Cathryn_Conroy

This three-generational family epic is a poignant and perceptive story of mothers and daughters—the love and affection, as well as the anger and antagonism. It is a story that begins in Puerto Rico, continues to St. Louis and New York, and ends in our hearts.

Written by Jeanine Cummins, the novel takes place from the 1950s to 2023, bouncing—often jarringly—from decade to decade and character to character. It is the opposite of a linear, chronological tale, and we readers really need to sit up and pay attention or risk getting lost.

The novel opens in 2023 in Palisades, New York when Ruth, the widowed mother of two, finds out that her daughter Daisy, who has moved to San Juan instead of going to college, was gravely injured during a hurricane. Ruth would do anything to be there with her daughter, but all the flights have been canceled. The story then abruptly backs up to 1968 in San Juan on Ruth's parents' wedding day, a wedding with an inauspicious beginning as Peter Brennan's Irish-American family wants nothing to do with his marrying Puerto Rican Rafaela Acuña y Daubón. The novel backs up again to Rafaela's storied childhood in San Juan, the precious daughter of wealthy and devoted parents who lose everything just as she is about to finish high school.

Rafaela and Ruth eventually get to Daisy's bedside in San Juan, the place where their family story began and they consider all the choices and decisions throughout the years that got them to where they are now. The latter part of the book quickly becomes much like a soap opera—granted, it's a page-turner—but it's still a bit over the top and histrionic in emotion and pulls on the heartstrings.

At the center of this novel, is the question of identity—not only ethnic identity but also identity within a family. Who are we? Where do we truly belong? It's also a love story—romantic love and family love.

My qualm with the book is the format. Jumping around in time and character is a common tool for writers, but it takes great expertise on the part of the author or it can be confusing and disorienting for readers. Proper segues are vitally important, and Cummins doesn't do that, so it feels like a lot of hard stops from chapter to chapter.

That said, this is a compelling and thoughtful book with a story that is told with candor and compassion.

Reason No. 1 I Read This Book: From February 18, 2026 through February 18, 2027, Ohio is celebrating the life, literature, and legacy of Toni Morrison, a native of Lorain, Ohio and the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. I recently moved back to Ohio, so I want to join in this celebration and plan to read several of Morrison's books this year, starting with this one.

Reason No. 2 I Read This Book: I read banned books. And it's hard to come up with a title that has been challenged more frequently over a longer period of time than "The Bluest Eye."

Published in 1970, this debut novel from author Toni Morrison is an emotional punch in the heart as it shows how racism is insidiously internalized by young Black girls and then poisons the rest of their lives. It's bold and brazen. It's searing and seductive. It's tender and tough. And I was spellbound from page one.

This is the story of three Black girls in 1940 and 1941 in Lorain, Ohio. Claudia, who is nine, narrates the story. Her sister Frieda is 10, but seems years old and wiser. And their friend Pecola Breedlove, who is 11, is the primary character, the one who thinks of herself as being so ugly that she also feels hideous inside. She believes that having blue eyes will make her beautiful, and she prays to God every day that her wish will be granted. While Claudia and Frieda are poor, they are truly loved and cherished by their parents. Pecola, who lives in a family filled with violence and abject poverty, is severely abused as she is raped and impregnated by her father, Cholly.

The ending, which is a literary feat unto itself, is heartbreaking as Pecola, who just a little girl, descends into madness as the adults around her so severely betrayed and harmed her.

This piercing, brilliant novel takes readers into the legacy of slavery and the very heart of racism. The writing is hauntingly lyrical and emotionally devastating—and should be required reading for all of us.

This novel is historical fiction. It is based on fact. And that is exactly what makes the story so hard to read. It is appalling. And its roots, its grounding, are all true. Prepare to be horrified.

That said, it's vitally important that we read books like this that expose what can happen when unfair, detrimental, and discriminating laws are randomly enacted and enforced. In this case, it was the Chamberlain-Kahn Act, otherwise known as the American Plan, that was enacted in 1918 and continued into the 1950s and legally permitted military, police, and health officers to arrest any woman suspected of prostitution.

Mind you, a young woman could be accused of prostitution just because she chose to live alone, chose to eat dinner in a restaurant by herself, or was pretty or unmarried. Husbands who were bored or angry with their wives could turn them in. There were no standards. There was no due process through the legal system. Once arrested, the woman was forced to undergo invasive testing for venereal disease and then sent to jail or to a detention center or workcamp so she could be "rehabilitated."

Set in 1941 in Kinston, North Carolina, this novel by Donna Everhart focuses on a small group of women who have been arrested for prostitution and sent to the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Beautiful Ruth with her long, silky black hair has graduated from high school and is living her dream of having her own apartment and a job in the local diner. While walking to work one morning, she is grabbed off the street by the sheriff and driven against her will to the Colony. Stella is smart but a social outcast. She is only 15, but her father has been visiting her bedroom at night for years. Now Stella is pregnant so her enraged mother, who assumes Stella has a no-good boyfriend, sends her off to the Colony to have her "tumor" removed.

The medical treatment received by these women is horrific. Ruth has only ever kissed one boy, but it's determined she has syphilis and is treated repeatedly with arsenic and mercury shots, the standard treatment in this time. The side effects include hair loss, nausea, and loose teeth. Stella is sterilized without her knowledge or permission.

Living in the Colony under the strict rules of the superintendent, Mrs. Dorothy Baker, some 45 women are subjected to a life that resembles a prison. How they survive and what happens to them as they are repeatedly abused and eventually fight back is the basis of this intense and superb page-turner novel that left me stunned, horrified, and angry.

WHO is the author of this book? Hmmm…never heard of him until now. In the first few pages of this novel, I was totally smitten. So I looked up this "unknown" author and found out the following: Ron Rash has written 20 books, three of which have been on the New York Times bestseller list, and he has won 20 literary awards.

Well, I got schooled, and happily so, since I intend to read a lot more Ron Rash books.

Taking place in 1951, this is a historical novel, love story, and coming of age book—all in one. Jacob Hampton is the only child of the leading citizens of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, Daniel and Cora Hampton. They own the sawmill and the general store. They consistently helped townspeople during the Great Depression, and no one has forgotten their compassion in that difficult time. But Jacob is trying to break free of their many constraints on him. He dropped out of college with the intention of working at the sawmill, and when he came home, he met Naomi Clarke, a 16-year-old from a farm near Pulaski, Tennessee, who was trying to earn some much-needed money by working as a maid at the town's most elegant hotel. Naomi has lived a hardscrabble existence, losing her mother at a young age and forced by her father to drop out of school after the third grade to work on the family farm.

It's love at first sight for Jacob and Naomi, who elope when his parents both refuse to give their blessing and with many cruel words disinherit him. Their marriage is a scandal in this small Appalachian town. And soon enough, Uncle Sam comes calling, sending Jacob to fight in the Korean War. He asks his best buddy, Blackburn Gant, a man whose face was horribly disfigured by polio, to look after Naomi while he is in the Army, knowing Naomi is spurned by most of the townspeople. By the time Jacob ships out, Naomi is pregnant with their baby.

What happens to Jacob in Korea and what happens to those left in Blowing Rock is the gist of this page-turner of a book. How far are we willing to go—even to tell the most horrific lies and mastermind the most evil of deeds—to seemingly save those we love? When will the truth be revealed?

While the twisty plot is very compelling, it is the characters who transform this story from what could have been a quick-to-forget novel to rise to the level of literature.

Best of all, the writing is brilliant. This is a book to be treasured.

This is a slow-building suspenseful thriller that soon threatens to boil over in a pressure-cooker plot that will keep you up way past your bedtime.

Written by Chris Pavone, this is the story of the Bohemia, a posh apartment building on New York City's Upper West Side that is so exclusive and private that it doesn't even have a street address on the outside of the building. We follow the stories of the doorman and the residents in two apartments, and those stories are filled with lust and love, sex and violence, intrigue and murder.

The background of the plot that soon takes centerstage is ripped from today's headlines: In separate incidents days apart, White police officers have brutally murdered two Black men, setting the city on edge. Protesters, including hordes of angry MAGA supporters in pickup trucks flying Confederate flags, are gathering in multiple places in New York City. It's a powder keg that is ready to explode.

This isn't your typical thriller. It's also a story about the political state of our big U.S. cities with all our prejudices and fury about racial and economic disparities on full display.

The characters around which the novel revolves are:
• The head doorman is Chicky Diaz, a middle-aged man who has recently lost his beloved wife to cancer and owes lots of money to loan sharks, his landlord, and his credit card companies. He's never done this before, but the circumstances are dire. Chicky is packing a gun while on the job as the Bohemia doorman.

• Emily Merriweather Longworth and Whitaker Hamilton Longword live in the penthouse. Whit's obscene wealth, built through nefarious means, is almost as enormous as his ego. He has developed some weird sexual proclivities, but that is only one of Emily's problems. She hates her husband, but she knows she can't leave him with that iron-clad, unbreakable prenup she signed. Meanwhile, in addition to regularly volunteering in a Harlem food pantry, she is having an affair that could cost her everything—including her life or her lover's.

• Jennifer and Julian Sonnenberg live on the second floor in a modest apartment. She is a high-powered attorney, while he owns an art gallery with his best friend, Ellington, a gay Black man. While he's dealing with a potential lawsuit that could bankrupt his business, Julian has also received some somber and frightening news from his doctor.

The ending is an action-packed page-turner that is, at first, surprising and then shocking…and then disturbing once it all sinks in.

Written in a lively, narrative style with a big and bold multilayered plot and chapter-ending cliffhangers, this is a captivating novel packed with surprises and simmering tension.

This collection of 20 essays is about one thing: point of view. As in, someone else's point of view—not your own. It's a way of seeing life with other eyes.

The title is taken from a line in one of the essays that is titled "A Map of Lost Things" by Jamila Osman, who writes, "A map is only one story. It is not the most important story. The most important story is the one a people tell about themselves."

While some of the essays sparkle and others are a bit of a dud, overall they tell such a fascinating story of what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land and try to assimilate without losing some central piece of their identity. The home countries range from Somalia to Syria, from India to Iran, from the Philippines to Peru.

My favorites include:
• "Carefree White Girls, Careful Brown Girls," by Cinelle Barnes: On the Isle of Palms off Charleston, South Carolina, K.L. teaches Cinelle how to surf. They are both mothers, and they both love the ocean. But the similarities end there. K.L., blonde and beautiful, worked for years running drugs in her beach bag. She was never stopped. Cinelle was adopted at age 16 and moved from the Philippines to the United States, but for eight years she was undocumented—and oh so very, very careful to always do everything right. She was frequently stopped.

• "Undocumented Lovers in America," by Krystal A. Sital: Krystal's Irish-American boyfriend (and especially his snobby mother) don't understand what it's like to be undocumented, but when she meets Juan at a pizzeria where they both work, everything changes for her. The sex is as hot as the restaurant kitchen, but since they are both harboring deep secrets, there is no trust or future for them.

• "The Dress," by Soraya Membreno: She went to a top college, but when she graduated, Soraya, who was from Nicaragua and did not attend a posh New England boarding school as did so many of her classmates, was unaware of the custom of wearing a white dress to the commencement ceremony. Her dress was white with red polka dots. Years later, she is still embarrassed.

• "Dead-Guy Shirts and Motel Kids," by Niina Pollari: As a child, the author moved from Finland to Florida with her parents and sister and lived for a few weeks in a motel where she and her sister befriended the two daughters of the owners. This story is about how she found her style—fashion and personality—over the years.

This collection gives readers a very personal view of what it's like to be an immigrant—especially undocumented—in the United States in today's precarious times.

This is a ten-star book in a five-star world.

Epistolary novels are an interesting genre and the results can be hit or miss. This one is a big, fat hit in all connotations of the word. It is intelligent, captivating, and ingeniously plotted, especially since it's all done through letters written and received.

Written by Virginia Evans, this is the story of Sybil Van Antwerp, who at the start of the book is 73 years old. She lives alone in Arnold, Maryland, five miles north of Annapolis, in an old house that backs up to the scenic Severn River. Sybil is a letter-writer extraordinaire and always has been. She writes letters—the kind that are written on paper and sent in an envelope with a stamp—but will happily dash off an email when warranted. She writes letters to everyone, even her next-door neighbor. She writes to friends, family, and the occasional book author, including Ann Patchett, Joan Didion, Kazuo Ishiguro, Diana Gabaldon, and Larry McMurtry. She also writes to newspaper editors, lawmakers, teachers, and diplomats. She even writes regularly to a child who is the troubled son of a dear friend. And she writes to someone else—a lot—but never sends those letters.

Ominously, an anonymous person is writing threatening letters to her, blaming her for something she did many years ago in her career as a clerk to a judge. It is obvious this person not only knows where she lives, but also has visited and staked out the house and yard. In addition, she is struggling with her relationship with her daughter, Fiona, something that is close to estrangement and heartbreaking for them both.

Sybil is aging, and many of the emotional crises in her life are coming to a head now, including the death of her ex-husband, her ongoing grief of losing her son Gilbert when he was eight years old, her horrifying and frightening diagnosis that she is losing her eyesight, and startling discoveries from a DNA test kit. Sybil, who is a bit of a curmudgeon, is also learning how to be a kinder, more compassionate soul as she ages.

After the first few letters, I found it almost impossible to stop reading. It was that compelling!

And the ending? Oh, what a gut-punch it is.

A fun fact: Sybil's email address is a throwback: @aol.com. Since I spent most of my career as a writer/editor for AOL, it was fun seeing that email address again.

Oh, what a delightful, escapist read that takes us on a most unlikely cross-country journey that had me laughing and crying—occasionally at the same time.

Beautifully written by Lynda Rutledge, this is a made-up story based on true facts. It's 1938 at the height of the Great Depression and 17-year-old Woodrow Wilson Nickel—that is, Woody Nickel—is orphaned in the dust bowl that hit Texas. With a little loose change in his pocket and a lot of guts, he travels to New York City where he has a third cousin who can give him a job. When a hurricane hits New York and kills the cousin, Woody is once again at loose ends. And then he sees an incredible sight in the harbor: two giraffes who were on a ship from Africa and managed to survive the hurricane at sea.

Through some tricks, gumption, and a bit of luck, Woody attaches himself to the giraffes, called Boy and Girl, and their caretaker Riley Jones, whom Woody calls Old Man, as they embark on the cross-country drive along the Lee Highway to the San Diego Zoo, the giraffes' new home. Following them whether they like it or not is Augusta Red, a gorgeous redhead with her own sad story, who is shooting photos for a spread in Life magazine.

The trio encounters obstacles, adventure, and nefarious plots, and through it all, as Woody and Red slowly have the courage to reveal their darkest secrets, Woody learns to love and trust for the first time in his short life.

One of the most beautiful and touching parts of this novel is the effect the giraffes have on the humans around them—be it Old Man, Woody, and Red or the many people who spot them on this most incredible journey as they tootle on down the road with two giraffes sticking their heads out of a trailer. Old Man has a perfect way of describing the giraffes: "towering creatures of God's pure Eden."

With bold and vibrant characters, a plot filled with twists and turns, a touching love story, and an ending that had me reading with a huge smile on my face, this is a heartwarming book to be cherished and one I'll remember for a long time.

Bonus: You'll learn a lot about giraffes!

I read this under duress. (Well, sort of.) I read it because it was the selection of the month for a BookBrowse community of readers of which I am a part. We are choosing books listed in "1,000 Books to Read Before You Die," by James Mustich. And as with all book clubs, we occasionally read books that we would never otherwise read—and that's a good thing!

This one in particular is not my preferred genre. Written by Philip K. Dick, it is billed as science fiction, but it's more political fiction or speculative fiction. And it's a bit bizarre for my tastes.

It's 1962. This novel imagines a world, especially in what used to be the United States, in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan won World War II and then split up the USA with the western part going to Japan and the eastern going to Germany. It takes place primarily in San Franciso. The Japanese are in charge. They make the most money, live in the grandest homes, and have the best jobs, while the white U.S. citizens serve them. Still, the Germans lurk in the background, and they pose a dire threat to the world, still attempting to massacre anyone who is not Aryan.

The characters include a man who sells (mostly) counterfeit American collectibles, two men who start a jewelry-making business (and one of them is a Jew who is trying to hide his identity), a Japanese trade minister, a duplicitous German who is trying to pass messages to the Japanese, a Nazi Gestapo member who is on a murderous mission, and a woman who (along with nearly everyone else in the book) is reading a banned and subversive novel that imagines an Allied victory in World War II and what the world would have been like. Meanwhile, there is a mysterious figure—the man in the high castle. He is Hawthorne Abendsen, the author of that banned book, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy," and he is in grave danger.

Through it all, the characters each struggle in their own ways with discerning their identity in this new world, as well as trying to wrest the most power each can in a society when almost all of them are powerless. They are all seekers as they wrestle with the past, while trying to glimpse the future and figure out their place in it.

This is a highly philosophical novel, examining such questions as reality vs. perception and truth vs. deceit with much of it wrapped around Eastern philosophy, especially the I Ching.

This book, which won the esteemed Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963, is considered a science fiction classic in American literature. I give Philip K. Dick credit for his imagination, which is why I am giving it four stars, but I found it to be a dark, weary novel that left me more bored than entranced.

This is a tough book. It's a good story, albeit incredibly sad, and at times it's actually gripping, but the trouble is simple: The protagonist is not particularly likeable—at least for me. And not liking the main character means it's hard to become fully invested in the novel.

Written by Wally Lamb, this is the story of a middle-class American family living in Connecticut. The mom, Emily, is a third grade teacher. The dad, Corby, is a commercial artist. They have two-year-old twins, Niko and Maisie. About a year ago, Corby was laid off from his job, something that sent him into a downward spiral of alcohol and drugs and eventually addiction. Unable to find work of any kind, he is the stay-at-home dad, caring for Niko and Maisie. One morning he is taking the twins to his mother-in-law's home so she can babysit. Ostensibly, he is going on a job interview, but in reality, he plans to get wasted. He's already halfway there, having doctored his morning coffee with rum and taken two Ativan as well. And then something horribly, dreadfully tragic happens…and life for this family forever changes. Because of Corby's grave mistake, he is sentenced to three years in prison.

The bulk of the novel is about his time in prison, a brutal and unforgiving place for which he is totally unprepared. And while the routines and terrors of daily prison life haunt Corby, he is also plagued with the tremendous guilt he feels for what he did and his never ending self-pity and deep-seated anger.

The title of the book refers to a river that runs near the prison—close enough to be heard but distant enough so it is not visible within the prison walls. The symbolism of the river, of course, is freedom and new life, something that eludes Corby now but hopefully will await him on his release. He is just as terrified of that future as he is about the day-to-day horrors of prison life.

Throughout the book, there are running themes of redemption, forgiveness, and hope…the stuff of life for everyone, but things that are so vital to happiness and a future for those who are behind bars. Corby needs to first forgive himself in order to find redemption and hope, but he is tormented by wondering if Emily will ever forgive him. In addition, the book is packed—to the point of being almost too much—with other themes: addiction, mental health, good vs. evil, abuse of power, and grief.

The ending holds a bit of a surprise…almost a shocker that is tragically and tenderly written.

Still…it's a long book made all the longer because so much of it feels interminable. Most of all, the book isn't as good as it could be because Corby is so unlikeable.

"I feel as if I've opened the door to a dream within a dream and stepped inside," says the main character, Kyungha, near the end of this profound, disturbing, and harrowing novel by Han Kang, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2024, the first Asian woman and the first South Korean to receive this honor. This sentence in the book perfectly describes my feeling as a reader of this book: I opened the door to a dream within a dream. And it was a bit fevered as well.

It's a cold winter morning in Seoul when Kyungha receives an urgent and cryptic message from her dear friend Inseon to come immediately. But Inseon lives on Jeju Island. Kyungha soon realizes that Inseon is in Seoul in a hospital, and the situation is dire. Inseon asks Kyungha to travel to Jeju Island immediately to save the life of her pet bird, who has already been without food or water for several days. The journey—by air, bus, and foot—is treacherous due to a massive snowstorm that makes travel nearly impossible. Barely alive, Kyungha finally arrives at Inseon's remote home on the island. What she finds there is a dead bird and in her fevered state she experiences that horrifying dream within a dream…or is it all real?

The haunting subtext of the novel—the dream that is really a nightmare of the worst kind—is a recounting in quite (gory) detail of the 1948 massacre of 30,000 civilians on Jeju Island by anti-communist troops. The innocent civilians—from infants to the elderly—were forced out of their homes and summarily shot; their bodies were shoved into the ocean or hidden in a cobalt mine or buried in the ground under what later became a runway at the Jeju Island airport. This novel tells about those atrocities from the point of view of one family and all they suffered and then kept secret for decades. It is very difficult and grueling reading, but a vital part of hidden history. And as horrific as it is, this is a story that needs to be told.

But most of all, this is a novel about human endurance, the power of a deep, abiding friendship, and a salute to the inner meaning of our fragile and precarious lives. Filled with imagery and symbolism, this is a book that begins with horror but ends with hope.

When I first started this book, I fully intended to read it quickly. It's not that long, after all. But I soon realized that this is a book best read in small parts—a little each day. It's just too intense for more than that. It's the stuff of nightmares, if you're not careful about the time of day you read it. But don't let that scare you off. This is such an important and vital book to the literary canon. It tells the story of things others would like us to not remember or never know happened.

All the hype, all the many inclusions on the "best books" lists, all the gushing reviews—both professional and reader—are true. This book by Taylor Jenkins Reid has it all: It's a gripping page-turner plot and a tender and passionate love story.

It's the 1980s in Houston, Texas at the dawn of NASA's space shuttle era. Written by Taylor Jenkins Reid, this is the story of Joan Goodwin, a brilliant but underappreciated associate astrophysics professor at Rice University. At the urging of her sister, she applies to be an astronaut. Much to her surprise and delight, she is accepted, becoming part of a team of newbie astronauts, who all work hard, train hard, and sometimes party hard. And quite unexpectedly, Joan falls in love. She's barely dated before, but this is different. Very different. Joan falls in love with fellow astronaut Vanessa Ford. While the two are practically walking on air, they can never (ever!) let their love affair become public knowledge—even amongst their closest friends and family—or they will lose their chance to fly on the space shuttle.

Joan finds out she is slated to fly on a mission in November 1984, and Vanessa is chosen for a December 1984 mission. But the unthinkable happens on Vanessa's mission. Lives will be lost. Only one astronaut remains unscathed. Will that one be able to fly the shuttle back to Earth bearing the others—some dead, some nearly dead?

Reid has structured the novel perfectly to keep us readers turning those pages far into the night. The December 1984 space shuttle accident takes place in the first chapter, and the story of what happens next is woven throughout the novel. The bulk of the book, though, is what went on before then. It's brilliant and thrilling plot pacing!

This smart, literary ChickLit at its finest.

Bonus: Even if you've never taken an interest in space exploration before, this novel is sure to pique something. It is packed with solid information and fascinating details about NASA, the space program, the space shuttle's early history, and what it takes to be an astronaut—especially a female astronaut in a male-dominated enterprise.

Aside to Taylor Jenkins Reid: PLEASE write a sequel!!!

Oh, this book is horrifying. Not because it's a horror story or a terrifying thriller, but rather because the premise of the story is grounded in one human being's horrifying, reprehensible treatment of another. It is evil personified. And we readers cannot even comfort ourselves with the thought that it is total fiction because it's based on a true story.

Horrifying though it may be, this is a must-read book!

It is 1531 in Périgord, France. Marguerite de La Rocque is orphaned at age three, and her great wealth is legally placed into the hands of her guardian, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, who was her father's cousin. This duplicitous and devious man barely provided enough financial resources for Marguerite to live with her beloved nursemaid Damienne, while he proceeded to spend and then lose her vast fortune.

When Marguerite is 20, Roberval sold the estate in which she and Damienne were living and forced her to accompany him on his ship that was setting sail to New France, a vast territory in North America, including parts of Canada, where he was determined he would make his fortune. While on board the ship, the mercurial Roberval decides that Marguerite has betrayed him by having an affair with his secretary, Auguste Dupré. So he brutally punishes the couple, along with Damienne who will never leave her mistress, by abandoning them on an uninhabited island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, off Newfoundland. Of course, he assumes the trio will die miserable, long drawn-out deaths when the brutal snowy and icy winter comes—if they live that long.

Beautifully written by Allegra Goodman with vivid characters and a jaw-dropping plot, this is a remarkable tale of one woman's resilience, perseverance, courage, and stamina in the most appalling of circumstances. It is an historical fiction page-turner, a gripping, unflinching tale that is haunting and gritty.

This is one of the most imaginative books I have ever read. It's also humorous, thought-provoking, and frightening—sometimes all at once. It is a satire and an allegory embedded with ideas of good and evil, courage and cowardice, as well as the power that art has to not only greatly impact, but also change a society.

Most of all, it's a really, really good story.

But do get ready for a bizarre roller coaster ride of characters, including an assortment of distinctive Russian citizens; Satan and his entourage of a huge black cat and a naked woman, among others; and Pontius Pilate, Jesus, Judas, and Levi Matvei (Matthew). Don't roll your eyes at this list. It's brilliant and it works magnificently. (See Piece of Advice No. 1 below.)

Written by Mikhail Bulgakov, this is actually a novel within a novel. The character known only as the Master has written a novel about Jesus's last days but told through the point of view of Pontius Pilate, and this novel, which has been shunned by the critics much to the Master's chagrin, is interwoven into "The Master and Margarita." (In 1930s Russia in which the novel is set, it was forbidden to practice religion, and those where were open about their Christian beliefs faced grave risks, including imprisonment, forced labor, and death.)

The main story begins in Moscow on the Wednesday before Easter Sunday when two Russian gentleman—Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyryov, a poet, and Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, the chairman of a prestigious literary society—are sitting on a park bench enjoying the unusually warm spring weather. Their peaceful reverie is interrupted by an unexpected and mysterious guest named Professor Woland, who predicts the violent beheading death of Berlioz. Hours later, this is exactly what happens, sending Ivan into a deep state of insanity. Woland, we readers soon realize, is the devil. Satan himself.

Woland and his bizarre and evil entourage then proceed to wreak havoc on Moscow in progressively more bizarre and highly entertaining ways. Meanwhile, the master is falling into a depression over the state of his Pontius Pilate novel, and his illicit lover—the married Margarita—is determined to make this right for him, and with the devil's help she does just that.

As Ellendea Proffer Teasley writes in the commentary, "What happens when an entire culture is forced to deny belief in God—but meets up with the devil in the flesh?"

The portrayal of life in Stalinist Russia in the 1930s is so revealing and daring that the novel, written over a 12-year period from 1928 to 1940, could not be published until 1966-1967 when it was issued serially in a deeply censored version in a Soviet magazine. The full version of the novel as Mikhail Bulgakov wrote it was finally published in 1973. Bulgakov died in 1940 when he was still editing the book; he knew it wouldn't be published until long after his death as it was so subversive and would easily have gotten him arrested.

A Piece of Advice No. 1: Go to Wikipedia and print a list of the characters to have by your side as you are reading the book. As is typical of Russian novels, there are a lot of characters, and it can be tricky keeping in mind who is who. Do beware that this list is so descriptive there are plot spoilers in it. Still, I found it indispensable.

A Piece of Advice No. 2: There are multiple versions/translations of this novel. The one I read was translated into English by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O’Connor with a commentary and afterword by Ellendea Proffer Teasley. The commentary is extensive and extremely helpful. Organized by chapter, it offers important clues and explanations of the text—what is happening and why. Bookmark it and read it along with the novel.

Fun Trivia Fact: In the movie "A Man Called Otto" (based on the Fredrik Backman book "A Man Called Ove"), Otto meets Sonya, the woman who will become his beloved wife, by retrieving a book she dropped on a train platform and then jumping onto the train to return it to her. The book? "The Master and Margarita."

Author Sebastian Junger is an adrenaline junkie. He is seemingly fearless, willingly seeking out and embracing danger. He surfed all by himself in the middle of winter off the coast of New England with no one else in sight. For some 10 years, he covered as a journalist the war in Afghanistan so he could write about the experience of infantry combat—up close and personal. He has traveled to treacherous places most people would never go.

Junger has courted death his whole life and laughed in its face. So at age 58 when he suffered a ruptured aneurysm in his pancreatic artery while he was at home in a deeply isolated area of Massachusetts, he was so close to dying he had a "near-death experience." Junger, an atheist who is the son of an atheist, had to rethink his lifelong beliefs about an afterlife.

It was June 2020 when this happened, and because of the COVID pandemic, Junger and his wife and two very young daughters, had previously escaped to their country house where the landline doesn't work if it rains too much and there is no reliable cell phone service. Just getting an ambulance was an act of heroism and fortitude on his wife's part. Then once the ambulance arrived, it was another hour to the hospital. Because the physicians at first couldn't isolate the source of his massive internal bleeding, most of the medical personnel thought he would die. And he almost did. He says he could feel himself slipping out of his body, and his long-dead father visited him, saying, "It's okay. You don't have to fight it. I'll take care of you. You can come with me."

This relatively short book has two chapters titled "What" and "If." In the first chapter, Junger intersperses the story of his medical trauma with the daring and risky adventures of his life. In the second chapter, he recounts prodigious research into near-death experiences as well as all the scientific evidence he can muster about an afterlife using only rational, cogent, and logical—never religious—arguments.

Is there an afterlife or is it just the brain biologically shutting down in a glorious way? That is the unanswerable question that Junger tackles with deep honesty, reverence, and good humor. And his conclusion—is there life after death?—is a stunning, breathtaking, and mind-bending supposition.

Has Ken Follett jumped the shark on these historical fiction epics he so expertly writes?

His newest novel is about the origins of Stonehenge on England's Salisbury Plain. While it's fascinating, he had to have just made up most of it out of his head since so little is verifiably known about Stonehenge, the construction of which began in 3100 BCE.

Bottom line: It's just not as riveting as his previous books, especially when compared with the Kingsbridge five-novel series that begins with "The Pillars of the Earth." This is a long book at 700 pages, and the actual construction of Stonehenge—moving the first monolithic stone—begins about 75 percent into the story.

Until then, two things happen:
1. Follett populates the novel with people stories of those who lived on and shared this land with each other, including the herders of animals who lived on the Great Plain and the farmers and the woodlanders who lived nearby. Each group has the same type of characters: the smart thinkers, the bullies, and the creative ones. There is a lot infighting in each group and violent battles between the groups. It's the good guys vs. the bad guys over and over and over again. And the bad guys never change.

2. The details of the engineering required to construct Stonehenge is a major part of the novel. (Unless you're an engineer, this can become a bit of a slog.)

The three groups of people—herders, farmers, and woodlanders—come together for several festive days for rites at the Monument to welcome the new seasons, especially the summer solstice, which is their new year. It is a time for honoring the sun god, trading goods, and enjoying a bit of revelry, which involves some extraordinary sexual practices.

Follett creates an interesting and plausible vision of why Stonehenge was needed. A group of priestesses live on the site they call the Monument, which is constructed just like what we know as Stonehenge but out of wood. It is their job to count the days of the year using the Monument as their guide. When the Monument is set on fire (see above: bullies and battles) and is essentially destroyed, the long-held dream of constructing it out of stone is finally begun, a process we know from archaeologists took more than 1,500 years.

While parts of the book are fascinating, too much of it is stilted, convoluted, and tedious. The characters seem one-dimensional, since their life experiences do not result in change or growth. And worst of all, the dialogue is often wooden and monotonous.

That said, there is enough of an interesting story to it that I am giving it four stars. Maybe I went into it expecting too much.

As much as this is a memoir of Dr. Anthony Fauci's life, it is even more so a memoir of infectious diseases over the past 50 years.

Fauci, who became the calm and reasoned medical face of COVID—in a time that was otherwise chaotic, confusing, and terrifying—has far more on his curriculum vitae than COVID. He was just as influential in solving the mysteries of HIV/AIDS, SARS, anthrax, West Nile virus, Ebola, Zika, and any number of worldwide influenza outbreaks, and while these horrible infectious diseases are an integral part of this book, the most interesting section is on COVID.

This is a fascinating and highly readable account of not only this great physician's life in medicine, but also his personal life. Read this book, and you'll meet a Dr. Fauci you never knew. He is a man devoted to public service.

In addition to his commendable clinical skills as an infectious disease physician, Fauci has two other qualities that most likely accounted for his rapid rise within the National Institutes of Health where he became director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): First, he is able to explain in understandable layman's terms even the most complex medical issues. Second, he is courageous enough to speak truth to power—namely every president since Ronald Reagan—all while deftly skirting politics. He won the utmost and undying respect of every administration—Republican and Democrat alike—until Donald J. Trump.

The stories of his experiences of working with Trump, which included Fauci publicly contradicting Trump when the president mangled or outright lied about COVID, and then after Trump left office in 2021 and MAGA devotees repeatedly threatening him and his family are harrowing and horrific. He was the victim of an ugly smear campaign ignited by bizarre and egregious conspiracy theories, including being publicly accused by a U.S. senator that Fauci was personally responsible for the virus that caused COVID.

From his baseball days in the sandlots of Brooklyn to his marathon medals as an adult, from his Catholic elementary school to his medical school and residency, we learn so much about what shaped the man Fauci became. He even digresses to tell his "meet cute" story about his beloved wife, Christine Grady. The book isn't all about medical charts and White House briefings.

My takeaway: We as a nation have been so fortunate to have someone as skilled and truthful as Dr. Fauci looking after us all these decades. I salute you, sir, and thank you for your public service to the United States of America.

Bonus: The story of U2's Bono coming to dinner at Dr. Fauci's Washington, D.C. house is alone worth the price of the book. Bono wanted to discuss with Fauci ideas for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and care in sub-Saharan Africa. Fauci didn't tell his three daughters (then ages 16, 13, and 10) Bono was having dinner with them until the superstar arrived knocking at the door. The girls' reaction is laugh-out-loud funny.

Maybe I just don't get it? That was my initial thought (repeated a lot in my head) when I was reading this short Pulitzer Prize-winning (2022) book by Joshua Cohen.

But then—about one-third of the way through—it came together for me, and (I think) I got it. Or, at least, I started to get it.

Despite the title, this is not really about that famous (infamous?) Israeli family. It's really about a man named Ruben Blum, a professor of history at the bucolic Corbin College, a small liberal arts college in not-quite upstate New York. When Blum is hired on the faculty in the late 1950s, he is the only Jewish professor in the college. And not only that, the Blums—wife Edith, who is a librarian at the college and daughter Judith, a senior at the local high school—are the only Jewish family in town.

It's the very snowy and cold winter of 1959-1960. For various reasons, the Corbin College history department is forced, almost against its will, to hire a new professor, and the man applying for the job is Benzion Netanyahu. Because both men are Jewish, Rube is asked to serve on the hiring committee. During his extensive research of the candidate, Rube discovers some questionable and troubling facts about the man's curriculum vitae.

But the story isn't about Netanyahu's interview (until suddenly it is). It's about Rube, Edith, and Judy and their assimilation into this WASP town where Edith is bored and disconsolate, while Judy is angry at the move and feeling intense parental pressure to achieve and succeed. But when the Netanyahus show up—yes, the entire family, including the three sons (one of whom is Benjamin)—the book takes a humorous turn—as in laugh out loud funny—including a bit of dark comedy. Benzion, an obscure Israeli academic, feels stranded in the United States with no job, a half-finished history book on a topic no one understands or believes is true, a furious wife, and three wild young sons.

The book is a bit pretentious, quite long-winded, and overly verbose at times, making it sometimes feel like a slog. And then it shifts seemingly without warning to become a more compelling and interesting story. And sometimes a funny story. While some of it feels like a family sitcom gone terribly wrong, the novel is also a serious portrayal of modern Jewish history and the establishment of the state of Israel.

And end note: As bizarre and unlikely the premise, it turns out that it's based on a real event when Benzion Netanyahu applied for a job at Yale interviewing with renowned literary critic and humanities professor Harold Bloom. Do take the time when you are finished with the novel to read the "Credits and Extra Credit" for elucidation on how the novel came to be.

This is a story about friendship—the lifelong, abiding friendship that begins in childhood and never ends.

This is a story about art—the kind that speaks to your soul and awakens feelings and passions you never before felt.

This is a story about grief—the kind that squeezes your heart with a dark, dark shadow and won't let go.

Written by Fredrik Backman, this is the story of four childhood friends who form a special bond the summer when they are 14 years old. Each of them has a special gift, and each of them lives with fear and some kind of abuse at home. But the four save each other that summer, and together they try to save one of their own—the one they call "the artist." It is that summer that the artist painted a picture of the sea with his three friends sitting on a pier that launched his stellar career.

The novel begins 25 years after that fateful summer, introducing to the mix an 18-year-old orphan named Louisa. She has always been drawn to the painting the artist created that summer, carrying a postcard of it with her always. A bizarre chance encounter with someone she thought was a penniless homeless man will forever change her life and link her with the four friends as she takes possession of the painting that is now worth a fortune.

While the book is good, it does not reach the level of excellence. In addition to some implausible coincidences that even artistic license is stretching a bit far, Backman drags out the story far too long. His writing style is unique, and it gets old fast when the story slows down as much as it does. While it is a sweet and heartwarming tale of love, loss, and hope, it is also melodramatic and maudlin—a bit over the top.

That said, there are many comforting and wise words about grief and grieving that will likely console anyone who has ever lost someone close…and haven't we all?

In addition, the dedication is superb: To anyone who is young and wants to create something. Do it.

Just a thought: The cover art is weird, almost creepy. It's a shame the publisher didn't try to create the painting that is the centerpiece of the novel.

About a year ago, I realized that all the Pulitzer Prize-winning books I have read are without exception excellent. So even though I was wary about this one—a goon squad?—I trusted that Pulitzer Prize gold medal (it won in 2011) and dove in. I am so glad I did!

Written by Jennifer Egan, this is a compelling, character-driven book with no discernible plot. But don't worry about that! I couldn't stop reading once I started. And that weird goon squad? Well, that is a brilliant metaphor for the inevitable process of aging—of growing old whether you like it or not, whether you fight it or give in and age gracefully.

The novel is structured around more than a dozen characters, who experience the ravages of time, some of whom handle it better than others. Each chapter focuses on one of those characters, bouncing back and forth in time from the 1970s to the 2000s, and in Egan's expert hands this is smooth, effortless, and orderly. In other words, it works brilliantly and isn't the least bit jarring.

The characters, each of whom is richly and deeply depicted, are either directly or loosely connected to one another. Some of them include:
• Sasha, a young woman who constantly steals things for the sheer thrill of it and works as an assistant to record producer Bennie Salazar. She has a checkered, difficult past.

• Bennie, the aforementioned record producer, is going through a midlife crisis, knowing his best days professionally and personally are well behind him.

• Dolly, the single mother of Lulu, is a public relations executive, who is trying to make a comeback. She chooses to do so taking on a general of an unnamed country that is a genocidal dictator. (Think Qaddafi.)

• Kitty Jackson, a beautiful actress.

• Lou Kline, a 1970s-era record producer, who marries three women, has six children, and keeps chasing younger and younger women until the inevitable happens.

Each chapter is told from the point of view of that one character in his or her voice. And each chapter creates a wider and wider circle with Sasha and Bennie at the center, as the characters' relationships to each other shift and develop as the novel progresses. Reading this book is like watching a skipping stone on a lake.

Have you ever heard of "Chekov's gun"? The Russian playwright Anton Chekov once said that if you place a loaded rifle on the set in Act I, it had better be fired by Act III. With that in mind, so many seemingly minor details or asides in the early chapters of this novel turn into full-fledged chapters later. Nothing is mentioned that isn't fully fleshed out later.

Highly imaginative and brilliantly observed, this extraordinary and sophisticated novel is literary fiction at its finest.