Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Someone suggested this book as an insight into "red" America.  Born into a hillbilly culture and raised in the Rust belt by a single, often drug dependent mom and multiple father figures, Vance's Mamaw and Papaw where his strange but consistent source of security.  But he got out.  Now a happily married Yale Law School graduate, he looks back at how he got out.  What were the road blocks?  What things provided a way up and out?  Given my introduction to the book, I expected some blame to be placed securely at the feet of he government.  Not so. Vance examines ACEs - adverse childhood experiences - as the greatest barrier.  Actual abuse and neglect are easy to identify as ACEs but it is the lack of family support, all the constant reminders that you are part of a loser culture that are just as devastating.  It was not knowing what fork to use or when a suit was required that got in the way of his climb out.  It is a reminder that we need to acknowledge our own history and focus on the changes required for a different future - the changes we must make for ourselves.  Not sure how "red" America sees his own personal rise. 

Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl

This is the second memoir written by Reichl and I thought this one was much more personal than Tender at the Bone.  In 1978,  Reichl was a young married woman sharing a house with her artist husband and a bunch of other struggling young professionals in Berkley.  She had decided to leave her career as a chef to embark on a career as a restaurant critic.  Despite a number of hilarious failed attempts in the beginning, she eventually makes the connections necessary to be taken seriously.  There are affairs along the way, trips to Paris and lots and lots of food (some recipes included).  As delightful and humorous as her professional journey was, her personal life was unraveling with some moments of great sadness.  Still her writing is worthy of an editor at Gourmet and always optimistic at the heart.

Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller

While I thoroughly enjoyed the first two of her memoirs, this one is exceptionally well written.  Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight was about her childhood as a British expat living on various farms in southern Africa. In Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness she explores some of the same territory but from the perspective of her mentally unstable mother.  This book is Alexandra the grown up, who marries an American whom she believes will save her from the chaos of her African life.  But then, maybe all that civilization, even in the wild west of Wyoming, is not what it is cracked up to be.  This is an even more introspective examination of not just her life but any life caught between two worlds.  She also explores the effect of place on who we are.  There are many of her philosophical musings that would be great fodder for discussion or just to pause and consider on your own.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

In 1983 Stevenson went from Harvard Law School to Georgia to intern with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee.  He found a lot to horrify him in the prisons but when he began to talk to the prisoners on death row who had been so poorly defended in court and were likely to be put to death for crimes they did not commit, he knew where his law degree would lead him.  This is the story of many of those prisoners and Stevenson's attempt to fine justice for them.  It is the story of blatant racism and hidden corruption in the court system.  The combination of statistics and stories is enough to anger anyone but it is the rare person who channels that anger into a way to make a difference. Stevenson is that person who continues his work within the Equal Justice Initiative he founded.  This is the kind of change we need.

Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin

For those of you who have long been fans of Goodwin's historical writing, this is a treat.  Lovers of baseball - this is treat.  Folks who grew up in the 50's - this is a treat. For any baseball fan who waited patiently for "next year" - this is a treat.  It is a wonderful memoir of a young girl who loves baseball and shares that love with her father.  The picture of her suburban New York neighborhood (divided in their baseball loyalties), the stories of her Catholic upbringing (with its complicated idea of sin) and her struggle to understand her mother are both funny and poignant. Just simply a treat.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

This memoir is on everyone's Best of 2015 list and has won numerous awards. I couldn't imagine why.  Macdonald is a writer and naturalist at Cambridge University. As a child, she became fascinated with falconry which set her apart from most of her peers.  Her father was her primary supporter for her unusual preference.  When he dies, the floor falls out of her life.  She fights her way back by training a goshawk named Mabel.  During her training she returns to a book about falconry by T.H. White (the Arthurian author) which she had read as a child.  She sees many parallels between  White's struggles with isolation and her own.  None of this is of any interest to me but I was drawn into this book by the language and the insightful connections between the two lives and the falcons.  Unusual and oddly excellent.

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

This memoir was first published in 1933 after Brittain was already an established author.  Based on her extensive diaries, she shares her experiences and observations of life during WWI.  As a member of the England's rising middle class, she looked forward to her years at Oxford.  She adored her older brother and his lively, intelligent group of friends, one of whom became her fiance. The war took it all away.  She left the university to serve as a nurse in the war where she contemplates the futility of it all on one hand and the idea of heroism on the other. Following the war, she rebuilds her life as a student, an author, a feminist, a pacifist and a speaker for the League of Nations.  She struggles with the notion that moving forward might make less of the people and memories left behind.  It has remained in print all these years because readers consider it the best window into the life of that generation - particularly the women - and what was lost by the war.  There a little bit more about the British educational system (begin on page 164 to skip the details) then I needed but interesting otherwise.  I haven't seen the movie but I fear a romanticized version of what was really a desperate time.

Can't we talk about something more pleasant by Roz Chast

Chast, whose cartoons have appeared in the New Yorker, uses the graphic novel format to share a memoir about the final years of her parents' lives.  With great honesty and a fair amount of sarcasm, she tries to resolve her need to care for them now with her need to escape their kind of life when she was younger.  This is not a tender, End of Life Book Club, memoir.  There is conflict.  There is resentment.  Some things are resolved.  Some are not. Lots to think and talk about.

The Mockingbird Next Door by Marja Mills

As believable and as unlikely as this story is, it has become even more controversial following the disclosure of another possible novel by Harper Lee.  When Chicago decides to make To Kill a Mockingbird its city wide read in 2001, Mills, as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, travels to Monroeville, Alabama to gather background information never dreaming that she would actually get a chance to speak to the reclusive Harper Lee.  She takes a chance and knocks in the door of the Lee house where she is greeted by Harper's (known as Nell in her hometown) ninety year old sister Alice on a break from her law office where she still practices. The right time? - the right attitude?- for whatever reason, she is invited in.  It turns out to be the beginning of a two year friendship with Mills eventually moving into the house next door.  Mills is suffering from lupus and maybe it is this shared fragility that invites the confidences of the hard of hearing Lee sisters.  Maybe Mills got it right and Alice thinks that it is time to "set the story straight" about the rumors of Nell's connection to Truman Capote, about why there was never a second novel, about many things.  Maybe the whole friend next door story isn't exactly as Mills tells it.  Fourteen years later, Alice is gone, Harper Lee can see and hear even less than she could in 2001 and maybe there is a second novel.  It seems that by providing this window into Lee's reclusive life, Mill has created even more mystery.

God's Hotel by Victoria Sweet

In the late 1980's Dr. Victoria Sweet took a temporary position at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco.  She stayed for 20 years.  This book is the story of her time at the hospital and it's unusual care.  Based on the medieval idea of the Hotel-Dieu where doctors practiced "slow medicine" and patients experienced extended stays and personalized care, it essentially served as an almshouse for many of San Francisco's poorest citizens who were housed in its 36 bed wards.   It is also a story of Sweet's research into Hildegard von Bingen who practiced medicine as a nun in the 1100's  as well as Sweet's own personal journey as a physician.  There is also a lot to think about regarding the current state of health care as she describes the changes at Laguna Honda through the stories of individuals that worked there and the patients they cared for.  In fact, for me, it was  about too many things - thought provoking but missing a focus.  It did however make me very interested in learning more about Hildegard.

Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

In her twenties, Cahalan was looking at a promising career as a journalist for the New York Post.  The possible undoing of that future began with a seizure. Then an inability to finish an assignment.  Then it was full blown paranoia.  Something was wrong.  Was she crazy?  All the brain tests seemed to indicate no problem with her brain.  Then one doctor decides to look outside the traditional medical boxes and identifies the rare condition of anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis.  But knowing what is wrong is just the beginning of a much longer journey in her "month of madness. 

Ake:the years of childhood by Wole Soyinke

Wole Soyinke, a Nigerian poet and playwright, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986 - the first African to do so.  This is very young Wole as the brilliant, sensitive observer of Yoruba life in his Nigerian town of Abeokuta.  Although he came from an educated family, he was not immune to the comings and goings of village life.  There are tragic moments in this story but this is a life filled with the joy of discovery as Wole strives to make sense of a world we can only understand from afar.  The importance of family, the love of learning, and the respect for tradition are the lenses Wole uses to help us understand life in "Ake".

The Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Those of you who watched the first season on PBS will recognize most of the stories in this memoir.  The TV version made more of the romantic story line but softened the abject poverty of the 1950's well detailed in the book.  One thing I never really thought much about was how devastated London was in WWII and the consequences that had on housing not to mention the fatherless families left behind.  Chummy is just as delightful in the book version as is Sister Monica Joan.  Even the familiar parts were fun to read.

End of Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

When Schwalbe's mother is diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, he decides they will spend their chemo / hospital hours doing what they have always loved to do - talk about books - a book club of two.  This is a sad story at its core but this is an amazing family - well traveled, educated, and all about philanthropy. His mother, Mary Ann, might be dying but she is all about living to the fullest and continues to pursue her campaign to build a library in Afghanistan to the end.  Their selection of books is both personal and familiar.  There were so many titles I had read and couldn't help imagining sharing in their conversation.  At the very least it is a grand blue print for one way to end one's life.  At the very most it is a great example of how to live it.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller

Fuller first introduced us to her family in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.  This time the story revolves around her mother, Nicola.  Both delightfully witty and profoundly sad, this is the story of a couple in love with Africa with all it's challenges, it's dangers and it's breath-taking beauty - an Africa which took hold of their very heart and soul.  It covers the time period from Nicola's grandparent's colonial experience in Africa in the 40's through the tragic struggle  toward independence on to her parent's current life in Zambia.  Although her mother expresses "anger" that Fuller has written that "Awful Book", she has always dreamed of living a life worthy of a novel.  I would say she succeeded. That Nicola's daughter has put such a funny, joyous spin on such a difficult life is even better.  These are definitely people I would love to know.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen

As Quindlen stares 60 in the eye, she ponders the life she has lived.  I am not sure there is anything particularly new in any of her life insights but there is something on almost every page that will feel familiar and sometimes wise.  I am sure they will be multiple jumping off points for self reflection and book group sharing.  There are references to some dark times in her life but her husband and children are all goodness and light.  There doesn't seem to be much in her own life that would have inspired some of the dark, dark novels she has written but the quality of writing is the just as engaging.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Given the topic of the book, it almost seems arrogant to criticize it but...  There is no question that the story of Louis Zamperini's transition from troubled teen to Olympic champion to prisoner of war to returning war hero is moving.  The struggles he and his fellow POW's had to overcome were hard to read let alone imagine actually experiencing.  I just found myself rushing through sections that seemed like more of an awful sameness.  I would be interested to know how someone who didn't learn about the horrors of war from the security of their reading chair would feel about his story.

The Secret Gift by Ted Gup

I wanted to love this book more.  I found it fascinating, then inspiring, then tedious, then depressing.  I wish it had worked in the opposite order.  The author was presented with a family suitcase full of 1933 newspaper clippings and letters from people in Canton, Ohio written to a mysterious B. Verdot.  In the midst of the Depression, Verdot placed an ad in the paper offering to send $10 to 70 people who would send a letter of request.  It turns out that Verdot was Gup's grandfather whose identity had remained secret until Gup began the research for his book.  Woven amongst the stories of the people who received these gifts so long ago is the story of Grandfather Stone who began life as a Ukrainian Jew named Finklestein and became the wealthy owner of a clothing store in Canton, Ohio.  Even though the Depression and nasty family members all but eliminated his wealth, he still felt compelled to help.  In the end his gift bought shoes or coal or small gifts for Christmas.  In most cases the effects of the Depression lasted far into the future - for Canton as well as its citizens.  I was glad I read it and it inspired great experience sharing discussion in my book group but I am left with an unclear "so what do I do now" feeling.

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

This fascinating memoir shares the story of five generations through the journey of a collection of Japanese netsuke.  The collection of small exquisitely carved objects is purchased in the late 1800's when the Ephrussi family holds wealthy banking interests in Paris and Vienna.  The family story is rich in art and politics of the time. The period of WWll is the most tragic while a postwar discovery the most heroic.  One of my favorite parts was when I got to the last word of the acknowledgements (who reads these?) but you will have to read the book to know why.

The Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

Hilarious!!! For anybody whose childhood was spent in the fifties, you only wish you could tell your story like this. Full of delightful details and oh so funny stories about characters just like the ones that sat behind you in school or shared forbidden sweet sugary treats on warm summer nights - even if you grew up somewhere other than Des Moines, Iowa. Equally fascinating is the way he weaves political observations, social phenomena, and economic insight into his families adventures and misadventures. And did I mention it is laugh out loud funny.