Category: literature

books, Historical Fiction, literature, reading, Women's literature

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

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Inspired by the life of Martha Ballard, a well‑known midwife from the 1700s, this book gives a close look at a world where women had to live very carefully. They worked hard at home, supported their husbands, raised their children, and went to church. Anything outside those roles was risky. A woman’s word was rarely trusted. She could only speak in court if her husband stood beside her. Even years of hands‑on experience meant less than a man’s formal education. And if a woman became pregnant outside of marriage, she carried all the blame and shame.

In this setting, Martha Ballard is asked to examine the body of a man pulled from the river. With no doctor in town, her experience as a midwife made her the closest thing to a medical expert. The dead man was a well‑known citizen who had recently been accused of a violent rape. One of the other accused men—the town magistrate—decides that a newly arrived doctor should give the official opinion instead. This doctor immediately contradicts Martha’s conclusion that the man was murdered.

Against this backdrop, we see Martha support and protect women through her work as a midwife, pushing back against male arrogance and sexism. We also see her try to raise her children, especially her sons, to be good and responsible people. Her husband loved her and even taught her to read and write, which gave her opportunities most women of the time did not have.

Some of the conversations between the Ballards, and between groups of women, felt more modern than I expected, which made me wonder how much creative license the author used. Still, the story was interesting and worth reading. I do prefer her other book, The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress. That was really good.

Asian Culture, Asian Culture, books, literature, read around the world, reading, Uncategorized

Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan by Various Authors

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I’ve been trying to read books from around the world to learn about different cultures, and that led me to this collection of stories by women authors from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is in Central Asia and is bordered by Russia to the north, China to the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea, and Turkmenistan to the south.

The stories in this book were originally written in both Russian and Kazakh, and they span many different time periods. It seemed to me that the language used in each story might reflect the political leadership at the time it was written, though that’s just my impression. Each story offers a small window into the country’s culture and traditions. Together, they show powerful moments of what life was like for women in different eras.

If you enjoy learning about people around the world—and seeing how our lives can be both similar and different—this collection is a meaningful and eye‑opening read

books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

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Elizabeth Strout brings many of her familiar characters back together in Crosby, Maine. By pulling in people and histories from her earlier books, she continues the character‑driven storytelling she’s known for.

This time, Lucy Barton and her ex‑husband William, Bob Burgess and his wife Margaret, and Olive Kitteridge and her friend Isabelle Goodrow all end up in the same orbit. It’s an unusual mix, and even when I tried to map out how everyone was connected, it still felt tangled. What holds the book together is the way these characters pair off and share stories about other people. There is a lot of this. Bob hears about his sister‑in‑law’s declining health from his sister instead of his brother. Olive learns about Isabelle’s future living situation from the retirement‑home staff. Bob hears about Lucy’s plans from William. Almost everything comes secondhand, like gossip passed along before reaching the source. It made me want to know the full truth behind each story.

Each character is trying to understand not only their own place in the world but also what life means more broadly. Lucy and Olive meet to talk about “unrecorded lives,” hoping to shine light on people who might otherwise be forgotten. The fear of not being remembered—or not mattering—runs through many of Strout’s stories about these women, and it feels like the force behind their need to tell and retell these moments.

Bob’s murder case also ties into this theme of being seen. The young man accused of killing his mother has lived a life mostly unnoticed while caring for her. Bob helps bring him into a world he has been shut out of. This storyline requires action based on what Bob observes in the present, while many of the other stories rely on looking back at things that have already happened.

I enjoyed reading about these people, but this is a very contemplative book.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading, romance

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed

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This story explores the expectations society places on women and the personal cost of trying to meet them. It takes place in the male‑dominated world of 1980s space exploration, where women are only beginning to break through. Reading it reminds us how much has changed in the last 40 years.

The book uses two timelines that eventually come together. This structure shows how each choice Joan Goodwin makes leads her to the moment she is living now. The back‑and‑forth kept me engaged, trying to connect her past to her present and guess what would happen next.

Joan tells her own story. As a child, she loved the stars and pushed through tough science classes to become an astronomer. She earned her doctorate and became a professor at Rice University. She was proud of what she had achieved and didn’t expect to go any further. Is it a mirror opposite of her sister, Barbara, who challenged rules in her own way but still felt trapped by society’s expectations. Barbara’s daughter, Franny, is raised by both her mother and Joan.

Everything changes when Barbara finds an ad calling for women to apply to NASA and shares it with Joan. Joan applies on a whim, never thinking she’ll be chosen. But she is—and suddenly she must put her own goals first. As she steps into this new world, her relationships shift, especially with her sister. Joan begins to see how often she lets others define her place in their lives.

During astronaut training, Joan forms a new circle of friends—Hank Redmond, John Griffin, Lydia Danes, Donna Fitzgerald, and Vanessa Ford. They help her see new possibilities for her life. As her love for space grows, so does her sense of self. When she falls in love for the first time, she again faces pressure to hide who she is and fit into a role others expect.

When the two timelines finally meet, Joan understands what she wants, who she is, and what she stands for. She stays true to herself and supports the people she loves as they try to do the same.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

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This novel is a tribute to family, faith, and love. Told through the voice of 11‑year‑old Reuben Land, the story begins with the miracle of his birth. His father, Jeremiah, arrived late to the delivery room. After 12 minutes without breathing, the doctor told Reuben’s mother there was nothing more to be done. But Jeremiah picked up his son and commanded him to breathe in the name of the living God—and Reuben did. From then on, however, Reuben lived with severe asthma.

Jeremiah had once studied medicine but gave it up to follow the path of God. He worked humbly as a janitor at the town school. A man of deep faith and honor, he saved his son’s teenage girlfriend from being attacked in the boys’ locker room during a football game. The boys involved were known troublemakers who had terrorized the town, and they soon turned their anger on the Land family. They harassed them repeatedly, even kidnapping the youngest daughter, Swede, and hurting her before returning her home. At that point, Reuben’s older brother Davy realized the danger would never end. Armed with a shotgun, he waited in his room. When the two boys broke into the house, Davy shot them dead.

Although Davy believed he was protecting his family, he knew he had taken human lives. He was arrested but later escaped from jail and disappeared. Jeremiah, desperate to find his son, gathered the family into an Airstream trailer and set out toward the Badlands.

Both Davy and Reuben were the focus of their father’s prayers, but those prayers came with a cost. Reuben had been given life, yet his breathing remained weak and difficult. Davy knew his father prayed for God’s help against the family’s tormentors, but the price was heavy—Davy’s own act of violence. The novel suggests that faith can bring solutions, but those solutions are not always the same as justice.

The writing is strong, though at times the events feel a little unbelievable. Still, the family’s love and faith in one another never waver, making this a powerful story about resilience and devotion.

book-review, books, fantasy, literature, reading, romance

Summer fun with Faeries and Serial Killers.

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On vacation I want a light, fun book. I forgot to bring some with me, so I ran to the local bookstore and came home with two books – a fantasy and a romance. Just right for my mood.

First up: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries By Heather Fawcett

I first heard of this book on the Reading Glasses podcast. While not typically covering my type of reading, I thoroughly enjoy listening to these two women discussing books. I decided to take the leap with the summer book because – well why not? This is the story of a Cambridge professor, Emily Wilde, who is a bookish woman with no social skills. She is working on creating an encyclopedia of faeries. While young, she is very accomplished in her field. We follow her to the far reaches of the north to find proof of the Hidden Faeries – the most elusive of their kind. When we get there we find a tough village with gruff survivors that stick to their own. Emily struggles to connect with these people, who are the key to her studies.

Enter Emily’s less disciplined, extremely handsome, academic Wendell Bambleby. He charms the townsfolk, and insinuates himself into Emily’s research, frustrating her to distraction. What follows are spoilers, but you learn more about faeries and about the human heart as you read on.

At times a romance, at times a thriller, always fun if not high brow literature. I will be taking more walks in the woods for this kind of read as I continue to recover from the heavy stuff I have been reading lately.

Next up: Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson.

I finished the Emily Wilde book quickly, so I turned to my other splurge book. This one was shelved as a romance. Trying not to discard it because of the title, and because of my love for hallmark endings, this was just right for me.

Phoebe Walsh, a PhD candidate in English, has returned to Florida to help her brother clear out their father’s house after he died. She has been disconnected from this place for years, and was estranged from her father for decades. While she is clearing the house, her memories of times here – before her parents divorced – were not great. Now she is focusing on finishing her dissertation on the True Crime genre. We come to learn that Phoebe is a loner, obsessed with Serial Killers, who thinks everyone is one. Then she starts to reconcile what her past was to what she recollected, spending time with her brother, her former best friend, and now the man, Sam, who lives next door to her dad’s house.

While this is a romance, the themes explored include body dysmorphia, self confidence, trust, divorce, and family dynamics. The happy ending is there, just like a hallmark movie. And just like how I love those, I recommend this as a fun read, with surprising depth.  

book-review, books, literature, reading

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

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This novel is widely regarded as a literary masterpiece, and Kundera is often hailed as one of the greats.

I, however, didn’t agree.

The book explores the philosophical tension between “lightness” and “heaviness” in life—where lightness symbolizes emptiness and heaviness represents meaning. Interestingly, I believe these metaphors can be reversed, and Kundera seems to play with that inversion, challenging conventional ideas about what truly matters.

While the writing is undeniably skillful, I found myself disconnected from the characters. In fact, I actively disliked them. As their backstories unfolded—revealing what they abandoned, how selfish they were, and how condescending they remained—I grew even more alienated. Their emotional detachment made it hard to care about their journeys.

Perhaps I’m just not erudite enough to appreciate the deeper layers of this novel.

I’m okay with that.

book-review, books, literature, reading

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

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Orbital is not an easy read. It demands effort and patience to grasp what’s unfolding. There’s no conventional plot, no direct dialogue—just a stream of impressions and reflections that pass quickly, often without resolution. Does it make sense? That’s for the reader to work out.

The novel follows a single day aboard a space station that orbits Earth sixteen times. Through these cycles, we encounter six astronauts from vastly different backgrounds—American, Russian, Italian, British, and Japanese—each of whom has committed to life and work in space. Their cultural differences shape their perspectives, yet they share common emotional terrain: the loneliness of being far from loved ones, and the awe of floating above the planet.

Harvey presents their lives in fragments—snapshots both literal and metaphorical. The crew tracks a typhoon building over Asia, takes photographs, recalls artwork, eats, exercises, and reflects. These glimpses offer data points about each character, but never a complete portrait. This mirrors their view of Earth: partial, obscured, requiring faith to fill in the gaps. The typhoon’s trajectory, like the inner lives of the crew, remains elusive.

With no spoken dialogue, the novel evokes the solitude of orbit. Each revolution around the planet reframes what “home” means, especially when viewed from such distance. The astronauts’ thoughts drift toward their families, their countries, and the landscapes below—each pass offering a new angle, a new emotional resonance.

Ultimately, Orbital is a quiet meditation on perspective, isolation, and connection. The storm on Earth parallels the internal storms each astronaut carries. You don’t know where it will strike, or how hard—but you feel its presence, circling with them.

book-review, books, literature, reading

Lulu Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kristen Miller

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If you look at this book and assume this is just another light comedy, you would be right – and wrong. This book is not just about banning books. Its about what happens if people are silent when they see something happening that is not right. It is about what hate can do to a person. It is about how easy it is to be taken in by hate. It is about how reading a book can open yourself up to learning about what another’s experience was. It creates empathy and understanding. Some of the most dangerous things that cannot be controlled by those that want you to be afraid of everyone, and obey them.

Beverly is on the school board in the town she grew up in. Her nemesis, Lulu, has been behind a push to remove books from the libraries that will “harm” the children of the town. Instead, she has created a lending library of “wholesome books” on her property. What she doesn’t know is that Beverly’s daughter has switched these books with the actual banned books, leaving only the dust cover of the original book. Hilarity ensues as people borrow books, not expecting to read what they get. Each book, however, does what they are supposed to do – to bring other’s experiences to you, so you can make your own decisions on life.

This is the reason that book bans exist. The purpose is to keep information from others, to keep “others” as the unknown enemy, less than human. It is through this, and those that stand by and let things happen without saying anything, that hate can grow. This hate changes people. As we meet the people of the town, we begin to see how this hate has crept in, unknowingly, and how it is confronted.

Well written, timely and still fun. Worth your time.

Asian Culture, book-review, books, Historical Fiction, literature, read around the world, reading

House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

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This novel relies upon historical events that did occur, even if there is literary license taken with the exact timing of the events. This is especially appropriate, as they are told as a memory of a prior time. Lesley Hamlyn receives a package at her far from everything farm in South Africa. Surprised, since mail still comes for her now deceased husband Robert, that this package is for her. It is a book of W. Somerset Maugham. This takes her back to the time she and Robert were living in Cassowary House located in the straits of Penang, Malaysia.

Robert and “Willie” Maugham had been school chum in England. During Willie’s travels in Asia, he came to stay at Cassowary House with his secretary, Gerald. Willie learns that Sun Yat-sen, a Chinese revolutionary, had been known to them, he seeks information on who he is, and guesses that Lesley had an affair with him. While Lesley is warned that confidences given to Willie will end up in his works, she decides to tell him her story. It is a story of the shocks of learning things are not as neat as society lets on, that assumptions are wrong, and that deception can be both a blessing and a curse. As Lesley describes how she attends her friend’s trial for murder – a real event – the secrets come out to Willie.

The story comes to a close when we return to the older Lesley, in South Africa, comes to find her own peace and ability to choose for herself – something that had not been allowed in society when this is written.

Well crafted, engaging and thoughtful, I will seek more books by this author.