City of Light by Lauren Belfer

Buffalo, New York - 1901.  Electricity is stilled viewed as scary magic by some and a possible economic boon by others.  The city is preparing for the Pan American Exposition and there is a environmental controversy brewing about the affect of power generating plants on the free flowing waters of Niagara Falls.  The drama in the story centers around Louisa Barrett.  As head mistress of a well regarded private school for girls, a confirmed spinster, and a significant figure in the intellectual life of the city, Louisa has access to some of the most powerful political and business circles in Buffalo.  But Louisa has secrets to keep - some her own and some of the students she teaches.  The book is 689 pages but there are many different layers to this story - life at the beginning of the 20th century - the role of women - the beginning of the electrical age - so it's a big story to consider and worth the read.

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Jiles is known as a poet and a memoirist and draws on both talents to tell this story of an unlikely friendship in Texas in 1870. Captain Kidd earned his rank in the Civil War but at the age of 70 he earns his living reading the news to small towns around Texas.  When he is asked to return a ten year old girl who was captured by the Kiowa four years earlier, he isn't sure he is up to the long journey from Wichita Falls to San Antonio.  Although there are many adventures along the way, the bigger story is Kidd's understanding of Johanna and the many children like her.  Conventional wisdom then said that they were brutally treated by "savages" but Kidd sees something very different.  Johanna is a clever, free spirit and as they begin to form a bond, Kidd begins to think that returning her to her rigid aunt and uncle might not be what is best.  Jiles did a lot of research on both the times and the real truth of captive children.  The story rings so true and the idea of a time when the news would only be shared by a rich voice bringing news from places the listeners could only imagine sounds so much better then the information overload of today.

a piece of the world by Christina Baker Kline

Almost everyone is familiar with the painting Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth.  A young woman lying in the grass (Is she able to walk?) gazing at an old house in the distance (Is it hers?).  The painting was intended to create thoughts and questions in our minds but there was a real Christina.  A young woman who struggled with physical challenges and life choices.  Wyeth knew her.  She was the inspiration for the painting.  Kline has added fiction to fact to create what that experience might have meant to both of them.  This fictional memoir may not answer all the questions raised by this enigmatic painting but it may change the way you see the woman in it. 

When we were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt

At 16,  Irma Vitale fears there is nothing for her in her small Italian village. But as her mother is dying,  she warns Irma that leaving the village would mean she would die among strangers.  Finally a few years later, Irma knows she must leave so embarks on a late 19th century immigrant journey.  Hoping to locate a brother who left years ago, she makes the hazardous ocean voyage to America with only her seamstress skills to support her. The search for the brother proves hopeless but, starting in the garment industry, she encounters both horror and the kindness of strangers in Cleveland, Chicago and eventually San Francisco where she finds an opportunity to use her intelligence and new found confidence.  Many of the details of this coming-of-age story were researched by the author in the village that Irma left which gives the story an authentic if a little melodramatic feel.  Book club members of a certain age would be able to compare Irma's story with stories told in their own family history.

The Paris Architect: A Novel by Charles Belfoure

It was 1942 and, in Nazi occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard would do anything to get a chance to build the many buildings he imagines.  Soon he finds two clients. One, a powerful member of the Nazi occupation, offers him the chance to help built the new Germany in France.  Lucien only needs to betray his country.  The other offers a great deal of money for Lucien to design secret hiding places in Jewish homes.  If caught, he would be killed.  What motivates a person? Money? Loyalty? That which is right? And what are each of us prepared to sacrifice for any of these?  Many stories of personal choice were a part of this horrible history.  This is one of them.

These is my Words by Nancy Turner

Subtitle: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901  Arizona Territories
This is a work of fiction based on the authors family history.  At age 17, Sarah and her family leave New Mexico in a small wagon train headed to Arizona.  There are Indian raids, births, deaths and romance on the way.  They finally settle in the area around Tucson when Tucson was not much more than a fort and a small town.  Sarah is one tough independent woman and yet her life is still somewhat constrained by the expectations of women of the time.  Some journal entries are just a day or two apart. Other make larger leaps in time but the story is still easy to follow.  Hers was a life of adventure and danger and family life and all very believable.  I wish Turner had shared more of her real family story just for comparison.

Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom

Jamie Pyke was just a minor character in Grissom's earlier novel, The Kitchen House but his struggle is the focus of this one.  A murder on the Tall Oaks plantation forces him to become a runaway slave.  He makes it to Philadelphia with the help of another runaway slave, Henry.  His light color allows him to pass as a white man but it is a secret that has dangerous consequences for Jamie and the forbidden woman he loves.  Years later, after Jamie has become a successful silversmith, Henry asks Jamie to care for his son Pan.  When Pan is captured by slave runners, Jamie feels obligated to return to the south to get Pan back.  His search leads him back to the Tall Oaks area and many of the characters from the earlier novel appear in this story.  You don't need to read TKH first but it might affect how much you care about what happens to the characters in this one.  This book has all the tension and cruelty of the first book with occasional satisfying revenge.  Not sure that I liked Jamie as much as I liked Lavinia and Belle and Sukey in the first novel but it was a worthy almost sequel.

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarity

In 1922, silent film star Louise Brooks was just 15 and dying to leave provincial Wichita behind to dance in NYC.  When an opportunity arose to audition for a major dance company, she jumped at the chance and found herself under the control of  36 year old Cora.  From the very beginning it was clear that controlling Louise would be a difficult task at best but Cora had another reason for leaving her husband for six weeks and making the trip.  Thirty years ago she was one of thousands of abandoned children sent west on the Orphan Train.  Cora hoped to find the mother who had abandoned her.  Louise did get the chance to begin her dance and movie career but Cora's discovery was even more interesting.  When she returned to Wichita, Joseph, the custodian who had aided her search at the orphanage and his daughter were with her.   Both women challenged the mores of the Jazz Age.  Unexpectedly it was Cora who made the greater challenge.  Louise Brooks was a real person and she did begin her career under the care of a chaperone.  To the degree that the rest of this story is fiction, it is a fascinating look at the time and the role of women in it.

The Barber's Wife by Tanya Nichols

Back in the day O.C. Holloway and Charlie Floyd were good friends hanging out in rural Oklahoma.  O.C. learns to be a barber, meets Mayme while she was in nursing school, falls in love and makes a comfortable if not very exciting life in Mayme's hometown.  Charlie becomes "Pretty Boy" Floyd. Although they choose very different paths, they connect again as Charlie and a few other unsavory characters secretly seek help from Mayme for various health issues.  When Mayme is forced to draw Joe, the local doctor, into helping Charlie, the story takes a very different turn.  Joe keeps Mayme's secret because he is secretly in love with her.  So many secrets to keep in rural Oklahoma in the 30's.  So many moral dilemma's - some resolved at the point of a gun. 

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

As a young girl, Alma Belasco is forced to leave Poland at the start of WWII and becomes a part of her wealthy uncle's family in San Francisco.  Ichimei Fukada is the young son of her uncle's gardner.  They become fast friends but are separated when Ichimei and his family are sent to the Topaz camp.
As the title suggests, they meet again but neither has the courage to make their relationship public.  Not much new in that story but Alma's story is not so straight forward which is perhaps why Allende chose to tell it backwards.  We first meet Alma near the end of her life.  She has chosen to live in a quirky retirement home rather than in her opulent family home. She has befriended one of the staff, Irina, who has her own interesting back story.  Irina and Alma's grandson, Seth, are determined to find the reason behind Alma's occasional disappearances and the gifts that arrive unsigned.  And it is through their efforts that all the secrets are revealed.  The characters are likeable and the story surprising in some ways but the writing seemed too spare - too simple a translation maybe - just nothing beautiful.  She has written better.

Belgravia by Julian Fellowes

This was on a list of books to read if you missed Downton Abbey so of course why not go to the master himself.  There was much that was similar - a grand English house or two, family secrets, the rule of class, historical drama - but I realized how much the acting in DA brought the characters to life.  I found the people in this book flat, not fully realized, role players in a common human drama.  The time period is early 19th century, following the war with Napoleon.  The women are manipulative but not yet challenging their role as property.  There is the hint of a rising industrial class but they still all long to be earls or whatever.   Belgravia might make a good period soap opera but only if they found a role for the likes of Maggie Smith.

winter garden by Kristen Hannah

The Witson sisters were raised in a Washington apple orchard, Belle Nochi,  with a father they struggled to please and a mother who always remained a mystery.  Older daughter Meredith stayed behind to work for the family business while Nina traveled the world as a photographer.  But now Dad is dead and the last request he made of his daughters was to get to know their mother.   Anya Witson's story is buried in a fairy tale the girls have heard from early childhood.  As Anya begins to unbury the truth, the girls are forced to rethink almost all they thought they knew about both parents.
As much as I was able to predict the various discoveries, I was not prepared for the ending.

Early Warning by Jane Smiley

The second in her 100 years series, this volume in the story of the Langdon family begins in1953 and ends in 1987.  All the big events - Vietnam, civil rights, assassinations, - all observed through the eyes of various family members - the little people perspective instead of the big headlines.  Even though the book is divided into small yearly chapters, it is sometimes hard to keep track of the generations and theirs relations to one another.  Keep the family tree close by.

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

This is the first of the "hundred years trilogy" of books which follows multiple generations of the Langdon family.  In this book, every chapter is one year beginning in 1920 and ending in the Cold War era of the early 50's.  Walter and Rosanna Langdon have five children and worry about the ups and downs of their farm life in Iowa.  From multiple voices and perspectives we observe a single family dealing with life and death, the introduction of electricity and mechanization, depression, war - all of it.  Every family member contributes to the story - even the very very young.  The new generation doesn't all stay in the farm so a much broader scope of history is shared.  There is no single defining moment of high drama but there are many family issues that any reader would relate to. The title of the second book is Early Warning and the third which ends in the year 2020 is entitled The Golden Age.  Gently written, it is certainly an interesting way to explore the last 96 years and think about the future.

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

In 1922, Eva d'Orsey is only 14 when she becomes a chambermaid in the Warwick Hotel in NYC.  In 1955, Grace Monroe is happily married to an rising member of London's elite until she discovers he is having affair.  The she receives a letter asking her to meet with a lawyer in Paris where she learns that she has inherited a fortune from a woman she has never met - a woman named Eva d'Orsey.  So in alternating chapters, their stories unfold among the mysterious power of fragrances that have the power to change lives.  This was so much fun to read even for someone whose experience with perfume extends to lime scented Dove soap.

The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

In spite of the fact that I went to a Lutheran college l and had many hours of religion, my knowledge of Old Testament history consists mainly of Sunday school stories and Charlton Heston images.  David slew Goliath and became the king.  Oh but there is so much more to the story.  With Nathan (the Biblical seer in David's court) as the narrator, we come to know a very different David.  This is not your Sunday school version.  Lascivious, blood thirsty, devious, cruel - all qualities you hope to find in a great leader anointed by the Name? Well maybe not - there is a lot of confessing and garment renting in the end - shades of Shakespeare's Lear - as David looks back on the decisions he made.  Brooks' earlier novel, People of the Book, is one of the ten books I would want with me on a deserted island.  I'm not sure what she wanted us to take away from this violent tale but I wouldn't feel too badly if I had to use this one to send up smoke signals.

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

From 1933 until 1973, the Eugenics Board of North Carolina, sterilized, with or without permission, over 7000 individuals. Maybe many were like the Ivy of the story. She lives with her increasingly ill grandmother and beautiful but mentally challenged 16 year old sister who does not know that she was sterilized after she gave birth to her son two years ago.  They live in a ramshackle home provided by the owner of the tobacco farm where they live and work.  They rely on the benefits coordinated by Jane, a brand new social worker.  When Jane learns that Ivy is also scheduled for a secret sterilization, a practice she questions, she sets in motion events that quickly spin out of control.  It is a story of class, race and above all choice.  All sides of the issues come to play providing great fodder for discussion.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Eilis is a young Irish immigrant girl who takes advantage of an opportunity for a better life in Brooklyn, NY.  She survives seasickness and homesickness to find love in her new home.  When a family tragedy sends her briefly back to Ireland, she encounters an even bigger challenge.  It's a gentle story that made an easy to watch movie.

Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian

Based on the author's own family history, this contemporary story is, at its heart, a tale of what many term the Armenian genocide of 1914.  No one is surprised when Kemal leaves his very successful Turkish textile business to his grandson Orhan by-passing his shiftless son.  What does surprise everyone is that he has left the family home to a woman the family has never heard of.  Orhan discovers that she is living in California in a home for elderly Armenians.  Their discussions reveal a secret family history that is both tender and tragic.  The chapters alternate between Orhan's contemporary struggle with his father and events at the beginning of the 20th century that gradually become a significant part of his own story.  This is a passionate tale of a part of history of which I was only vaguely aware.

Time and Again by Jack Finney

When a secret government study group explores the possibility that Einstein's theory of time means history is as much a matter of where as it is of when, Si Morley finds himself with the ability to leave his room in the Dakota of 1970 and walk out into the New York City of 1882.  Hoping to solve a family mystery that has haunted his current girlfriend, Si finds himself caught up in political fallout of the Boss Tweed era.  The time travel adventure is kind of cool but the picture of old New York is wonderful for anyone who knows the city.