“Secret Daughter” by Shilpi Somaya Gouda

This book is about a girl adopted from India to the US by an Indian father and American mother. It was very readable, and the nuance increased as the book progressed. I loved what it had to say about family, about different cultures, and about the strength of impoverished Indian mothers. The ending brought tears to my eyes… the Indian mother, on her deathbed, learned that the daughter she had secretly given up to save her from being killed had prospered, and had looked for her biological parents. The secret daughter had even left a letter at the orphanage for her parents. All the main characters in the novel grew as human beings.

“The Eye of the World” by Robert Jordan

This was an ok book and better than the tv series. However, the first part of it was very derivative of “The Lord of the Rings.” And I found the writing style irritating, because it tended to be wordy and unclear. It made me realize just now great a writer Tolkien was. Tolkien made it look simple, his writing style so amazingly precise and alive. Jordan’s book pales next to it, though I do like the way he handles the idea of there being a weaver, a pattern to the world.

“Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty” by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe

 This was an interesting look at primarily the Gilded Age Vanderbilts and at Gloria Vanderbilt. It has the special touch of having been written by an insider.

“Fight Night” by Miriam Toews

This book is from the point of view of a 9 year old girl, who takes amazingly good care of her ill but very much alive grandmother. At first I found it to be disjointed and slightly confusing, but I swiftly adapted to the girl’s voice. The book ended beautifully. After visiting family in California and returning to Canada, the grandmother had a heart attack, and then her daughter went into labour in the same hospital. Grandmother died right after seeing her new grandchild.

“The Man Who Died Twice” by Richard Osman

 I enjoyed vol. 2 of the Thursday Murder Club Series very much. The author develops his characters well, there are lots of twists and turns and amusing parts, and it’s fun reading about intelligent seniors living a full life solving murders.

“His Master’s Voice” by Stanislaw Lem

To call this book dense is an understatement, and yet, I read the whole thing. I was attracted by the glimmers of new ideas it gave me about the difficulties of translating messages from other civilizations… including not even knowing if they are messages or natural phenomena. The narrator speaks at such a high intellectual level that initially I thought the book was satirizing intellectualism. By the end, I decided that the author had been entirely serious.

“Behind the Scenes at the Museum” by Kate Atkinson

This book describes a family… multiple generations of unhappy mothers and the patterns that they kept repeating. It is a dark book, but I enjoyed the black humour.