MORE BOOKS
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I was surprised and delighted to receive so many suggestions for MORE BOOKS! Here they are, and thanks to all who wrote me.
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, BIOGRAPHIES and NON-FICTION:
LIFE ON THE LINE by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas; chef Achatz’s memoir from 2011 of “chasing culinary greatness, facing death from tongue cancer, and redefining the way we eat.”
GHOSTS OF HONOLULUL: A JAPANESE SPY, A JAPANESE AMERICAN SPY HUNTER AND THE UNTOLD STORY OF PEARL HARBOR by Mark Harmon who writes about a U.S. counterintelligence officer working to save Pearl Harbor and a Japanese spy ordered to Hawaii to gather info on the American fleet.
A VOYAGE AROUND THE QUEEN by Craig Brown is “an unforgettable biographical portrait of the wit and wisdom of Queen Elizabeth II.”
THE ELEPHANT WHISPERER: MY LIFE IN THE HERD IN THE AFRICAN WILD is a nonfictional account written in 2009 by Lawrence Anthony, who devoted his life to animal conservation and protecting the world's endangered species. When he was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse, but he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them.
THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT: HARRY S. TRUMAN AND THE FOUR MONTHS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by A. J. Baime is a “masterful reporting of Harry Truman’s first 120 days as President when he took on Germany, Japan, Stalin, and a secret weapon of unimaginable power—marking the most dramatic rise to greatness in American history.”
FLIGHT OF PASSAGE by Tinker Buck. Written in 1997, this is an amazing tale of two brothers, aged 15 and 17, who fly from New Jersey to California in a Piper Cub. (Note: The same reader recommended Buck’s THE OREGON TRAIL — a present day journey about the 2015 trip Rinker and his brother took across the Oregon Trail in a mule-drawn wagon — and LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, written in 2022, which describe’s Rinker’s cruise down Ole Muddy on a wooden flatboat.
WILD NEW WORLD: THE EPIC STORY OF ANIMALS AND PEOPLE IN AMERICA by Dan Flores, won the Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award in 2023. “In 1908 near Folsom, New Mexico, a cowboy discovered remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint point embedded in the bones, archeologists determined that humans had killed them 12,450 years ago.”
DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF THE LUSITANIA by Erik Larsen; a 2015 NEW YORK TIMES non-fiction bestseller that describes the sinking of Lusitania during World War I and the events surrounding the sinking.
SEVEN WOMEN IN MAINE by Elizabeth Lydia Bonder, a 2013 account of interviews with “high achieving women” throughout Maine, who followed their aspirations to give worthwhile gifts back to society.
NOVELS:
GO AS A RIVER: A NOVEL by Shelley Read; this book won numerous awards for its coming-of-age story, set in Colorado, of a 17-year-old woman whose life was changed by one brief chance encounter.
ABSOLUTION: A NOVEL by Alice McDermott, “a riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam war” which TIME dubbed “best book of the year”
BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris, an historical novel “of strife and hope,” set in the Balkans in the early ‘90s.
THE ART OF FIELDING: A NOVEL by Chad Harbach, centers on the fortunes of shortstop Henry Skrimshander and his career playing college baseball with the fictional Westish College Harpooners.
THE STOLEN CHILD: A NOVEL by Ann Hood, the story of an unlikely duo roaming through Italy and France to solve the mystery of a child’s fate.
BY ANY OTHER NAME: A NOVEL is Jodi Picoult’s account of two women, living centuries apart and fighting to be heard: one of them claims to be the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN: A NOVEL by Giuliano da Empoli which explores the nature of power through the inner workings of Putin’s regime.
BURMA SAHIB by Paul Theroux, a gripping novel of George Orwell’s transformation from British Raj policeman to anti-colonial writer in Colonial India.
THE GLASS MAKER: A NOVEL by Tracy Chevalier relates a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Named “best historical novel of 2024” by London’s SUNDAY TIMES.
ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK by Chris Whitaker; “a missing persons mystery, a serial killer thriller, and an epic love story – with a unique twist on each… “
FUNNY STORY by Emily Henry, a romance novel follows librarian Daphne and Miles, whose exes are dating each other.
OLDIES BUT GOODIES:
EVE’S DAUGHTERS by Lynn Austin. (1999). “80-year-old Eve has guarded a secret for more than 50 years….this “easy to read” book focuses on four generations of women and the effects of the choices they make.
THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA written in 2004, in which author Philip Roth imagines (alternative history) that FDR lost the 1940 Presidential election to Charles Lindbergh who then negotiates a treaty of “cordial understanding” with Adolf Hitler.
THE KILLER ANGELS: A NOVEL OF THE CIVIL WAR, a 1974 historical fiction novel by Michael Shaara The book depicts the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War and the days leading up to it. This book was awarded the Pulitzer Price for Fiction in 1975.
THE CAFE BY THE SEA: A NOVEL by Jenny Colgan. Written in 2017, the author sets her novel on Mure, an island off Scotland, where the heroine decides to open a cafe.
FIFTY WORDS FOR RAIN by Asha Lemmie, a “strong debut novel” set in Kyoto, Japan in 1948. The story line is fascinating. The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in only to conceal her ….. and she ultimately fights to escape. (Personal note: I loved this book.)
ALL THE BROKEN PIECES by Ann E. Burg, written in 2009. “Matt Pin wants to forget wartorn Vietnam, bombs falling like dead cows and a terrible secret life he left behind.”
THRILLERS!
DUST by Patricia Cornwall. The 21st book in the Kay Scarpetta series, DUST offers “nail-biting suspense as Kay finds herself in a dark world of drugs, organized crime and more.”
THE BRIAR CLUB: A NOVEL by Kate Quinn, is a powerful tale of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boarding house during the McCarthy era.
KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE by Deanna Rayburn: “Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon. They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're 60 years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller.”
ECHO by Tracy Clark (her third book in this series) in which “detective Harriet Foster gets involved in a taut tale of renegade justice.”
THE HOUSEMAID by Freida McFadden. “Millie is a live-in maid for the wealthy Winchester family, living in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream….” Also by McFadden: THE BOYFRIEND. “She is longing for the perfect man. He’s longing for the perfect victim.”
NOT ALL BODIES STAY BURIED by Garth Jeffries. A recent widower returns to Nantucket for peace and quiet but discovers malevolent mischief afoot.
WE SOLVE MURDERS: A NOVEL by Richard Osman, author of THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB, presents a new cast of characters yet still features Osman’s trademark wit.
