Fiction
Black List: A Thriller
Blessings by Anna Quindlen. “…low-brow but is engaging and has big themes.” Amazon: This powerful new novel by the bestselling author of Black and Blue, One True Thing, Object Lessons, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life begins when a teenage couple drives up, late at night, headlights out, to Blessings, the estate owned by Lydia Blessing. They leave a box and drive away, and in this instant, the world of Blessings is changed forever. Richly written, deeply moving, beautifully crafted, Blessings tells the story of Skip Cuddy, caretaker of the estate, who finds a baby asleep in that box and decides he wants to keep her, and of matriarch Lydia Blessing, who, for her own reasons, decides to help him.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. A story within a story within a story of two privileged girls raised by a distant single father. The book opens as one of the girls commits suicide in 1945 but leaves behind a novel, which becomes famous, about lovers who write a story of a blind assassin on a distant planet. Her sister recounts their lives and explains the family history and tragedies since her sister’s death, her chapters intertwined with chapters from the novel. Reality and fiction come together in the end.
Blindness by Jose Saramago. A description from Amazon: "In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind….Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness…So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege…"
Blood and Beauty: The Borgias by Sarah Dunant. “Despite the frothy title, this is actually a beautifully written and researched novel of the notorious Borgia family in 15th century Rome. The characters are so vividly sketched that it reminded me of of Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy ("Wolf Hall," etc.) Definitely superior to Dunant's earlier novels set in Florence. And the best news: Dunant says a sequel is coming soon.”
The Bloodletter's Daughter by Linda Lafferty - This is a historical fiction novel set in the 1600's in Austria that was inspired by a real-life murder that threatened to end the Hapsburg Dynasty. It follows King Rudolf's illegitimate son, Don Julius and his descent into madness and obsession with the daughter of the town barber/bloodletter. This book utterly fascinated me. It is dark, definitely depraved at times, but not without hope and redemption.
Body and Soul by Frank Conroy. "Unusual subject matter (story of a piano prodigy growing up poor in NYC and how his talent sets his life in various different directions) but very compelling -- a good read."
Body of Liesby David Ignatius. "No, not another book bashing the Bush Administration, but a post-9/11 spy thriller novel by the Washington Post columnist that many of us know and read." Roger Ferris is one of the CIA's soldiers in the war on terrorism. He has come out of Iraq with a shattered leg and an intense mission—to penetrate the network of a master terrorist known only as "Suleiman." Ferris's plan for getting inside Suleiman's tent is inspired by a masterpiece of British intelligence during World War II: He prepares a body of lies, literally the corpse of an imaginary CIA officer who appears to have accomplished the impossible by recruiting an agent within the enemy's ranks.
Bolero (A Nick Sayler Novel)
The Bolter
The Bone Peopleby Keri Hulme (Barnard Book Club). “In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor—a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon's feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality. Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge. Winner of both a Booker Prize and Pegasus Prize for Literature, The Bone People is a work of unfettered wordplay and mesmerizing emotional complexity."
The Book of Tomorrow: A Novel by Cecelia Ahern. “A spoiled city girl whose father commits suicide is forced to live with her strange aunt and uncle in the country. While there, she finds a book that appears to be her diary, and all the entries are for tomorrow.Once she knows what the next day will bring, she can try to change the future and learn from it. She discovers that she has a mysterious past in the rural community that many are trying to keep from her.Not great literature, but a fun read.”
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez. “When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.The Book of Unknown Americans is a stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American.”
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. “A quick read, but a very intense story about the 2nd world war. Told from the point of view of death.” "The most elegantly written, 'takes you to the depths of life,' book I have read in years."
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman. What a droll, charming, delightful book. Nina Hill lives a quiet life in LA - a life full of books and trivia - until one day everything she thought about herself changes when she finds her birth father. Who has died, but the family is a hoot. If you liked Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, you will love Nina Hill. Perfect for those of us who love books, love pop culture, love love. Will be released July 9, 2019
The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan. British chick lit > American chick lit, because it’s British so sounds less rubbishy. A young woman loses her beloved job as a librarian in Birmingham. She moves to a small village, buys a van and transforms it into a bookstore, a new (mobile) venue for her talent of matching people with books. Lots of Small Town Stuff happens. And, of course, romance happens, too. Colgan’s other titles include Meet Me At The Cupcake Café, Little Beach Street Bakery and the Rosie Hopkins Sweetshop series.
The Boy I Loved Before by Jenny Colgan. "Like all Jenny Colgan novels, there is a formula that is somewhat predictable, but nonetheless engaging. Imagine getting to go back in time to age 16 to make some different choices in life. Now, read a book about a character who gets to do just that. Cheesy in some spots, this is a quick read that I really enjoyed."
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. "I read it recently and found it fascinating. you would perhaps, like me, see echoes of our endless quest for amelioration (a school in Arizona where it is illegal to touch another student?!) in this hyper-controlled, slave-like society." Powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations. Brave New World remains absolutely relevant to this day as both a cautionary dystopian tale in the vein of the George Orwell classic 1984, and as thought-provoking, thoroughly satisfying entertainment.
Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd. "Everyone in my book club was crazy about it. The description doesn’t do it justice, as it’s a really compelling read…"
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. From Amazon: "Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love."