Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

September 9, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Scribner, 2019. 390 pgs. Purchased.  Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope both work as police officers in the New York City Police Department (NYPD), meeting first as trainees and then working together as partners on their first beat. It is Brian who tips first Francis off to a small, suburban community north of the city, but Francis and his wife, Lena, are the first to move there. After the birth of their second child, the Lena Gleeson is […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Mary Beth Keane

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

September 6, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Grover Gardner. Blackstone Audio, 2011. Originally published 1906. 13 hours, 17 minutes. Purchased. Immigrating from Lithuanian to Chicago, Jergis Rudkus is eager to live out his own American dream with his wife, Ona, and her stepmother and stepsiblings. Jergis takes a job at Brown’s slaughterhouse in Chicago, expecting to make enough to support his wife and their extended family. But the family, including the children, are all sent out to find work as the family […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, Food, North America, United States • Tags: Upton Sinclair

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

September 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Knopf, 2015. 371 pgs. Library copy. Set in the not-too-distant-future, Bacugalupi’s novel finds the southwestern United States desolate and abandoned after a series of Category 6 hurricanes – a new categorization on our 1 to 5 scale – flattens coastal Texas and a massive, continuous drought has stopped the Colorado River from flowing downstream at the rate required by the Colorado River Compact of 1922. The details are sketchy as the story largely takes place in the […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Book Club, Dystopia, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Paolo Bacigalupi

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

August 30, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Random House, 2016. 401 pgs. Purchased. In the fall of 2007, a Cameroonian man named Jende Jonga is living in New York City and attempting to provide a better life for his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. Jende, who has a temporary work visa while his asylum case makes its way through the courts, is thrilled when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Readers, of […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Africa, Fiction, New York, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Imbolo Mbue

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

August 19, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Persephone Books, 2011. Originally published 1924. 288 pgs. Purchased.  Evangeline Knapp threw herself into motherhood, obsessively monitoring the food her three children eat and keeping every spec of dirt out of the family’s home. Her eldest son, Henry, is unable to eat foods cooked by his aunt because they don’t match the delicate balance his mother has made to aid his delicate constitution. Her youngest son, Stephen, screams, hid, and is generally considered an unruly child. When […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Feminism, Fiction, North America, Persephone Books, United States • Tags: Dorothy Canfield Fisher

The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo

August 12, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Atria Books, 2015. 417 pgs. Purchased. In 1987, fourteen-year-old Ted Systead and his father were camping in the backcountry of Glacier National Park when a grizzly bear attacked Ted’s father, dragging him out of the tent and to his death. Ted managed to stay awake all night, starting a fire to keep himself warm and plotting how he would get help. But, in his delirious and anxious state, Ted tripped over a rock, smashing his head […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Animals, Crime, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, United States • Tags: Christine Carbo

An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal

July 26, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. Penguin Press, 2017. 412 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back”, Rosenthal’s book is neatly split into two parts: one answering how healthcare came a profit-maximizing business and another attempting to offer readers ways to control their own bills. The first section examines all the reasons Americans have been told their healthcare costs so much – cost of innovation, greedy pharmaceutical companies, doctors drowning in debt – and […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Economics, Nonfiction, North America, United States

The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

July 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Neil Shah. Audible, 2015. Originally published 2014. 13 hours, 18 minutes. Purchased. In 1527, the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from the port city of Sanlúcar de Barramedawith 450 troops, officers, and slaves and another 150 sailors, wives, and servants to the newly discovered island of La Florida (present-day Florida, which is obviously not an island). His goal was to claim La Florida for the Spanish crown and find Apalacha, a city rumored to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Africa, Audiobook, Europe, Fiction, Indigenious Peoples, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Laila Lalami

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

July 19, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Adjoa Andoh. Recorded Books, 2014. Originally published 2013. 17 hours, 29 minutes. Purchased. Fifteen years after leaving Nigeria to study in America, Ifemelu has decided to return home to Lagos. Everyone – her parents, her friends, even her hair braider in Trenton, New Jersey – think she is crazy to return after securing the necessary immigration papers to live in the United States indefinitely. Yet, Ifemelu has grown tired of navigating the fault lines within […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Africa, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fiction, North America, ReadDiverse, United Kingdom, United States • Tags: Adjoa Andoh, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Soul of America by Jon Meacham

July 5, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – audiobook. Read by Jon Meacham and Fred Sanders. Random House Audio, 2018. 10 hours, 56 minutes. Library copy. Subtitled “The Battle for Our Better Angels”, Meacham’s book draws on history to document how times of great trouble in America (i.e. racist policies, disenfranchisement of voters, marginalization of women and people of color) have occurred simultaneously with great progress. With Americans ultimately finding the “better angels of our nature”, as Lincoln stated in his first inaugural address, despite the […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, North America, United States • Tags: Fred Sanders, Jon Meacham

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

June 14, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Davina Porter. Recorded Books, 2002. Originally published 2001. 55 hours, 30 minutes. Library copy. The fifth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series opens right at the conclusion of the proceeding book: Brianna and Roger have reconciled at the clan gathering in the colony of North Carolina where the Frasers have traveled to see Jamie’s Aunt Jocasta marry Jamie’s co-revolutionist from Culloden. The wedding, however, is interrupted by the arrival of the local magistrate, who proceeds to arrest […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Fiction, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Davina Porter, Diana Gabaldon

My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley

May 17, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Flatiron Books, 2018. 336 pgs. Purchased. Twenty years after their marriage ended, David Hedges and Julie Fiske are living on opposite sides of the United States. Julie is going through her second divorce; her husband, Henry, is demanding Julie come up with the money to buy him out of their rambling Victorian along the coast north of Boston. He is also insisting their daughter, Mandy, come up with plan for college, or he’s going to push […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: Stephen McCauley