I Cheerfully Refuse
Leif Enger

I've been listening to/savoring I Cheerfully Refuse on libro.fm. 
Rainy, a small-town musician, and Lark, a librarian/bookseller, have a mostly idyllic life together until Lark unexpectedly dies. Rainy is now on the run, or more precisely, on the sail, in his boat on Lake Superior. As with all good journey tales, our protagonist Rainy meets all sorts of people and encounters weather only found on a Great Lake. We're hosting an event with author Leif Enger, "Lunch with Leif" on May 18 and I'm looking forward to it!

The Sweet Spot
Amy Poeppel

The Beagle Women's book group recently had great fun discussing The Sweet Spot, a feel-good novel by Amy Poeppel. Lauren, an artist, is working on pieces for an upscale retail shop, run by Felicity. One of the shop's staff, is young and determined Olivia, who is fired after a misunderstood encounter with a customer goes awry and then viral. The misunderstanding occurs with Melinda, an angry and grieving woman whose husband of 30 years, Russell, has left her for a younger woman, Felicity. Once Melinda's fury mounts too high, she is fired from her own job and lands employment at the school Lauren's children attend. And that's just the beginning. The cast of characters blossoms into a manageable 17(ish). Don't be turned off by the number of characters. As you read, they become distinct characters. The intertwining of the characters and their daily lives will suck you in and you'll be glad to have read this sweet tale!

Amy Poeppel at Wine & Words in 2022.

The Postcard
Anne Berest

There are so many books about the Holocaust. While each is set in the same time period, they are as different as the people whose stories they relate.

The Postcard, which will be released in paperback this month, is an autobiographical novel (autofiction) based on the experiences of the author’s maternal grandmother and her family. In 2003, an unsigned postcard was delivered to Anne Berest’s mother, Lélia. On the card were four names: those of her grandparents, aunt, and uncle. All were killed in Auschwitz in 1942. The card was unsettling, but eventually. Lélia put it aside and life went on.

A number of years later, when her daughter experienced antisemitism at school, Anne was moved to learn who sent the postcard. A secular Jew, Anne learned about Judaism as well as about her family as she searched for the author of the postcard. Lélia had done extensive research into her family and shared that information with Anne. With that background, Anne began the detective work required to find who had sent the card. She discovered the tragic story of her family, but also gained knowledge and appreciation of who they had been.

The story is poignant and heartbreaking, but also full of life. Anne eventually solved the mystery of the postcard, as well as gained a deeper understanding of her identity.

The book is moving and unforgettable. Read it.

Note: the paperback of this book will be released May 7.

House of Hollow
Krystal Sutherland

As children, sisters Iris, Vivi, and Grey go missing for a month before inexplicably returning, unhurt but with slightly changed appearances and no memories of when they were gone. Years later, Grey and Vivi have left home to lead lives of fame while Iris is home soothing her anxious mother and completing high school. When Vivi returns to town to play a gig with her band and reliable Grey never appears and isn't answering her phone, the sisters know that something must be wrong. Together they track down Grey’s apartment and discover the sickly-sweet underbelly of dark magic and rituals Grey has been concocting, hidden behind her public image of ethereal perfection. Iris and Vivi must defeat the murderous entity Grey summoned as they try to save their sister from herself. This YA novel reads like a dark and grotesque modern fairytale that both adults and older teens will enjoy. 

The Broken Earth Trilogy
N.K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky

All three books in this trilogy won the Hugo Award, given for the best work of science fiction or fantasy the preceding year, when they were published. Jemisin is the first author to be awarded three consecutive wins and they are well-deserved for the uniquely constructed fantasy world explored in this series. The setting is a dystopian Earth where, due to intense seismic activity, every couple of centuries the climate changes drastically in what is called a fifth season, forcing all life on Earth to adapt or die out. Our complicated protagonist Essun is secretly an orogene. She can harness the volatile energy of the Earth, giving her the ability to prevent things like earthquakes, while also containing the power to easily kill someone. Orogenes are feared and reviled for their abilities; the ones that are allowed to live are trained diligently at specialized schools. Essun has kept her secret hidden–she has a family and is a respected community member, but she has also passed her ability to her two children. When Essun returns home one day to find her son dead and her husband and daughter missing, she knows her husband has discovered her deception. While she is grieving, a fifth season is set off by a rift opening in the empire. Essun must flee and attempt to save her daughter while the world starts to fall apart around her.

The chapters span multiple perspectives as we discover the history and fallout of this richly realized world and the eccentric characters inhabiting it.
 

Ninth House and Hell Bent
 Leigh Bardugo

The first two books of the Ninth House Trilogy did not disappoint. Set at Yale University where high school dropout Alex Stern has been recruited with a full ride scholarship, our heroine is truly a misfit. She has special skills, and the attention of the faculty director of the Ninth House was drawn to her when she was the sole survivor of a mass homicide across the country, where her life in the drug/dropout scene is far from the blueblood atmosphere of Yale.

The Ninth House is the overseeing body of the other eight houses, known as tombs, of secret magic societies at Yale. Ranging in power and scope and funded by the rich and powerful of society, the tombs require the presence of a Ninth House member to assure their prognostications and other ceremonies don’t get too out of hand. As her time on campus progresses, Alex understands more of the tombs and their functions and more of her own power.

The first book pauses, more than ends, and Hell Bent picks up with Alex relying on her least likely allies to accomplish the impossible.

These books are a fun read for the fantasy genre naïve and have provided lively conversation with my group who are eagerly awaiting the final offering.

In the Lives of Puppets
TJ Klune

This dystopian novel, by the author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, is timely now that AI has become such a frightening topic. Victor is a young man whose only friends are an improved medical robot and a converted vacuum cleaner. The medical robot, who has a sardonic sense of humor, is called Nurse Ratched because the label she wears is Nurse Registered Automaton to Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill. The extremely timid vacuum’s label is worn off so that only R MB remain, so they call him Rambo. The book was inspired by Pinocchio and Swiss Family Robinson. Klune has a very different take on what artificial intelligence could bring!

We Are All Welcome Here
Elizabeth Berg

In an Author’s Note in front of the novel, Berg tells readers that this fictionalized story is based on an actual woman who gave birth while in an iron lung. She kept her child even though her husband deserted them. She raised her daughter while paralyzed from the neck down; she was able to breathe on her own only for short periods. Of course, she had help from paid caregivers, but the girl from an early age was responsible for many aspects of their lives, and was the mother’s sole resource overnight. 

Berg takes this astounding story and makes up characters and circumstances so that the novel works. The daughter provided a wealth of information about how the mother and daughter managed together, and what they had to overcome. I was overwhelmed by their courage, perseverance, and love.

How to Turn Into a Bird
María José Ferrada

Reading this novella is like reading a poem, or maybe a poetry collection. The language, the imagery, and the short paragraphs and chapters slow you down and make you think. Ramon gets a job maintaining a giant Coke billboard and realizes he could live inside the structure with a little help from his friends. His nephew tells the story of his uncle living more and more in the sky, and of the people left behind on the ground. 

“It’s not a garden.”
“What do you mean? I planted all the light bulbs. Look how quickly they came up.”

It had grown dark, and Ramon wasn’t wrong: lights were shining from windows, posts, and the cars that passed along the highway at that hour, and they looked like bright lemons and oranges that an absent-minded gardener had let fall to the ground in the garden-night.

“I’ll take half a kilo,” I said after a while.

Factfulness
Hans Rosling

The TED book group chose this book serendipitously, expertly (I had nothing to do with its choosing, and deserve none of the merit or praise), to follow our previous choice (Ministry of the Future, by Kim S. Robinson --- excellent book! ) which left me feeling the need for better skills in understanding the type, quality and validity of information and news coming my way. I think all of us could benefit by being better equipped with a tool kit of ideas about assessing the barrage of media we encounter hourly. What's true? What's false? What's the speaker's hidden agenda? Not to mention being better able to formulate a cogent declaration of our own position, once we have one. In this era of "alternative facts" Rosling offers a factual up to date assessment of the world's state of affairs, and it's not as bad as you've been told. Oh, lots to do, lots to improve, but not as shrill and panicked as we've been led to believe. Take a chill pill and read this book.

Table for Two
Amor Towles