer on the estate, known as Aberdeen West. Corey embraces the opportunity, and before too long, Metarey makes a truly extraordinary offer to the young man—to send him to an elite boarding school all-expenses paid. Meanwhile, Metarey is a key player in the 1972 presidential campaign of Senator Henry Bonwiller, until something absolutely horrific happens that derails not only Bonwiller's campaign but also life as everyone then knew it.

The novel takes place in two time periods: modern day and the early 1970s with Corey narrating in the first person for both. Time slides back and forth and sometimes in an almost zig-zag pattern, but it always makes sense and serves to move the plot, as well as to create little cliffhangers. More than anything, managing the time swings so expertly speaks to the extraordinary writing capability of Ethan Canin.

The sophisticated storytelling, multilayered plot, and complex characters work in harmony to create a magnificent novel I will long remember.

Chances are, this book won't grab you on page one. It took quite a bit longer than that to pull me into the heart of what is really a simple story and the souls of what are actually quite complex characters. It was definitely worth the wait.

Written by Elizabeth Graver, this is the story of the affluent Porter family, who own an oceanside summer compound on the two-mile long Ashaunt Point in Massachusetts. When the novel opens in the summer of 1942, the Porters' four children are beginning to grow up. Charlie has just enlisted in the Army, Helen is 16, Dossy is 14, and Janie is 8. The U.S. Army has taken over much of Ashaunt Point, and the presence of the many soldiers is a delight to Helen and Dossy. Janie is lovingly cared for by her Scottish nanny, 36-year-old Bea, who has never married and is falling in love with one of the soldiers. And then something quite frightening happens to Janie that changes much for this family. The book continues marching through the years by focusing on just two of them: 1970 and 1999. The three main sections of the book are told from the point of view of either Helen, Beatrice or Helen's troubled son, Charlie, which has the interesting effect of slightly altering the impression of the past because it's seen through the prism of someone else's eyes.

The greatest strength of this superb novel is the characters, especially as they evolve through the generations—what they do, how they think, and how they deal with life's happiness and tragedies all the while cushioned by old money, a storied family, deep friendships, and all the advantages of privilege. Most important, one of those characters is Ashuant Point, as place and what it means for this family is the primary focus of the novel.

This is an intelligent, serious, and (most of all) literary book with keen observations about life, love, hope, chance, and the fragility of family. But reader beware: This is a slow-moving novel with a negligible plot.

And while it's not a page-turner that kept me reading past my bedtime, it danced in my dreams. As I wandered through my day, I found myself thinking about it — a lot.

Oh, I was so wrong about this book.

Multiple times I resisted buying this book by Sue Monk Kidd, even though I have read her previous three novels and loved them. But there was something about the plot description that made me recoil. ANOTHER book about Jesus's nonexistent wife? Give me a break. And then I read a professional book review that changed my mind, and I'm really glad that happened. This is not just another book about Jesus's nonexistent wife. It is so much more. Yes, it is a book about Jesus. His family. His early years before his public ministry began. But most of all, it is a radical portrayal of one woman's voice in a time when women had no power, no position, no privilege—and especially no voice.

It would have been most unusual — as in, it would have defied the most closely held and important expectations of society — for Jesus to not have married. New Testament Scripture actually doesn't say one way or the other if Jesus was married. It wasn't until the second century CE that the first claims were made that Jesus remained single and celibate. (Read the "Author's Note" at the end of the book for more fascinating information on this.)

But what if Jesus did marry? That is the premise of Kidd's book, written in the first person by the woman the author imagined to have married him. Her name is Ana, and unlike Jesus, she comes from an upper-class family. Ana is smart and capable. She is also stubborn, determined, and filled with longings for a life she can never have simply because she is female. She can read and write, and her greatest joy in life, much to her mother's chagrin, is writing stories. Ana is a rebel, who finds it difficult to fit into society as the placid and meek woman she is expected to be. When she meets Jesus in the marketplace, her world is turned upside down. Complicating matters, Ana's father is Herod Antipas's top scribe, and Judas is her (adopted) brother. When Ana's life is threatened by Herod Antipas, she escapes to Alexandria with her beloved aunt, Yaltha, who has a devastating secret of her own, which is the same time that Jesus's active ministry begins.

And finally…the Passion story as portrayed in this book is so emotionally and even physically resonant that I found myself holding my breath as I read. It will forever change the way I hear the Passion every Palm Sunday and during the Stations of the Cross.

The power of this book is twofold: First, the expertly researched, detailed, and absolutely fascinating descriptions of life in the first century are worth the price of the book. Second, Kidd writes with the utmost respect and reverence to fully commemorate and portray Jesus's humanity. And as odd as it may sound, it's totally believable and realistic.

Brilliant and beautiful, as well as richly imagined, this book is a thought-provoking celebration of not only Jesus's life, but also the redemptive power of one woman's voice. And that becomes an acknowledgement to all the women throughout time who were silenced and never heard.

When actress Isla Fisher did an interview to promote the movie "Wedding Crashers," she was asked how her appearance in it had changed her career. She said it hadn't, acknowledging there weren't many comic opportunities for women in Hollywood. "All the scripts are for men and you play the girl."

How is it that women, beginning when they are little girls, learn how to "play the girl" in society? In these 21 smart and sassy essays, author Carina Chocano expounds on all the mixed messages with which women and girls are bombarded from the time they are old enough to watch Disney movies. Be sexy. No, be smart. Wait, be both. Do this. No, you can't do that. And all these messages have one thing in common: They are what men want the ideal woman to be.

Creatively framed using some of the confusing messages Alice was assailed with during her bizarre adventures in Wonderland, Chocano explores her topics largely by examining popular culture, especially movies and TV shows—from "The Stepford Wives" to "Real Housewives," from Playboy to "Pretty Woman," and from "Sex in the City" to "Mad Men." (An earlier gig as a film critic makes her rather good at doing this.) She is especially adept at zeroing in on exactly what it is about these films and TV shows that tell women who and what they should be and why this so often makes us uncomfortable.

While each of the essays is imminently readable, I found I enjoyed the book far more by reading one or two essays a day and no more. Because this is such an emotionally-charged topic for most women, it felt like psychic overload when I read more than that. That is, the essays are powerful enough that I really needed time to think a bit between them.

While I recommend this book for all women, I especially recommend it for men, who may never have realized the emotionally damaging and intellectually intimidating mixed messages in our popular culture that is directly aimed at the psyches of their beloved wives, sisters, and daughters.

I first read this magnificent book by Eowyn Ivey in 2014 and reread it now for my book club. It's even better the second time around!

This is a delightful tale mixed in equal parts with fantasy and realism--so much so that it's hard to tell which is which. A childless man and woman, who have recently moved to Alaska from Pennsylvania, build a snow-girl on a lark during the season's first snowstorm. The next morning, the snow-girl has disappeared, and against all common sense it seems as if she has come to life. She says her name is Faina. Or is this an orphan child who desperately needs their love?

Set in the Alaskan wilderness of the 1920s when brave, hardy homesteaders carved farms out of unyielding forests and hunted wolverine and marten and lived on moose and potatoes all winter (if they were lucky), this tale is filled with magic, love, the bonds of friendship and, above all, the joy of family. It made me laugh, and it made me cry.

One of the advantages of rereading a book when I already know what happens is that I am able to pay closer attention to the literary elements of the story. I was especially struck by the symbolism of the color yellow, beginning with a yellow leaf trapped beneath ice and ending with yellow birch leaves lining a trail. In between there are yellow asters, yellow grass, Faina's yellow hair, yellow feathers, yellow sun, and yellow lamplight. In literature, yellow is often associated with joy and happiness, and when yellow is mentioned in this novel, it certainly seemed to signal a special kind of joy in a story that is also filled with tragedy and sorrow.

This is an engrossing, lively, and (most of all) delightful tale that is ideal reading on a cold winter night.

What is your address? The answer to that seemingly innocuous question reveals more about you than you probably ever considered. This fascinating book by Dierdre Mask explains everything you never knew about what your address means and what it can tell others about you—from your race to your income.

From the slums of Calcutta to the confusing layout of streets in Tokyo and from the hollows of West Virginia to the poshest avenues of Manhattan, Mask explores the history of numbering houses and naming streets. Find out why governments began numbering houses in the first place, the meanings behind various street names, the sometimes-nefarious political machinations of street naming and how such names can be used as propaganda, and how class and status are reflected in an address.

In addition to fun facts, such as how your street name can affect your home's value, Mask offers up remarkable tidbits on the backstories of street names in Berlin, New York City, South Korea, and parts of London. Find out the most common street name in America. (Hint: It's not Main Street. Or First Street.)

Consider the homeless. One of their worst problems is not having an answer to the question: What is your address? Without an address, they can't fill out a job application. Without a job, there isn't much hope for ever being able to get a home. And some companies and restaurants require not only an address, but also being able to demonstrate you have lived at that location for a certain period of time.

I ask again: What is your address? Because your address is truly your identity, this book will give you an insight into your answer that is both fascinating and surprising.

What a scrumptious book! It's not only a fun and sexy read, but also it is deeply thoughtful and intelligent—a combination that is not often found in novels, especially ChickLit.

Written by Elizabeth Gilbert (of "Eat Pray Love" fame), this is the story of Vivian Morris, the ultimate party girl who makes big mistakes along the way and learns some pretty big lessons from them. It's the summer of 1940. After flunking out of Vassar after her freshman year, Vivian moves from her small home town in New York state to the big city to live with her aunt, Peg Buell. Peg married well (very well) but the marriage is on the rocks (kind of…it's a complicated story). She owns a dilapidated theater in New York City where she and a motley crew of actors, musicians, and dancers put on a motley variety of simple shows. Vivian, who is a talented seamstress, takes over the costumes…and eventually takes over New York. All is fun, games, and sex until she does the unforgivable and is photographed doing it. How she builds back her life following this scandal is the heart and soul of the book.

With vividly-drawn characters, delightful descriptions, and a plot that never stops moving, this is a glittering and seductive book I couldn't put down. It won't win any literary awards, but it's an enthralling book to read.

This is one of those rare books that is both a literary achievement and unputdownable (I love that word!). Magnificently written by Maggie O'Farrell, the prose is so lyrical that many sentences deserve to be reread, but that is only possible if you can stop reading forward long enough to do that.

And while this novel is ostensibly about a young William Shakespeare, his courtship of his wife, his marriage, and the birth and lives of their three children (Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith), it is more a book about the plague. Specifically, it is a book about the physical suffering caused by this horrific illness—one that was treated in 1596 with a dried toad laid upon the victim's stomach. It is a book about grief, blame, and the alienation of a loving couple after the death of their beloved son, Hamnet.

The first half of the book is alternately told in two narrow time lines: young Will's courtship and marriage along with their life just before Hamnet contracts the plague. The two are skillfully woven together until they become one, and the story proceeds from there as the grief-stricken Will and Agnes attempt to put their lives back together. (O'Farrell changed Anne Hathaway's name for an excellent reason; see the Author's Note at the end of the book.) Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet" in honor of his little boy as a way to bring him back to life the only way he knew, but Agnes is horrified, thinking he has taken the name of their precious child in vain.

This highly imaginative tale is, on the surface, a profile of the greatest English playwright who ever put quill to paper, but even more so, it is a profound and emotionally resonant story of the human heart.

Bonus: The incredibly detailed and many descriptions of life in England in the late 1500s are magnificent, dried toads and all.

Oh, what a story! Imagine sitting beside a wide stone fireplace, a roaring fire within, and a storyteller perched on the hearth ready to spin a tale…a tale that will have you mesmerized for hours even as the embers die down. Yes, that is this book. It is an old-fashioned kind of story, spun of facts and fantasy. And can you tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined?

It's the winter solstice sometime in the 1870s (ish) in England in a village by the mighty River Thames. The Swan, the local watering hole is filled with thirsty men who are regaling each other with stories. While some of the area's pubs are known for singing or brawling or gambling, the Swan is known for the tales spun by the regulars. But on this night, all conversation suddenly ceases when a very large man profusely bleeding from his cut-up face kicks open the door. In his arms he is cradling a child, a dripping-wet little girl of about four years old who appears to be dead. Her skin is waxen. She isn't breathing. She has no pulse. But after a while, she comes back to life. Who is this mysterious child who has seemingly been raised from the dead? She won't speak a word so she can't tell where she has been and who she is. Three local families lay claim to her, each with their own tale of sadness and secrets.

This richly imaginative and spellbinding story, expertly woven by author Diane Setterfield, is an absolute delight to read with its vividly created characters, captivating plot, elements of suspense, and something that is simply magical that very colorfully ties all the threads together. There are heroes and miracles, villains and treachery, spirits and superstitions, and romance and love. The writing is exquisite. Even the chapter titles are perfect for advancing the story.

And while the novel moves slowly at first—why rush such wonder and enchantment?—it soon picks up the pace as the storyline becomes more intense. And the ending? Well…let's just say this: It's perfect.

Savor it. Enjoy it. Fall into the magic and wonder. This is the art of storytelling at its finest. And this is why we read books.

Two succinct ways I viewed this novel by Matt Haig:

1. Underwhelmed
I say that because before I even purchased the book, I knew it had been honored with a slew of "best book" picks from Goodreads to "Good Morning America." Based solely on this, I had certain expectations. They were dashed.

2. Boring, banal, and predictable
The saccharine-sweet story set my teeth on edge.

Nora Seed is 35 years old and desperately unhappy. Living in Bedford, a small town in England about 50 miles from London, she feels like a failure both personally and professionally. She left her fiancé just two days before their wedding, she gave up on competitive swimming when she had Olympic potential, she did finish university with a degree in philosophy, but never managed to translate that into a job she loved—or even just didn't hate. Her brother isn't speaking to her because she quit their rock band. And her beloved cat has died. So Nora decides to die by suicide. When she is in that state between life and death (presumably in a coma), she arrives at the Midnight Library where Mrs. Elm, Nora's school librarian from way back when, is the mistress of this mysterious place. Mrs. Elm informs Nora that she may choose from all these millions of books on the shelves of the Midnight Library to see how her life would have turned out had she made different choices. That is, what if she had gotten married? What if she had pursued swimming and competed in the Olympics? What if she had realized her career dream of becoming a glaciologist? Or that even crazier dream of becoming a rock star? The bulk of the book is Nora coming back to Earth in the guise of these different lives that would have been.

I forced myself to finish it just in case it improved. It didn't. It was mildly amusing at best, boring and banal at worst. Don't waste your money or time on this.

We humans do not know as an absolute scientific fact what happens after death, but we can pretty much surmise that it is one of two things:
1. Nothing. We are dead. Our existence ceases. It is finished. Over. Done. Sweet everlasting dreams.
2. There is an afterlife.

The idea of an afterlife—be it a literal heaven or hell, who goes to which, is it our body and our soul or just our soul that lives on—has a long and storied past, dating back to the Greeks and Romans. Theologian and professor of religious studies Bart D. Ehrman explores this long, somewhat convoluted, sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening, sometimes reassuring, sometimes absurd history.

And that is just what this book is: a HISTORY of the various beliefs of the afterlife from the Greeks and Romans to the Jews and the Christians. This is not a theological treatise advocating one belief over another; it is a historical exploration of this very human yearning that our life here on Earth can't be all there is.

Since the point of the book is to examine how views of the afterlife came to be and how they changed over the centuries, it is ideal for both believers and nonbelievers.

In addition to many delightful descriptions of heaven, as well as terrifying ideas of hell (including detailed explanations of the torture that awaits sinners), the book explains in easy-to-understand ways what the Bible REALLY says about the afterlife. The Hebrew Scriptures have various ideas that radically changed over the generations. Meanwhile, the difference between what Jesus says in the four Gospels about the afterlife vs. what Paul says in his many letters to the churches are quite different. I read the Bible every day, and I never noticed this discrepancy!

Bonus: Chapter 11, which focuses on the New Testament book of Revelation, is alone worth the price of the book. It is the most straightforward, intelligent, and truly understandable explanation of this most confounding and confusing book in the Bible.

Before you start reading this book, here is some advice: Clear your calendar, and stock up on dinner leftovers. You won't want to stop reading. Yes, it's that good.

This prequel to Ken Follett's hugely successful "Pillars of the Earth," begins in 997, which is closing in on the end of the Dark Ages in England. The multilevel storyline is riveting with entrancing plot twists and turns, characters so well created they seem like real people, and such detailed and colorful descriptions of the setting—from castles to cathedrals and monasteries to alehouses—that it drops the reader into the middle of the action.

The multiple storylines of love, sex, violence, politics, good vs. evil, and extreme power plays make for a riveting tale. The main characters around which this complex plot revolves are:
• Ragna, the daughter of a wealthy Norman count, falls in love with the English ealdorman Wilfwulf. Her parents reluctantly agree to the marriage, and Ragna moves to the English village of Shiring where a few months after her wedding she discovers a heartbreaking secret her husband has been hiding from her. Meanwhile, she is in a political battle for power against Wilf's formidable brothers and stepmother.

• Edgar is only 17 and a poor workingman, but he knows how to build things—from boats to brewhouses to bridges. In the first pages of the book, a Viking invasion levels his hometown of Combe, and he loses everything except his life. How he rebuilds and comes of age is a central part of the book.

• Aldred, a monk in Shiring, happily labors in a small scriptorium making illuminated manuscripts. Since Aldred is a moral, ethical man who is living in a corrupt society with dishonest superiors, he finds himself in constant conflict as he attempts to do the right thing and is punished repeatedly.

This is fiction. It is a made-up story. It isn't real. But the book's superpower strength is the threads of nonfiction woven throughout. Read this book to be entertained, but when you are finished, you will be just a bit more knowledgeable about what life was like more than 1,000 years ago for slaves, peasants, the working class, women, clergy, and nobles.

And while this is not great literature, it is a great story. It's all plot and not much else. No underlying themes. No imagery or symbolism to analyze. But wow! What a plot it is. Read and enjoy.