Shirley by Shirley Jones

I was intrigued by this book after it was mentioned on a very humorous segment of Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me.  I never watched the Partridge Family but I was  familiar with her role as Marian the Librarian and other "good girl" movie roles.  The surprise in the book is that the good girl image was just really good acting by a highly sexual being.  So it's a little People Magazine, a little 50 Shades of Grey and altogether forgettable.  I was glad that I bought it from Second Hand Prose and at least the money went to the library.

Brave Companions by David McCullough

This is a collection of biographical essays about people who you probably know but were just as likely to be missing from your history textbooks: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alexander von Humbolt, Frederick Remington - 17 in all.  The writing is just so intelligent, the stories so personal.  In the end, he makes that argument that it is individuals like these that have made this country a unique place with a special history.  McCullough is a clear, important voice for what is worth knowing about the American story and this is an exceptionally accessible part of that story.

Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

To escape the Jim Crow South, thousands of African Americans left for the cities of the north and west.  It was a migration from one world to another and changed both the life style of the South and the look of cities in the North.  Wilkerson follows the life of three of these individuals: Ida Mae left the cotton fields of Mississippi in the 1930's for Chicago, George left the orange groves of Florida in the 40's to escape possible death for his role as a labor organizer, and Robert, a trained physician and a member of the black elite of Louisiana and Atlanta, still dreamed of real freedom beyond Jim Crow in L.A. in the 50's.  Their stories are interspersed with a more general history of the times and events.  It is powerful, passionate, troubling writing and definitely worth reading all 700+ pages.

The House at Otowi Bridge by Peggy Pond Church

The sub title of this book is The Story of Edith Warner and Los Alamos.  How often does someone take the time to tell the story of a simple person who plays an unassuming role in an exceptional place and time?  Church pays homage to Warner and to the Native Americans of San Ildefonso.  Warner came to the southwest for health reasons and built a simple house in the 1930's that proved to be a refuge for both the Native Americans she befriended and scientists working away on a secret project in the desert.  She knew the famous potter Maria Martinez but had no idea that the men she served at her dining table were named Oppenheimer and Bohr or that they were about to change the world.  The story of her life is as gently shared as the life she lived.

Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu

Dominique was a member of the 1996 women's gymnastics "Magnificent Seven".  During the last Olympics, I heard an interview about how difficult that road to the gold could be.  As challenging as the beams and bars look, it turns out the tumbling may not be the hardest part of the process.  Like many little girls Dominique dreamed of being just like Nadia Comaneci.  Her training under the Karolyis turned out to be the road to this dream and its undoing.  Her controlling father and sense of isolation resulted in the unraveling of the things her success should have provided.  I love watching the Olympics but wish that being an outstanding athlete didn't always carry so much damaging baggage.

Meet You in Hell by Les Standiford

At the turn of the century, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick used the steel industry to become two of the wealthiest men in the world.  Robber barons and philanthropists, their partnership began to unravel during the Homestead strike in 1892.  As someone born into a steel worker's family in Homestead , their story has often fascinated me.  It leads one to wonder if the wealthy can do enough good in the world to compensate for the evil done in the name of gaining that wealth.  In this telling, Carnegie comes off as the more repentant but no less greedy of the pair.  The title comes from the words Frick supposedly spoke when he refused to meet Carnegie as the latter was dying.  One can only hope that that is exactly where they are waiting for the current group of twenty-first century robber barons.

I am Nujood, age 10 and divorced by Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui

I have been fascinated by this story since I saw reference to it in an article in National Geographic. Nujood's brave story is simply told in a just the facts manner. Married at age 10 to a man thirty years older than she, she is raped and physically abused. Gathering amazing strength during a visit to her family, she finds her way to a courthouse, seeks out a judge and demands a divorce. Her case is taken up by a female lawyer and a sympathetic male judge. The clash of the traditional culture and modern Yemen is shared in Nujood story and that of other members of her family. When you think of the adult women in our own culture who hesitate to stand up to abuse, it is almost impossible to imagine the courage of this little girl.

Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields

Shields describes this as a portrait of Harper Lee - not a biography. This is largely due to the fact that Lee has refused to do any interviews for years. Instead he has explored the worlds she inhabited (Monroeville, Alabama and NYC) and the people she knew, both friends and acquaintances, to create the life she was likely to have lived. Her relationship with Truman Capote is explored as are possible reasons that there was never a second book. In the end all the reader really knows is that she is an independent minded, shy person who never got over the surprise of writing what many consider to be the perfect novel.