Beginning
in 2013, instead of making New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve been choosing words for
the New Year. Thanks, Connie! The words themselves are always written in good
faith, and though often remembered, reflected upon even, do not seem to have
any power in and of themselves. Sort of like resolutions:)
Family
May you take the time to find your Word/Wishes and have a healthy, happy, altogether splendid New Year.
Some very good ideas…..
Maybe in spite of and maybe because of the pandemic, this has been good year for reading. As usual, more books were read or listened to on tape
than I reviewed, but the ones below made the cut. I decided a while ago that I
was not going to disparage another author’s work. If I don’t like it, I won’t review
it. How to choose? I really enjoyed everything on the list. I was fascinated with American Dirt and its revelations
about the exodus from Mexico. I love Anthony Horowitz’s masterful mysteries. The
Bone Clocks has made me a forever fan of David Mitchell. I loved them all for
different reasons.
February 2020: The
Word is Murder-Anthony Horowitz
And Then There Were
None- Agatha Christie
March 2020: Ordinary
Grace- William
Kent Krueger
April 2020: American
Dirt- Jeanine
Cummins
May 2020: The
Distant Hours- Kate Morton
June 2020: Whistling
Past the Graveyard- Susan Crandall
July 2020: The
Giver of Stars- Jo Jo Moyes
August 2020: The
Bone Clocks- David Mitchell
September 2020: The Dutch House- Ann
Patchett & Clock Dance-Ann
Tyler
October
2020: Witches, Midwives & Nurses- Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English; City
of Girls- Elizabeth Gilbert; Writers & Lovers- Lily King
November
2020: In Five Years- Rebecca Serle
December 2020: The
Witch Elm- Tana French
If I could only pick
one to recommend to a friend, it would have to be Ordinary Grace by William
Kent Krueger. Beautifully written slice of life in a small southern town
interwoven with a skillfully rendered mystery. I’m looking forward to reading
more by Krueger this year.
This
novel by Lisa Wingate is the first selection of my Book Club for 2021. Having
read Before
We Were Yours by this same author last year, I knew it would be
well-written. While I do like historical fiction, it seemed we had read a lot
of it during the past year. I was not enthusiastic, but open. The
Book of Lost Friends, set during the post-Civil War south and also the
present time, was a different iteration of this genre.
Wingate
based her idea on true-life ads placed in a newspaper by newly-freed former
slaves seeking their lost family members. These stories of loss and separation
are heart-wrenching and hard to comprehend. The evidence that this was
duplicated at our border just recently does not bear thinking about. The
present-day story featured a new teacher seeking to help her lower,
socio-economic students of color find part of their history and thus their
place in the world.
Three
very different women, a former slave, a mixed-race daughter of a plantation
owner and the legitimate daughter of that same owner, form the center of the
historical story. Due to horrific circumstances beyond their control, they end
up banding together to find the missing patriarch of the plantation. With one exception,
their strength and resilience form the foundation of their survival.
The
modern story follows a teacher in 1987 who, discovering stories of the past,
helps her students on a voyage of discovery where they find pride and identity
in their own histories. The teacher’s efforts are met with resistance in the
small southern town where she is teaching. This resonates with the systemic
racism first over one hundred and fifty years ago with the three women, one
hundred twenty years later with the teacher. and even now, almost forty years
later. Still much to do.
Recommend.
