The author, who dedicates her book to her brother Tom, puts the reader in Prague from the summer of 1933 through summer 1939. 19-yr-old Liese Florsheim spoke not a word of Czech, having just come as a refugee from Frankfurt, Germany. She soon meets the Heller brothers, Erich and Paul, and begins medical school. We get invested in these characters, and are keenly interested in, and deeply moved by, what happens to them during the war, and afterwards. This book was very much a highlight of my reading year!

5 CDs. Read by Michael Douglas. Kirk was born in 1916 (turned 100 this December!). I got interested in this when learning (from the movie Trumbo) that Spartacus was one of the first films to openly name a blacklisted screenwriter. The book was interesting, even if Douglas does cast himself as the hero. In actual fact, the end of the blacklist was probably more due to Trumbo’s own efforts ("He was determined that nobody was going to do this to him,” —daughter Nikola Trumbo), and changing times (“Universal-International conducted polls of moviegoers to determine if Trumbo was box office poison. When the results came back in Trumbo's favor, a clear path for him began to emerge.”)

Alexandra (known as Bobo within the family), born 1969, and her older sister Vanessa, were raised by their expat parents in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Malawi, and Zambia. Her memoir is told from a child’s point of view with “a wider understanding of the ambivalence of being part of a separatist white farming community in the midst of Black African independence.”

9 CDs. Read by the author, who is British, and who did an excellent job of conveying her lifelong love of falconry, and what the child Helen was like (fascinated by every book on the subject she could lay her hands on). And she does this with lyrical prose. Nevertheless, the book was not a “page-turner,” and I am surprised that this book found such a wide audience. (It was on many “10 Best” lists, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I had a long wait for the book in the Monroe County Library System.) Macdonald gets her own goshawk (Mabel) in 2007, and walks us through the first year of their relationship. Mabel was the “hawk that healed my grief” (after the death of her beloved father).

Jahren (b. 1969) is currently a geochemist, botanist and geobiologist at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. I loved this very honest, sometimes poignant, and often funny window into her world. (See excerpts.) Thanks so much to Eric Breitenbach for the recommendation!

Not that this is all the book is about, but the author was a Fact Checker at the New Yorker, and wanted to (and eventually did) move up to Copy Editor and then Fiction Editor. When the subject of editor first came up with William Shawn, Shawn told him he just wasn’t a New Yorker editor and “no one can learn to be a New Yorker editor.” But, William Maxwell took a liking to Daniel, and later, when a mandatory age-65 retirement rule was put into place, William Maxwell told Shawn that he would go quietly provided he gave Menaker a chance to be a fiction editor.

Saul Bellow died in 2005 at age 89. Sheila gave me a clipping about him from a 1997 paper, which got me interested in looking him up. My time would have been better spent reading one of Bellow’s novels, but this was a somewhat interesting attempt by a son to understand his father.

12 CDs. We listened to this on our road trip to Florida, and both enjoyed it very much. Bob had read Halberstam’s The Amateurs, about the single-scull 1984 Olympics, and had loved that also. This is about the boys from the University of Washington who made it to the 1936 Olympics in their 9-man boat, the Husky Clipper (which reclines to this day, I believe, in the Pocock Rowing Center on Lake Union). Thanks to Mike Seager for the recommendation.

6 CDs. Hearing the author read these essays is half the fun. These stories were about his family, what it’s like living in West Sussex, and things he overhears while traveling. I’m putting this under nonfiction, though I give license for exaggeration, with this comic author.

The title is clever, because Françoise Mouly is married to Art Spiegelman, and also has a life in the arts. Mouly, born 1955, has been the art editor of The New Yorker since 1993, and is the founder of Toon Books for kids. Glad to know more about her, but didn’t love this book. { Bob says: “One of the few books I recommend to introduce non-artists to art.”}

“The narrative artistry must reconstruct not only the father’s life before and after his family left him, but the decades (even centuries) of Balkan history that led them all to this juncture.” (Kirkus review) In my opinion, it didn’t really succeed. But, the crosshatch drawings were of interest.

Set primarily in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the mid-twentieth century. Was named Best Book of 2009 by Amazon and Publisher’s Weekly. I think the message of the book was something that was stated near the end: “The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.” That is interesting to ponder, though I wasn’t as big a fan of this book as most people seem to be. {Bob says, “Our every omission: Like the millions who stayed home Nov 8, 2016.”}

What I admired most about this book: Jane’s wonderful ability to tell a simple, fictionalized, story about her life, by selecting details, and involving the reader with the interesting characters. This was the other highlight of my reading year.

Both of the Irish priests at the center of the story have a history of loneliness. Each chapter is set in a different year, jumping forward and backward, so that many hints are dropped along the way and become clear as you go along. I’m glad I read this, but it’s certainly not a feel-good novel!

2 CDs. Bob and I listened to this story on our trip to Florida. I found out afterwards that it was first published in The New Yorker, May 14, 1979. It was good enough that I have become interested in Peter Hillsman Taylor (b. 1917, d. 1994) and hope to read more of him. The narrator is Nat, looking back after 40 years on one week in December, 1937 when he was about to marry Caroline Braxley.

Translated from the Italian. It was a bit of a slog to get through this, but I persisted, since so many people seem to be enchanted by this series, of which this is the first book. By the end, I was interested enough to wonder how things would turn out for the characters, Lila and Lenu, so I went on to the next book.

I don’t intend to continue with the last two books in this tetralogy of Neapolitan novels, much as I’d like to know, in summary, “what happens.” Marie says the third one ends with a shocker. Guess I’ll never know, unless I can get her to summarize for me. Which wouldn’t really be the point, would it?

11 CDs. It’s a mystery to me why critical reception for this book has been overwhelmingly positive. It didn’t interest me, and I think it was repetitious (a good candidate for abridgment; I see that some other readers agree. One asks, “Does Ford's publisher pay him by the word?”) Supposedly, Ford was “interested in the consequences of these events.” Really? There seemed to be no consequences of the murders, even though it seemed likely to me that the Americans’ families would certainly be up there in Saskatchewan looking for the men who had disappeared. And, it would have been nice to know just what it was about the bank robbery that tripped up Dell’s parents. Set in 1960, the first half in Great Falls, MT, and the second half in Saskatchewan.

I’d like to know from someone if there is a different one of her books that might have been a better place to start. After sampling this (first in a series), When something was referenced for the second time, the reader was obviously supposed to remember what was said about it earlier. Since I couldn’t remember, I blame the writing. As just one example, there were several references to Matthew 10:36, and I could never remember how this came up initially, or what it had to do with anything. I am surprised to read that Penny has received numerous awards for her work, including the best mystery novel of the year (Agatha Award) and the best novel of the year (Anthony Award)—five times for both. (I see that this book was made into a TV movie by the CBC in 2013, and I think I will watch that, to see how it plays in that medium.)

I do not consider this to be a “psychological suspense tale,” although I’m seeing it described as such. Grace Reinhart is a therapist and many times in her practice she thinks that her women clients “should have known” because there were a lot of clues to what the man in their life turned out to be like. Kept me turning the pages, but in the end I was not glad I had spent the time.

9 CDs. The author based this on her father-in-law’s unpublished account of his experiences as a pilot shot down over Belgium in 1944. I’m sure this is a cherished read for his children and grandchildren. If my father had written an unpublished account of his time in England or France, I would love to see some accomplished author’s well-researched, albeit fictional, version of the experience. But, for the rest of us, it kind of dragged, and I didn’t learn anything new or soul-stirring about the French Resistance.

4 CDs. A fable wherein a shepherd boy from Andalusia journeys to Egypt after having a recurring dream, and learns the importance of seeking his Personal Legend and learns about the Soul of the World. I’m not recommending, but this was a quick read and I read it because I was curious after learning it was one of the best-selling books in history(65 million copies), and is cited in the Guinness Book of World Records for most translated book by a living author.

4 CDs. The story of Frank Money, a Korean war veteran, on a quest to save his younger sister. The chapters alternate between third person and first person. I had to go to The New York Times to find out what someone thinks this book is “about”: “The ways in which violence and passion and regret are braided through [her characters’] lives, the ways in which love and duty can redeem a blighted past.” Wow. I really missed the point.

This is the Lord Peter Wimsey book that introduces Harriet Vane. After reading Sayer’s 1937 book, Busman’s Holiday, in which he finally gets her to marry him, I was curious to see what their initial impressions had been. But I think I am now done with these mysteries, as I found this one rather tedious.

This coming-of-age novel is autobiographical (the protagonist is named Robert Peck). It was the author’s first book, and was not published until he was 44, and then he went on to write 60 more books. This one is set in 1920s rural Vermont. I had heard of this author for years. But, one book by him was enough for me. Not recommended.

Newbery Honor Book (the winner that year was Jacob Have I Loved). This is a wonderful, if heartbreaking, book for older children, as was The Endless Steppe, which I read last year (different author, same subject matter). Aranka lives with her family in Beregszász, Hungary, but the book begins when she is nine years old and visiting her grandmother for the summer in rural Komjaty, Ukraine. The author, a Holocaust survivor, is still alive.

In 2014, I had listened to the condensed radio play based on this “love story with detective interruptions.” I browsed it now to get more of the Harriet Vane-Lord Peter Wimsey relationship, which had been given short shrift in the radio play.

Translated from the Japanese. I didn’t like her advice on books. See Book-related Quotes. But, I did reorganize one of my drawers, inspired by her advice, and that has sparked joy!

Well-researched book, but I only browsed it. The author debunks misinformation about saturated fats, and says there was no real evidence to support the dietary guidelines issued by the AHA and NIH. My take-away, which is perhaps a distortion of her message, is that if your body gets carbs to burn, it will burn carbs; if not, it will burn fat.

This book was recommended by a 19th Ward neighbor. Discusses—among many other such topics—whether buying Fairtrade is cost-effective, as compared to buying cheaper goods and donating the money you save to one of the cost-effective charities. Seems to be well researched.

The author was born in 1911, and her father was born in 1860. (My mother was born in 1911 and her father in 1859.) After both parents have died and she's emptying their safe deposit box, she finds a receipt for insurance payments that her grandfather made in 1856 on two servants. Why would you insure a servant? They must have been slaves, she reasons. Interesting to her, for sure, but not THAT interesting to the rest of us. Also, I wasn’t crazy about Calisher’s writing style, which I found hard to follow.

This was Rochester’s 2016 choice for its program “If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book…” Sonja says, “I write prose in short blurbs. Perhaps this is because I’m a poet at heart, or perhaps the material seems too intense for longer stretches, or maybe I just have a short attention span.” She grew up in and around Rochester, one of seven children brought up by a single mother.

David Carr (1956 - 2015) was pretty much the star of the 2011 documentary Page One, so I thought I might like this memoir of his. But I didn’t. Addiction memoirs are hard to take. Even when there’s a happy ending.

It’s billed as an “autobiographical novel.” So, is it fiction? I got as far as page 139. I really don’t think this is going to be my cup of tea. It would be a big time commitment, as this is Book 1 of six. By page 139, he’s in high school, and telling the reader in detail about getting out of the house to get the beer he has stashed in the woods, then meeting his friend and hitching a ride to a New Year’s Eve party. I.e. Not a voyage of discovery (see Vivian Gornick); i.e. nothing is happening. Not so far, anyway. I’ve been told to stick with it.

Patricia Hampl: “True memoir is written, like all literature, in an attempt to find not only a self but a world. To write one’s life is to live it twice, and the second living is both spiritual and historical, for a memoir reaches deep within the personality as it seeks its narrative form and it also grasps the life-of-the-times as no political analysis can.”

- Paulette Bates Alden, in her Jan 5, 2011 article, “What Exactly Is a Literary Memoir?” in which she defines personal essay (and says Philip Lopate is the expert), and distinguishes “memoirs” from “memoir,” but does not answer the obvious question, which is How does a “literary memoir” distinguish itself from a “regular memoir”?

Reading has influenced so many choices and directions in my life, as I am sure it has for many others. Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham, Anton Chekhov, Tolstoy wrote about the human condition, death, illness. Reading, and reading fiction especially, teaches you so much about how the world lives.

Paring down one’s wardrobe is one thing, but what kind of degenerate only wants to own 30 books (or fewer) at a time on purpose? … It’s not true that when you first receive a book is the only right time to read it. Books can stay with you like a talisman on a quest, taken out of your cloak, unwrapped and understood only at your darkest hour: A light to you when all other lights go out.

It’s a useful exercise to clear the cobwebs from one’s bookshelves once in a while, but don’t let anyone talk you into getting rid of your books if you don’t want to, read or unread. Ask yourself whether or not each book sparks joy, and ignore the minimalist proselytizing if it chafes you. … The elegantly empty apartment speaks not to genteel poverty, but to the kind of hoarded wealth that makes anything and everything replaceable and available at the click of a mouse. If you miss a book after getting rid of it, Kondo consoles, you can always buy it again. Dispose and replace, repeat and repeat. Ah, what fleeting luxury.

Books you have read have already been experienced and their content is inside you, even if you don’t remember. … If you missed your chance to read a particular book, even if it was recommended to you or is one you have been intending to read for ages, this is your chance to let it go. … If you haven’t read it by now, the book’s purpose was to teach you that you didn’t need it. [So says Marie Kondo. I couldn’t disagree more! See comments in above section.]

It becomes very clear that if you can’t find a place for something in your life, then you no longer have room for it. Storage is not the answer, letting go is. [This I do agree with.]

Either your pride or mine will have to be sacrificed. I can only appeal to your generosity to let it be yours. [Lord Peter Wimsey speaking]

When Liese leaves Prague, her friends bring her gifts. From Paul: “a leather-bound edition of Tonio Kröger, housed in its own oak slipcase, that he’d talked about when she first met him and Erich. ‘Postponement too often means that it does not happen at all,’ he wrote on a small card inside. ‘I only hope life won’t be withheld from us as it was from Tonio. Paul’”

Once, when I am frustrated about an author’s resistance to fixing an obvious problem, Maxwell says to me, “It’s all right. Apparently it’s a mistake she needs to make.”

Quoting Claire Messud, Heller writes that she wanted to recreate “life being lived” in the interstices of the verifiable facts. “Doing so,” she explains, “was my way of fulfilling a lifelong yearning to literally make my parents’ world whole again, to bring back that dense mingling of the intellectual, the artistic, the social, and the political that defined their early lives — their lost Atlantis of prewar Central Europe.”

Celebrated Italian author Ferrante's unflinching and insightful prose, which was rancorous in her novel Days of Abandonment (2010), is captivating and hopeful here and will have readers eagerly awaiting the next installment. If comparison is to be found, it may be in Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants (2006) or fellow Italian Silvia Avallone's Swimming to Elba (2012).

The New Yorker … sought her out specifically to revitalize its stodgy cover and art direction, a task which she achieved with aplomb. … Yet, outside of select comics circles, Françoise Mouly remains relatively unknown despite her impressive career and contributions to visual culture.

In Love With Art is part of Exploded Views, a new series of short books published by Coach House Books, books that in their immediacy read like extended magazine articles. … It’s a fascinating story of a woman in a man’s world, of her childhood and formative years coming of age in France around 1968. She studied architecture, developing a design aesthetic that she’s applied to every project she’s done since, including low-grade jobs like “colourist,”overriding general consensus that jobs like this don’t matter {emphasis added by Bob}. Not a comic writer herself, instead she’s a comics editor–who even knew there was such a thing? And part of the reason you’ve never heard of her is because her greatest impact has been in helping well-known artists to create their best work.. … Consider my view exploded then. In the best way.

Caroline Heller’s source material included her mother’s late-in-life reminiscences, her uncle’s archive at Northwestern, her father’s short unpublished autobiography, interviews with her parents’ lifelong friends, her father’s account of his concentration camp years (written immediately afterwards), and a treasure trove of letters. Caroline says: “In gaining access to the past’s secrets, I gained access to my own. It is from this full, complicated panorama that I wrote Reading Claudius.”

If you ever have your house broken into and get your stuff back, well you will be ‘cured’ . . . but you will not be ‘healed.’ I think all disease is like that—there is a physical aspect, the break-in. But there is also a sense of violation, even when it is something like a broken finger. So what I was getting at with ‘words of comfort’ is that an attentive, thoughtful presence at the bedside by the physician cannot be underestimated—one might ‘cure’ without seeing a patient, but to ‘heal,’ a patient requires presence.

That rare beast, a hard-headed, soft-hearted proponent of saving the world. … Fortunately, effective altruism doesn’t require Mother Theresa-like levels of altruism or Spock-like level of hard-headedness. What is needed is a cultural change so that people become proud of how they give, and not just how much they give. Imagine, for example, that it becomes routine to ask “How does Givewell rate your charity?”

The richness … of farming life had been haunting me, and also the questions that vex any farm family: Who is going to carry on the business? Who gets to stay? Who can’t stay? Who doesn’t want to stay but ends up trapped? … It took me a long time to try to distill the material, to write so little.

It is simply a novel that asks people to examine the subject from a broader perspective and to reconsider the lives of all those who have suffered, both within and without one of the fundamental pillars of Irish society.

The Dublin Archdiocese’s pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State.

Author Paulo Coelho: In The Alchemist, I relate myself to the Englishman – someone who is trying to understand life through books. … I am a compulsive reader. I read a lot, but from time to time, there are books that changed my life. Well, it’s not that the book itself changed my life; it’s that I was already ready to change, and needed to not feel alone.

Coelho: To my readers and my fans, basically my companions, I would say that spirituality is being brave, is taking risks, is daring to do something when people are always telling you not to.

Everything is getting quieter and smaller — we’re living in the sixth great extinction, caused by us. One of the biggest themes of my book is the way we think about the natural world. We use it as a mirror of ourselves. It’s important to consider how and why we do that. We must look past that and see the world itself.

There was a wealth of information to be sifted through—75 years’ worth of documents, newspaper clips and mementos. Three of the nine crew members had kept diaries during the Olympics.

At a book signing, someone wanted Sedaris to inscribe a book to her daughter. She wanted him to put “Explore your possibilities!” He said, “Well, I’ll keep the word ‘Explore.’” Then off the top of his head he wrote, “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls.” He loved that, and decided to use it as the title of his next book.

After David Carr’s death was announced, The Times’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, put out a statement in which he called Carr “the finest media reporter of our generation.”