Judith’s Book Table

Barrie, JM

Peter Pan

Fiction – not what you think. A wonderful story for grownups about a girl becoming an adult.

London, Jack

Call of the Wild

Fiction – who knew? Adventure, danger, the insane opportunism of Alaska in the gold rush. Told by a dog stolen from his comfy home in California and put to work on a sled team. Wow.

Chabon, Michael

Yiddish Policeman’s Union

Fiction- a skewed reality where the world after WW II isn’t as we know it. The Jews didn’t get Israel, but instead ended upeased land in Alaska. This is a murder mystery, set in Alaska, with Hassidic mob figures, a lease about to run out, a million Jews who have to leave their home, and a hapless cop whose ex-wife is now his boss. Best book of 2006-7, by far.

Franzen, Jonathan

Corrections

Fiction – the quintessential story of 3 siblings, baby-boomers when the rug is pulled out from under their lives. You think Russian capitalism isn’t terrifying? Funny, funny, funny. Accurate view of a shallow Boomers’ world of materialism and sibling rivalry grown stale.

Brockmeier, Kevin

A Brief History of the Dead

Fiction – two stories intertwined. The last person left on earth after the pandemic remembers all the people she ever met. What we know is that all the dead continue to exist in a netherworld, living “normal” lives, until the no one alive on earth remembers them. Once there is no one to remember them, they vanish. They are figuring out that there’s only one person left alive. Fantastic story – gripping.

Powell, Julie

Julie & Julia

Non-fiction : Powell decided to make every single recipe in Julia Child’s huge cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” In a year. She blogged her journey through the tome with screamingly funny descriptions of successes and failures, and everything she learned about life through the process. Her story became a big thing – she appeared on talk shows and ultimately published this book about the experience. Very funny. NOTE: Best read right after reading Child’s slim autobiography “My Life in France.”

Child, Julia

My Life in France

Non-fiction: insightful, funny, amazing story of a person who was one-of-a-kind. Her patient husband chronicled Child’s arc to gourmet chef and public TV superstar in thousands of letters to his twin brother. This book used much of the bright, detailed material from the letters to fill out a picture of this terrific woman’s life and how she changed American cooking forever. Fearless!

Goodman, Allegra

Intuition

Fiction: medical research, tangled lives, lab intrigue, riveting characters.

Gawande, Atul

Complications

Non-fiction: Gawande started writing essays for the New Yorker magazine when he was a medical resident going into his surgery rotation and then fellowship. These are profound essays about the tenacity of human spirit, the fragility of the human body, and the complex path to becoming a surgeon in the best American hospitals.

Gawande, Atul

Better: a surgeon’s notes

Non-fiction: once Gawande got his sea legs as a surgeon, he began working on systems to improve surgical outcomes for all surgeons. This book outlines in human terms how MDs try to improve practice and the challenges they face. Sparkling prose.

Carlson, Ron

Five Skies

Fiction: lovely tale of two men building an impossible bridge across a chasm in the West and how the West redefines their lives.

Patchett, Ann

Bel Canto

Fiction: a soprano, a Latin American coup, love stories during a hostage crisis. No way to put all the heart and beauty of this book into a brief review. Just read it. (Remember as you finish it that there are only two people in this story extraordinary enough to end up together – two people unique on the planet who happen to be thrown together.)

Patchett, Ann

Magician’s Assistant

Fiction: do the dead communicate to us through dreams? or do we just put together random events in the world when we dream and find answers? Are we doomed to love people who can’t love us back the way we want them to? Don’t you wish you could do magic? Don’t you wish magic were really magic?

Russo, Richard

Straight Man

Fiction: a man, an English department, a country house, disaster. Funny, laugh-out-loud funny.

Crook, Elizabeth

Night Journal

Fiction: a woman goes out west to New Mexico in 1900 or so to work in a Harvey House hotel, ends up married to an archeologist, gets involved with another man, leaves scorching diaries of love, lust, pottery, ghosts – you know. New Mexico. 1900. Her daughter builds a career on her mother’s diaries but finds out that autobiography might just be fiction. Great modern / past parallel stories woven together.