Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

 First sentence:

"A boy is coming down a flight of stairs."

Description:

"England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor--penniless and bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family's land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down--a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a moving and bitterswet book. I enjoyed learning about Shakespeare's family and their lives during the Black Plague. 

Date read: 2/18/2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4*/5 = great

ISBN-13: 9780525657613
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Year: 2020
# of pages: 305
Binding: Hardcover
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The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

First sentence:

From high up, fifteen thousand feet above, where the aerial photographs are taken, 4121 Wilson Avenue, the address I know best, is a minuscule point, a scab of green.

Description:

"Sarah M. Broom's The Yellow House is a stunning debut memoir about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a neglected New Orleans neighbor hood.

In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother, Ivory Mae, a fiercely determined and recently widowed nineteen-year-old, invested her life savings in a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East. It was the height of the Space Race and the area was home to a major NASA plant. The optimism of post-war America seemed endless. In the Yellow House, Ivory Mae and her second husband, Simon Broom, who would be Sarah's father, built domestic tranquility one wobbly renovation at a time, their dreams perpetually under construction. The family would eventually number twelve children. When Simon died, six months after Sarah's birth, the Yellow House became Ivory Mae's thirteenth and most unruly child.

A brilliant interweaving of reporting, archival research, and gorgeously rendered family lore, The Yellow House tells the story of a mother's struggle against a house's entropy and that of a daughter who left home only to be continually pulled back, even after the house was wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a very moving book about a family doing their best in New Orleans East - a place of promise that was sadly neglected and destroyed by bureaucracy and Hurricane Katrina. Sarah's journey both geographically and emotionally was moving and though provoking. It gave me a new appreciation of  that one can't simply look at a place and truly understand the breadth and depth of people's lives there.

Date read: 8/9/2021
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3*/5

ISBN-13: 9780802125088
Publisher: Grove Press
Year: 2019
# of pages: 372
Binding: Hardcover
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Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

First sentence:

"Sound struggled to make its way through the thick synth-amneo fluid."

Description:

It's not common to wake up in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood.

Maria Arena has been cloned before. But never like this. Usually when she awakens in a new body, her first memory is of how she died. This time, she has no idea. Her memories are incomplete.

And Maria isn't the only one to have died recently. . ." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book about space travel, clones, memories, and what makes someone themselves. If one has memories of other selves which one is the real one? How do you know if you did something you didn't want to do?  I've listened to Mur's podcasts for many years, especially I should be writing. although I'm not a writer myself. I learned a lot about writing and achieving goals and I look forward to more from this author to read and enjoy.

Date read: 7/24/2021
Genre: SF
Rating: 3*/5

ISBN-10: 0316389684 
ISBN-13: 9780316389686
Publisher: Orbit
Year: 2017
# of pages: 361
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Blink: the power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

 First sentence:

"In September of 1983, an art dealer by the name of Gianfranco Becchina approached the J. Paul Getty Museum in California."

Description:

"Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology to reveal that the difference between good decision-making and bad has less to do with how much information we process than with our ability to focus on a few particular details. Gladwell shows how we can all be better decision makers -- in our homes, in our offices, and in everyday life." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

Fascinating book about how we observe the world - often without conscious thought and how it's important to step back and understand what's happening. 

Date read: 4/29/2021
Genre: Nonfiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0316010669
ISBN-13: 9780316010665
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company: Back Bay Books
Year:  2005; 2007 (this edition)
# of pages: 276
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

 First sentence:

"Marsh is not swamp."

Description:

"For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl.

But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdad Sings is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book about Kya, a girl, and later a young woman, who survives on her own in the marsh and amongst the people in town. The writing was very descriptive and the story drew me in.

Date read: 11/17/2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0735219095 
ISBN-13: 9780735219090
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Books
Year: 2018
# of pages: 368
Binding: Hardcover
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Foop! by Chris Genoa

 

First sentence:

"I've always thought that the existence of Abraham Lincoln provided conclusive visual evidence that humans are descended from apes."

Description:

"There are strange happenings going on at Dactyl, Inc., the world's first and only time travel tourism company. So strange that Joe, a tour guide, is promoted to the new position of Chief of Probes. His first probe: find out who's been traveling back in time and torturing his boss in rather disturbing ways.

Joe finds himself catapulted from his dull life into a surreal journey where a blind hog-tying monkey is one of the sanest creatures he meets. Traveling through a past where the only thing that changes the present is death, while dealing with the fabric of space-time slowly unraveling. Joe stumbles into the middle of events that threaten both the Earth's future and past." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this weird and sometime confusing book about time travel, talking monkeys and tourism. I liked Joe's attempts to make sense of what's happening and his trying to figure out why two men, whom he calls Boogedy and Nibbles, keep appearing everywhere he goes.

Date read: 5/15/2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5

ISBN-10: 0972959890
ISBN-13: 9780972959896
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Year: 2005
# of pages: 293
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Fledgling by Octavia Butler

First sentence:

"I awoke to darkness"

Description:

"Shori is a mystery. Found alone in the woods, she appears to be a little black girl with traumatic amnesia and near-fatal wounds. But Shori is a fifty-three-year-old vampire with a ravenous hunger for blood, the lost child of an ancient species of near-immortals who live in dark symbiosis with humanity. Genetically modified to be able to walk in daylight, Shori now becomes the target of a vast plot to destroy her and her kind. And in the final apocalyptic battle, her survival will depend on whether all humans are bigots--or all bigots are human." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This is a very compelling book. I liked how Shori learns about herself and her place in her world.

Date read: August 22, 2019
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10:
ISBN-13:  9780446696166
Publisher: Grand Central
Year: 2005
# of pages: 310
Binding:Trade Paperback
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