The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

If you liked Tartt's The Secret History, you'll love this. It's just as immersive, and as Dickensian, as ever, and Tartt does a masterful job of weaving deatils and cognition into everything. It's a long book, with sentences built on reflections, and some sentences spanning a page or more. I didn't read this book so much as I inhabited it, or, more accurately, let it inhabit me. 

This is another round of David Copperfield, and while the original tale came from England, we in the States seem to eat it up mightily, perhaps becuase twenty-first cetury America is so neat a parallel to nineteenth century England. 

The power of found family, the power of the truth, and the power of being seen ring through with authenticity and brilliance. Ultimately the power of a life of substance holds the key to the whole novel, and Tartt couldn't have chosen a better painting on which to hang her tale.

James by Percival Everett

This retelling of Tom Saywer and Huckleberry Finn from the points of view of Jim, who becomes James, is as satisfying as I could have wanted. Definitely recommended.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

The Premise of The Lost Apothecary is lovely. Penner doesn’t realize the potential of the parallels in any spectacular fashion, and the voice work—especially of the modern day narrator—is particularly thin. Nonetheless, it is a serviceable airplane book. 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Despite this being recommended to me in a thousand ways, I avoided reading it until it got the resounding endorsement from a band-family member. 

I was hooked by the end of the first chapter.

This is wonderful. Don't miss out on one of the best books in decades.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

I received The Alice Network as a Valentine's Day gift from Geo, part of a pair of wrapped up Blind Date With A Book selections. I was intrigued by the description of "Queen of Spies" and WWI/WWII, and the first chapter had me hooked.

This is a beautifully rendered novel. The sotry that Quinn overlays onto the history is everything you want in found family and self-discovery. I don't even mind the happy ending. 

The backdrop of WWI and the Alice Network is just riveting.Quinn gives voice and shape to the past in a way that feels true, never schmaltzy or pat. The details of history are revealed with care and precision; I swear I could feel the texture of the prison robes, or smell the coffee wafting up in the cafe.

This novel introduced me to the concept of a morally questionable hat, and now I must own one.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Much has been made of Hamnet, including a movie that is out just now. I haven’t seen the film (yet; I might catch it on streaming eventually), and I purchased an electronic copy after a band-parent friend raved about it (while we watched the football game) in 2022. It languished on my kindle since then, and made for a perfect selection as I work through my e-book backlog.

I don’t think I would rate it as highly as my band-parent friend did—I am certainly not raving about it or anything—but I thoroughly enjoyed O’Farrell’s imaginings. She is excellent at taking a small detail and teasing it out into a process, a whole series of sensations and interwoven events that coalesce into a single moment. 

It’s a good story, well told, and love and loss, family and the ties that bind (and gag) are the core elements, here. It’s a very introspective story and I can’t imagine how the elements that make this novel work so well could possibly translate to the silver screen. I liked this immersion into sixteenth century daily life, and into the very personal and intimate ways in which our characters navigate daily life, love, loss, and being who they are.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Life After Life unfolds like origami, shaping and reshaping along unseen lines of small decisions—chasing a dog, talking with a stranger, spending an afternoon in a field—exploring all the many ways that a life is constructed. I loved this, of course. 

In the end, what matters most in being true to ourselves and to the relationships that ground us, hold us, shape who and what we are in the world. Beautifully rendered.