What We Can Know

 Fiction by Ian Mc Ewan

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a strange story. The premise is that Thomas Metcalfe is a historian in the year 2119 and he specializes in the period of 1990 to 2030. He is particularly interested in an event called the Second Immortal Dinner which took place in 2014; it was a dinner party where several people of literary importance were in attendance. 

(Incidentally I couldn’t believe there was ever an actual First Immortal Dinner, but I looked it up. On 28 December 1817 some painter had a bunch of people over to his house in London, including Keats and Wordsworth. Of course, in real life it's just called The Immortal Dinner. So it's not such a stretch to imagine that there could be another dinner so aggrandizedly labeled, I guess.)

The beginning of the book, the futuristic part, was a little slow and draggy. I almost gave up, but part two of the book, in which we switch narrators and discover the real events of the past, is really good.

I also read by this author: On Chesil Beach

Disappearing Earth

 Fiction by Julia Phillips

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

On the peninsula of Kamchatka in far northeastern Russia, a pair of young sisters called Sophia and Alyona disappear one summer afternoon. Everyone in the small community frantically searches, but as months pass, things seem hopeless. Because Kamchatka is so isolated, no one really thinks the little girls could have left the peninsula; still, with only one real city in the area and the rest of the land taken up with tiny native towns, there seems nowhere that the sisters could have been taken. Additionally, some people are reminded of the recent disappearance of a native girl called Lilia who was also never found.

Although that is generally the plot synopsis, this book is not a mystery story. Instead it is an examination of a bunch of different characters at different points in the year following the girls' disappearance. The story jumped all over the place, introducing new characters every chapter who were somehow connected to the three lost girls. I found it difficult to read, and I disliked the fact that the question of what had happened to the missing children seemed ancillary to the plot.

I didn't really like this book.

Normal People

 Fiction by Sally Rooney

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is the story of Connell and Marianne, a pair who should just fall in love (and live happily ever) after on about page twenty-five, but instead meander all around in unpleasant ways until the unsatisfyingly ambiguous end of the book, by which time you no longer like them any more and have stopped caring.

Yes, I actively disliked this book. I disliked it even more so because I liked it at first, and then the author spoiled it, slowly, like milk turning bad. AND it's an award-winner with the "smart-person-book" pretension of not using quotation marks when someone is talking. Ugh.

Trust Exercise

 Fiction by Susan Choi

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1982 a group of teens begins their time learning theater at a performing arts high school — oh wait, excuse me; I meant “theatre.” Yes, the people in this book are just as pretentious as that sounds. I almost gave up reading after meeting so many unpleasant characters; however, I persevered.

After I finished reading, I went looking for reviews from others who had read it, because I was wondering what the heck had just happened at the end. I discovered that many other readers were confused, but the reviews were split between those who loved and those who hated the book. 

In my opinion it was an unnecessarily complicated story about unlikable people. But to be honest, that is often the sort of thing that wins book awards…

I’ll have to go with the reviewer Becca Hoetger who (cleverly) said, “I did not enjoy this book.”

Elmet

 Fiction by Fiona Mozley

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I gave this one halfway through for something to happen. Nothing did.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

 Fiction by Olga Tokarczuk

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I'll admit I chose this book simply for the title. It's a great title.

Unfortunately I didn't like anything else about it. 

The Berry Pickers

 Fiction by Amanda Peters

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Every year this Mi'kmaq native family goes down from Nova Scotia to Maine to pick berries: Ben, Charlie, Joe, Ruthie, and their mom and dad. The whole family works, kids and parents, same as always. But in 1962, five-year-old Ruthie disappears and nothing is the same ever again.

The reader knows that Ruthie has been "adopted" by a white couple and had her name changed to Norma, but the family just hopes she is still alive, knowing nothing of her whereabouts. They take it hard, especially Joe, her sibling who was closest to her in age and last to see her. Will they ever be reunited?

This book was picked by Barnes and Noble as their Discover Prize winner for 2023. I thought it was good but not great.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

 Fiction by James McBride

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I read a memoir by this author years ago (see below) that I loved, but I actually didn't know he wrote fiction until my online reading recommendations started blowing up with this book title. Now I think I've written before about this, but to me Award-Winning Books are a mixed bag of Oh-my-gosh-so-good and I-don't-get-it and This-is the-most-pretentious-piece-of-bs-I've-ever-seen. So I never know what to expect with an award-winner. (See also my comments on "Smart Person Books" in Imagine Me Gone.)

This was a really really good novel with a weird-sounding title. The book begins with the discovery of some old bones under the street in 1972, and then steps back in time for the story of Moshe and Chona Ludlow's corner store (the one with the weird name) on Chicken Hill, a neighborhood of Jews and "coloreds" in the 1930's.

It's a beautiful character story, and the answer to the identity of the bones is almost peripheral. (Still I would have been super mad if the  mystery hadn't been revealed. It was, fortunately!)

I also read by this author: The Color of Water

To Paradise

 Fiction by Hanya Yanagihara

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Clocking in at just over seven hundred pages, this book was not really one novel. It had three parts set in three different times, none of which ever really connected to the other ones, except that different people had the same names. Indeed, Parts Two and Three actually had two parts in each!

This author really makes you believe in and care about her characters, and it was that which which kept me reading, although the disconnectedness of the stories was off-putting. Each part would draw me in and I'd want to keep reading and find out what happened to this particular guy named David Bingham (yeah, there were at least five different ones). Alas, each time the story would abruptly stop at a climactic point and begin again with a different person in a different time.

I don't know whether to recommend this book or not, to be honest. I actually read a few reviews and they were mostly on the positive side. But nobody mentioned the fact that the author never told you the end of anyone's story!! To me, the answer to the question "What happened?" is the most important reason to read a book. And I don't know what happened to ANY of these guys!

If this sounds like an unpleasant reading experience to you, you're not wrong. But the overall effect was thought-provoking. And, as I said, the characters were so compelling... 

I also read by this author: A Little Life

So Long See You Tomorow

 Fiction by William Maxwell

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1921 Lloyd Wilson is shot and killed outside his barn before he has a chance to milk the cows. This happens on page one of this short novel, and the rest of the book is mostly about why the murder happened.

The story is told in a strange way; the narrator is a boy in town who befriends the son of the murderer. The identity of the killer is never in doubt; this book is in no way a mystery. It's more about a person trying to come to terms with the past and reconcile with his own regrets.

This novel was well written, short but dense. Still, I thought the story could have been told in a less convoluted way and it might have been more easily understood. This is obviously a Smart Person Book,** and the goal with this type of writing is often to make the meaning of the text so difficult that only Smart People can understand. Therefore obfuscation is probably the author's goal, but it makes for less enjoyable reading in my opinion. 

So this book was pretty good but not great.

I also read by this author: They Came Like Swallows

**For explanation of The Smart Person Book, see Imagine Me Gone. In contrast, the last book I read (See Empire Falls) actually won a Pulitzer, but it was much more readable and still had a lot of depth. So we conclude that a Smart Person Book doesn't require these annoying affectations, but the more pretentious of authors just believes that it does.

Empire Falls

 Fiction by Richard Russo

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Empire Falls is a town built around a mill that is controlled by one rich and powerful family, the Whitings. But, like many other mill towns around America, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is almost dead. The mill has long since been closed, the work outsourced to a factory in Mexico, and most of the businesses are shuttered and abandoned.

But the last Mrs. Whiting is still in control. She owns almost every piece of real estate in town and likes to believe she owns all the people too. In particular, she owns the Empire Grill restaurant, and its cook and manager Miles Roby stays at her beck and call, bound by a mixture of guilt and habit to a job he hates and a town he no longer loves.  

Will Miles break free? Or will he stay, and maybe marry Mrs. Whiting's only daughter? This is a really good story!

I also read by this author: Elsewhere

A Little Life

 Fiction by Hanya Yangihara

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I have heard a lot of opinions about this book; either people love it or hate it. It's award winning, and definitely an Intellectual Smart People Book, so I wasn't sure how I'd feel. Having read it, I say that I'm squarely on the love-it side; I think this story is a real masterpiece. Really, it's amazing! It's very sad, but that is only because the characters are so real.

This story follows a foursome of men who were college roommates (I think at MIT, but this was unclear) and are now in New York City navigating early adulthood; it goes on into their later lives. Interestingly, it is not set in any particular time, which I read is called "the eternal present-day setting." (See how I learn intellectual terms? I am pretending to be a Smart Person.) The narrative begins by telling you about each man (Willem, JB, Malcom, and Jude), and then it shifts to sharply focus on Jude alone. Jude's is the eponymous "Little Life" that the story is really about.

This is an odd thing to say about an 800-plus page book, but in some ways I wish it were longer. After the initial part, we never get any more of JB or Malcom's perspective, and I'd like to have had that. But that's a minor criticism. All in all this is a wonderful book, beautifully written and incredibly moving.

I was very surprised to learn that the author is a woman. I could not tell from the name, and based on the way it sounded, I just assumed it was written by a gay man. There are almost no female characters in the story, and the ones that appear are extremely peripheral, like someone's mom who shows up with a sandwich once and then disappears. But the male characters feel very real and extremely deep. 

As an aside, I don't care for the cover, but I understand the artistic choice behind it. It fits the story. I just dislike things that aren't pretty, because I'm shallow...

American Gods

Fiction by Neil Gaiman.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Although this was a well-written book, and I can see why it won awards, in the end the story was too bleak and unhappy for me.

The Secret History

Fiction by Donna Tartt.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This novel held my attention from the beginning, although it's a strange type of story. Basically, it's about a boy who transfers from a community college in his native California to an exclusive private college in Vermont, and then tries to reinvent himself to fit the change, falling in with an even more exclusive group of classical Greek students. The characters were very realistic and believable, but not always likable.

I enjoyed this book, but it's not for everyone.


I also read by this author: The Goldfinch.

Casebook

Fiction by Mona Simpson.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an interesting story, about a kid who is trying to understand the adult world of his parents. 

I liked it, but I don't think it's for everyone.

Outline

Fiction by Rachel Cusk.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an odd little book. It didn't really have a story. Nothing happened. Maybe that's why it was called "Outline," but I didn't really get it.

There were some really brilliant pieces of writing within it, but there was nothing to tie it together.

Lila

Fiction by Marilynne Robinson.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is the story of a girl who grew up homeless before and during the Depression era (back when people weren't called "homeless," but rather "hobos" or "bums") with a woman who loved her but wasn't her mother. With this upbringing, Lila is almost a wild thing, having never really been tamed to live indoors. One day, however, loneliness drives her to tie herself to a life in a house.

Intertwined with the story of Lila are a lot of unanswerable questions about human suffering and isolation. This is not a light story, although it is a short book. It gives you something to think about.

All the Light We Cannot See

Fiction by Anthony Doerr.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is the story of an underage Nazi soldier, a blind girl in occupied France, and a sergeant-major gathering plundered treasures for Hitler.  It is a little long and can be confusing, but still a moving novel.