Book Nook Cafe discussion

It's that time of year folks!

Here is the thread to post about your favorite reads and the ones you detested in 2015.

The book does not have to be published in 2015, only read by you in 2015.


If you could provide a link and a few words on each book that would be great.

The BEST of 2015 -- "good-reads!"





1. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (2015)
Set in Indiana, Finch, an intelligent young man who struggles with bipolar disorder, befriends Violet, who is dealing with the death of her sister in a car accident, and is lost somewhat in her family. Her father remarried to another woman with a child. He also showed Violet what HE allowed her what he let her do. Her mother was devastated losing her older daughter. Later, Violet became close friends with Finch, via internet, because it was Violet who prevented Finch from jumping off the bell tower. Over time the bond between Finch and Violet increased greatly to the point where they both fell in love, and had sex. I loved that even though she knew he was gone, Violet continued looking for Finch and found her at a lake, following his clues -- A lake. A prayer. It's so lovely in Private. And Violet found a prayer chapel, where weary travelers could stop and rest. Violet believed that Finch chose this place for Eleanor and Violet.

You make me happy.
Whenever you're around I'm safe inside your smile.
You make me handsome.
Whenever I feel my nose just seems a bit too round.
You make me special, and God knows I've longed to be that kind of guy to have around.
You make me love you.
And that could be the greatest thing my heart was ever fit to do . . .

You make me lovely, and it's so lovely to be lovely
to the one I love . . .

You make me happy . . .
You make me special . . .
You make me lovely . . .


2. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer (2015)
What is this world coming to? Why did these young men take their girl friends, made them drunk until it was easy for the men to sexually abuse them. These were the girls that they grew up with. Why would anyone want to rape them?! Are these young men so focused on rape, that they think it is ok? Where are the coaches?


3. The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates (2015)
This book is based on the 1988 Tawana Brawley case, it tells of 15-year-old Sybilla Frye, found by a neighbour in the cellar of her building, hog-tied and smeared in faeces with racist epithets scrawled on her body, badly beaten and sexually assaulted. Ines Iglesias, the Hispanic cop, was sent to interview her. Sybilla was kidnapped and attacked by five men. One wore a badge, like a police officer. It is an terrible situation but we also get varying viewpoints -- from her mother, Ednetta, Ines, the brothers Byron and Maris Mudrick, and rookie cop Jerold Zahn who is identified as one of the attackers, along with Anis Schutt, Sybilla’s stepfather.

Sadly this horrendous abuse also emphasises the powerlessness of women. Because the women in this tale are surrounded by men, bigger and more powerful than they are, with louder voices that repeatedly intrude.


4. Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule by Jennifer Chiaverini (2015)
People do say that behind every great man there is a woman; but in this case, Ulysses S. Grant was doing everything he could to help her with the children, and his death. This is truly a beautiful love story and "YES!! . . . I cried after reading it. I had never read anything by Grant, and he was truly a loving father and spouse, pushed himself by writing his stories, knowing he was to die. He became good friend with Twain, who helped him writing his memoirs, as he struggled with thyroid cancer (throat).


5. Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner (2015)
Hard to believe all that happened during this period. In order to protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city's free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Even in the town I grew up in, we have many historical homes with a variety of ways to hide, and later, go north with all you can carry. I volunteered at all the historical homes in Connecticut; just amazing.


6. A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter (2015)
Former US President reflects on his life and on a wide-range of issues including the recent changes in the South, the shooting tragedy in Charleston, the Middle East and the Iranian hostage crisis, and writes that the US is in a state of decline of influence. What I like most about the book is his honesty, open admission of his mistakes, and how he owned them up. President Carter said that he's comfortable with all the decisions he made as President irrespective of their outcome. Frank, honest and insightful, this memoir covers an important chapter in the history of United States and deserves to be in the hands of all serious students of history. I enjoyed his poetry and his paintings. If you are interested in seeing the interview of Judy Woodruff with Jimmy Carter -http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/former...


7. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (2015)
After a short review by Royal River Books: A companion to the best-selling Life After Life follows the experiences of Ursula's younger brother Teddy, who, throughout the decades following wartime service he never expected to survive, struggles with family life against a backdrop of a changing world.

Atkinson’s extraordinary 2013 novel, Life After Life, introduced readers to the Todd family in their Forsteresque home of Fox Corner, and managed to achieve publishing’s holy grail of both literary acclaim and popular appeal. That novel’s heroine, Ursula Todd, is given the chance to live her life again and again in many variations over the first half of the 20th century.

A God in Ruins is the story of Teddy’s war and its legacy, “a ‘companion’ piece rather than a sequel”, according to the author. At first glance it appears to be a more straightforward novel than Life After Life, though it shares the same composition, flitting back and forth in time so that a chapter from Teddy’s childhood in 1925 sits alongside a fragment of his grandchildren’s childhood in the 1980s, before jumping back to 1947, when Teddy and his wife Nancy, newly married, are trying to come to terms with the aftermath of the devastation.


8. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (2015)
The beautiful story of Wilbur and Orville Wright, goal to change the world. On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot. Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?


9. Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade (2015)
Author Kim van Alkemade was researching her own family history when she came across a purchase for wigs for eight young children who had lost their hair after X-ray treatments in a New York Jewish orphanage. The powerless healthy orphans had been used in medical research to see if X-rays could shrink the tonsils. Orphan #8 is Rachel Rabinowitz, a fictional character who received the largest dose of radiation as the subject of Dr Mildred Solomon's research.

Fast forward to 1954: Dr Solomon is admitted to the hospice unit where Rachel works as a nurse. Dr Solomon's terminal bone cancer was caused by her exposure to X-rays as a radiologist. Rachel now has a serious health problem due to the intense X-rays received when she was a toddler. The book alternates between Rachel's early life and 1954 as it reveals the secrets of Rachel's past and the choices she made. Rachel confronts the doctor, hoping for an explanation and an apology. The tables are turned in 1954--Rachel is the person with power since she administers the medication, and Dr Solomon is a powerless patient in pain. Rachel has the choice of taking revenge or offering forgiveness.

We would cringe today over how large institutions treated orphans in the 1920s, but there was a huge need for orphanages during that hard economic time. The book presents many moral/ethical issues, a look at history during the Depression and World War II, the role of women in that era, and the difficulty of a same sex relationship. Orphan #8 is an interesting, thought-provoking book with book club material at the end of the book


10. Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins by Susan Casey
After losing her marriage and the death of her father, she took a solo swim in Hawaii. She which was joined by a group of spinner dolphins, which helped bringing up her spirits. She returned home to realize that she had a great book (entitled 'Voice in the Ocean' for all to read. Her mission to capture "the strange, enduring, occasionally tragic and often wonderful relationship between humans and dolphins” quickly takes a turn for the odd. Many remarkable stories, including the lucrative live dolphin trade, where a wild-caught animal can fetch $200,000 in a sale; and their destinations. I had no idea of how knowledgable they are.


11. Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
This story is about a girl caught between two worlds . . . two races . . . and two destinies. Aza Ray Boyle is drowning in thin air. Since she was a baby, she suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. When Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. (But Aza doesn't believe that it is a hallucination. She hears someone on the ship call her name.

Jason, who's always been there, who she likes "more-than-friendly feelings". But something goes wrong, and Aza is lost to our world—and found, by Magonia. Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza's hands lies fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie? I hope that there wil

Excellent year end review, Carol !

I see we have two thumbs up for the Jimmy Carter book and also the Wright Bros.

It looks as though your reading year was full of winners. Thanks for sharing with us, Carol.

I also read in 2015 --



1. Amherst by William Nicholson - 4 stars.
It took a little while to ignore the present time, and instead focus on the 19th century century. I thought that the story was well done. I had read a book entitled Austin and Mable decades ago.Since it was in the Victorian period, the was expecting death or a negative outcome, but I actually enjoyed it immensely.

2. The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black-- 4 stars.
This was the first time I read her book. It is in a 'fairy-tale-world' where heroine, Hazel, and Ben, the hero, surprises the reader that he is gay and likes, Severin.

3. Newport by Jill Morrow -- 4 stars.
Set in 1921, a horde of wealthy families move to the summer in Newport RI. I was thinking of The Gatsby Life, but instead the focus was on millionaire, Mr. Bennett Chapman who is ready to remarry with a new catch. But first, Mr. Chapman must get permission from his dead wife in a seance. Adrian de la Noye enters to revise the will, but Bennett's "adult-children" are concerned about his very young and beautiful wife Adrian finishes the will, and then reveals the secret about the Chapmans, Catharine Walsh.

4. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George-- 5 stars.
I really enjoyed reading this book. This story's journey starts with a broken heart, and later starts a new life. Jean Perdu is dedicated these years to healing other people, through prescribing them books to read from his literary apothecary,which is on bookstore barge on the Seine River in Paris. Many come to him for a book, to help their emotional needs. But Perdu is not the only one who needs help, after losing the love of his life. For Jean it is Manon. The letter send Jean on a journey across France to Bonnieux in Provence. The journey follows both internal and external. It is a story of an unlikely friendship that develops between the bibliophile and the confused young father/ husband.

5. The Mapmaker's Children by Sarah McCoy -- 4 stars.
There are two major characters -- Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown. Sarah's gift of (drawing instead of education for those who couldn't read) was to help those were illiterate to be able to travel in the underground railroad. She uses her artistic talents to create cryptic pictographs in which she hides safe house locations and directions north. Eden Anderson, struggle with fertility, yet she was unable to have a child. But she discovered in the home a porcelain doll head. This doll allowed Eden to help others by giving them drawings of where they were going on the trip out; she also knew that she was able to help those who desperately needed to reach their destination. This book is close to my heart. As I grew up, I volunteered in my town, in Farmington CT. As a volunteer at the Stanely-Whitman House, c. 1720, at the age of 16 years, I really enjoyed volunteering in these beautiful historical homes ( I was 16.). As volunteers at the end of the celebration, it changed my perspective of decades gone by.

I remember you mentioning the last two in one of the monthly boards. Great year for you, Carol.

Here are my winners and duds for last year ...

The Good:

Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta - outstanding job of portraying the region's ... nuances (shall we say) from a British expat, who could perhaps be more objective than a local, or a Yankee transplant. Tied for top read with ...

You're Never Weird on the Internet -- I had no idea who Felicia Day was, except that she's half my age, and a big deal in the sci-fi/fantasy/online role play worlds. But, I liked the sample, so ordered myself to try something out of my comfort zone. Hooked almost immediately ... if you think you might not like it ... give it a chance!

Hotels of North America -- an incredibly quirky book that may not be for everyone, but I was really glad I had dropped an Audible credit on impulse. Spontaneity can sometimes work out.

I liked the memoir Bettyville quite a lot, although more when the story focused on the author's family, and his time in their hometown. His "finding himself" in New York as a young man ... not as much. Still, I highly recommend giving it a try if you're a memoir person.

And, speaking of going out of one's comfort zone, Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence, and Emperor Penguins is one I didn't think would interest me, as stories of polar regions leave me cold (ha ha!), but a friend really liked this one a lot, so I went for it ... a wise decision.

If you, or someone you know, is a train buff (or likes travel narrative a lot as I do) consider Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World-from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief.

For fiction, I stumbled across The Little Sleep -- a sort of parody featuring a modern-day anti-Philip Marlowe "detective" (not a very successful one). Again, it's a bit quirky, but I fell for it, especially the audio narration.

The Bad:

Cabin Fever: The Sizzling Secrets of a Virgin Air Hostess -- I travel a fair amount, so thought maybe there'd be on-the-job anecdotes with which I could identify. Alas, they were largely about crew parties during LAYovers. Yawn .....

I know they're not for everyone, but some books by psychics/mediums have been interesting. Unfortunately, Never Argue with a Dead Person: True and Unbelievable Stories from the Other Side wasn't one of those. I bailed when I realized it was all about the author's high opinion of himself.

Doctor's Notes -- there were some humorous and interesting moments, but overall I found the author's approach self-aggrandizing and condescending.

The Island That Dared: Journeys in Cuba -- travel narrative lost among the author's anti-American invective and lengthy historical asides.

Great list, John ! I enjoyed your comments a lot.

John, it was a pleasure reading your list, particularly as i hadn't heard of many of them. Fan of Antarctica that i am, the Gavin Francis book sound good. Glad you shared here.

I love sharing books, and reading about others' ideas . As I'm not a Polar person, you ought to like that book perhaps more than I did.