The Brooklyn Art Library: an amazing, creative collection of artwork for everyone to savor. https://www.sketchbookproject.com
 |
| photo by Christy |
While I'm working on my sketchbook, I thought a good list of books would be just the way to start Spring. Since it is also the close of Women's History Month, I have limited the list to women authors (except at the end).
Recommended by several people:
Educated by Tara Westover
A memoir of a young woman who rises above her upbringing.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Virago Book of Women Gardeners by Deborah Kellaway
The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies by Jason Fagone, yes a male author, but what a story about Elizabeth Smith, who along with her husband William Friedman, invented modern cryptography and helped to break German and Japanese codes during WWI and WWII.
From Micki C:
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
After a friend's death, a woman takes in the Great Dane left behind though her apartment building doesn't allow pets. The story covers the difficulties, almost madness and delights the woman finds in her relationship with a canine.
Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton
A novel of the effects the Hiroshima bomb on survivors and one family in particular.
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran ( a Bay Area author)
The tale of a boy and his two mothers, one his immigrant mother and the other the mother who adopted him.
The Dreamers by Karen Walker
A virus causes people to go to sleep and to dream dangerously.
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
A widow uses her inheritance to buy a building and turns it into a bookshop, much to the consternation of some of the residents of the small town. The book was written in 1978, and was made into a movie in 2017.
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Three stories loosely connected. The book has been selected as one of the best of 2018.
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngman
Story of a relationship between two strangers on the other side of 60.
Samurai's Garden by Gail Sukiyama
From Joan, who recommended several books at the beginning of this list:
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
A novel based in 2016 with characters who represent the issues of economics, the environment, and politics in our culture.
 |
| Here are my selections for Good Reads |
From Marcia:
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The story begins with two lovers in Korea, a pregnancy, a separation and marriage to another, a move to Japan, and how the beginning of the story affects succeeding generations.
House of Gold by Natasha Solomons
A novel based on the Rothchild family.
From Linda D:
They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine
A story of a Jewish family in NYC & how each member copes with the father's death & how each deals with the problem of what to do with their mother.
Just After Midnight or any of the other 36 novels by Catherine Ryan Hyde who wrote Pay It Forward
Stories of friendship, trust, and the valuable connections between people
Sullivan's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank
A low country tale that is the first of a series.
Still Waters by Viveca Sten
The first of six stories of murders on Sandhamm Island
Any book by Anne Perry, a mystery writer, who sets her novels in London in the 19th and early 20th century.
From Jan H:
When I Am an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple by Jenny Joseph
An oldie, but a goodie
Sideways Rain by Nancy Elliott Sydney, M.D.
An itinerant doctor's memoir of 20 years in the Aleutian and Priboliff Islands. Sydney is a poet, pilot and a cellist who writes of the landscape and the people she meets in these remote places.
Bossypants by Tina Fey
From Mary, who recommended several of the books at the beginning, also suggested:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
A novel set along the North Carolina coast. The story deals with the death of a prominent man in the small community and the suspicions of town people towards a young girl who lives for most of her life alone in the Marsh.
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya & Elizabeth Weil
A Rwandan genocide survivor tells her story of terror, asylum, and recovery of her past.
 |
| And Bill's Good Read Recommendations |
If you have more suggestions for Good Reads, please add them in the comment section or email at marthaslavin@gmail.com
Good websites to find good reads:
https://www.bookbrowse.com
https://www.littlebrown.co.uk
https://www.goodreads.com
Thank you for this list, Martha! I just finished Michelle Obama's book. It should be required reading in high schools. I just started Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and it is a real page turner. I may beat my own record for plowing through a book. Incredible!
ReplyDelete