The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

What a sweet, lovely, uplifting novel! Playwright Rachel Joyce gives us Harold Fry, a retired salesman in a small town in England whose life is just the same day over and over. He and his wife, Maureen, barely speak, and in fact Harold rarely leaves the house - or even his chair it seems. Then one day a letter arrives - his old friend Queenie Hennessey, whom he hasn't seen in 20 years, is dying of cancer. So Harold decides to write Queenie a note.

But then something happens to Harold. Walking from the house to the post box, he keeps going, and he even goes past the post office... he just keeps walking. At some point he decides he is going to walk across England to see Queenie in person, and he adds a line to the note asking her to wait. He doesn't have the right shoes or equipment, in fact he hasn't walked further than the driveway in years, but he's walking across England for someone he hasn't seen in 20 years.

Along the way Harold meets some interesting people, but he also meets the man he used to be, as well as the man he would like to be. And he comes to terms with the parts of his life that have made him who he is, and shaped the relationship he has shared with Maureen for much of their married life.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Gone Girl

I'm not usually into suspense or psychological thrillers, but I just could not put this book down! Thanks to Rita for the recommendation - and it's been on the best seller list for awhile, too.

On the morning of Amy and Nick Dunne's five-year wedding anniversary, Amy disappears. Nick's called home from work to find the front door open, and signs of a struggle in the living room. The first section of the novel - told by turns from Nick's point-of-view and from pages in Amy's journal - gradually points everyone - including the cops - toward thinking that Nick killed his wife and dumped her body somewhere. But there's no body.... and then we get to the second part of the novel.

I don't want to give anything away, so I won't say anymore about the plot. The story is very cunning - usually I'm good at figuring stories like this out, but the author, Gillian Flynn, really had me going. And her characters are so clever - imperfect yet likeable, charismatic, quirky, and unsettling. And this is a psychological thriller in the truest sense, a real study in what makes people who they are and how their minds work.

My only disappointment was the ending. I wanted vengeance, and I didn't get it. But I still highly recommend this book, it's just fabulous.

Gone Girl

Dragonfly in Amber

This is the second book in the Outlander series (Outlander being the first), and IT ROCKED!! In the first book, Claire Randall went back in time from 1948 to 1745ish, and ran into Scotsman Jamie Fraser and all sorts of fun Highland adventures with Jacobites, Bonny Prince Charlie, and those folks. This novel starts in 1968, when Claire has returned to Scotland for the first time in 20 years with her 19-year-old daughter Brianna.

Claire has decided she needs to tell Brianna who her biological father is, and how she came into being, so the biggest chunk of this very long novel is Claire telling the further story of her adventures with Jamie in Scotland and France from 1745 to 1748 or so. The other story line is in present day (1968) Scotland, with Roger Wakefield helping Claire find out what happened to the folks she knew back in the 18th century, and showing Brianna all the local sights.

Diana Gabaldon has obviously done a lot of studying of her British history, so there is a ton of great historical detail. And the story just runs away - I couldn't put the book down, and though it's a long one I got through it fairly quickly. And the characters are great, and there are some neat little twists too. I just put the third book on hold at the library - can't wait!

Dragonfly in Amber

Dreams of Joy

WOW! I could not put this book down. I read Lisa See's Shanghai Girls a couple of years ago, and this novel starts where that one left off - when 19-year-old Joy learns that Pearl is not her birth mother, but Auntie May is, and that May gave her to her sister to raise after they fled China twenty years before.

It's now 1957, and Joy is an idealistic college student who thinks socialism sounds just great, and that Chairman Mao is a wonderful guy. So she leaves her family in Los Angele's Chinatown and runs off to Shanghai, in search of her birth father and a "better" life. When Pearl learns where she's gone, she heads to China after her, in hopes of bringing her home before it's too late. Soon both Joy and Pearl are caught up in Mao's Great Leap Forward, and not in a good way.

This isn't a pretty story, and See doesn't shy from the nastier details of life in the PRC. But it is a beautifully told story, and both Joy and Pearl grow and learn through their experiences. It's a really great read.

Dreams of Joy

The Dressmaker

This is a wonderful novel whose main character is Tess Collins, a young British woman who survives the sinking of the Titanic and finds herself having to learn a whole new life in a whole new world. Tess is a wonderful character, and she's surrounded by an interesting group of both historical and fictional personages.

Tess is working as a maid, but her true love and skill lie in dressmaking, and she siezes an opportunity to sail to America with the renowned British designer Lucille Duff Gordon. While on the ship she meets and takes a liking to two very different men: crew member Jim Bonney, and American millionaire Jack Bremerton. Although separated in the sinking, Jim and Tess find each other on the rescue ship, though she fears Jack went town on Titanic.

Worse though, is that Lady Duff Gordon and her husband were on what's being called the "millionaire's lifeboat," and one of the crew on that boat says they were bribed by the Gordons to ignore the screams of people in the water and leave them behind - or worse. New York Times reporter Pinky Wade is all over the story, and Tess is unsure if she's found a friend or if Pinky just views her as a source.

Through it all, Tess learns that she is strong, and that she can make something of herself. And we get a really great story. I honestly couldn't put it down.

The Dressmaker

Non-Recommendations

I've started and put down a couple of books recently, and I think it's only fair that I blather about them a little bit.

First is Agaat, a novel set in South Africa that got a ton of great reviews. I just couldn't get into it. It's a translation, and something seems to be lost in the language, or maybe it's just the style - it sort of dumps you into this stream-of-conscious thing and I couldn't figure out who/what/where/when. Not my style at all.

Second is Clara and Mr. Tiffany, an historical novel about the real-life Clara Driscoll, who worked with the great Louis Tiffany and actually designed many of his lamps. I just found the writing a little old-fashioned and kind of tedious, and I couldn't connect with any of the characters.

Third is The Eat-Clean Diet Stripped, which is obviously a diet book. I did read most of it, and there is some good advice, and I already do a lot of what it says. Tosca Reno (who I've never heard of, but she's apparently some sort of fitness celebrity) stresses the importance of "eating clean," which means eating natural foods, to lose weight, particulary that last stubborn 10 pounds. But she cuts out entire categories of food - no dairy, no sugar - and I just can't see myself giving up yogurt and wine (yes, your body sees alcohol as a sugar). I do see the value of eating frequent small meals, and I will make sure I include protein in my meals and not just eat carbs, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

Caleb's Crossing

I really enjoyed this novel by Geraldine Brooks, which is a fictionalized account of a real person, Caleb, the first Native American to matriculate from Harvard. But the book is really more about Bethia Mayfield, the young English girl who befriends him on 17th-century Martha's Vineyard, and the surprising life she leads.

 Bethia is the daughter of the island's Calvinist minister, and is an educated young woman, a rarity for the time. That she gets her education clandestinely, listening in on her brother's lessons and soon outpacing him, tells us something of her spunk and wit. Bethia lives a long and interesting life, moving from the Vineyard to Cambridge, to Padua and back. The book is her memoir, written in bits and pieces over the course of her life, from minister's daughter to indentured servant to doctor's wife.

Bethia's best friend on the island is Caleb, son of the Wampanoag chief who also has a thirst for books and learning. It is left to Bethia to tell Caleb's story, and she does so beautifully and with great feeling.

Brooks does a wonderful job of bringing Caleb and Bethia to life. This was a really lovely book.

Caleb's Crossing