The Lowland

The Lowland (2013) by Jhumpa Lahiri. Two brothers -- Subhash and Udayan -- grow up together in India but then go their separate ways. Udayan becomes a revolutionary and gets married, only to be killed by the authorities in a couple of years. His wife, Gauri, is found to be pregnant and agrees to marry Subhash and move with him to America. Thus is the drama born, as Gauri's daughter assumes, not unreasonably, that Subhash is her father. Through the years, the characters live their unusual lives, growing apart as time goes by. Subhash is the central character, always with good intentions but caught in an impossible situation. It is an involving book, and takes many an unexpected turn. As novels go, it was certainly entertaining, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good, human story. Grade: A- 

On the Noodle Road

On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome with Love and Pasta (2013) by Jen Lin-Liu. Where did noodles, or pasta, originate? Were noodles, as some believe, brought back to Italy from China by Marco Polo? Or did they first arise somewhere else, say, in Central Asia? These are some of the questions that Lin-Liu sets out to answer in her travels for this book. Starting in Beijing, where she had lived for about ten years, she travels across China, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Italy in search of the origins of the noodle. Parallel to this journey, she takes a personal journey with her husband Craig, who does not share her enthusiasm for exotic foods, but who tries to be a good sport about the trip. He meets her in various locales and makes part of the trip with her, and they have some disagreements, but basically things work out OK for them. Unfortunately, they don't work out so well for Lin-Liu's research into noodles: She is unable to establish who invented noodles, where they were invented, or anything else definitive about them. She does get to try a lot of scrumptious food in different parts of the world, and she furnishes recipes for those who are willing to go that far in trying to replicate her experiences. All in all, I found this to be a pretty good book, although I'm not enough of a foodie to have really gotten into it. Grade: B

The Husband's Secret

The Husband's Secret (2013) by Liane Moriarty. Cecilia Fitzpatrick comes across a letter written by her husband which starts, "My darling Cecilia, if you're reading this, then I've died..." The outside of the envelope specifies that it is to be opened only in the event of her husband's death. The catch is, her husband is still alive. But she is tempted, and eventually, of course, opens and reads the letter. It contains a revelation about her husband that I won't reveal here, only mention that it is a doozy. This is a well written novel, which interweaves three stories about Australian women going through various crises, and does so with sensitivity and insight. The book starts a little slowly as the three separate strands are developed, but then switches into high gear and never lets up. I would really give this novel top marks! Grade: A

Bread & Butter

Bread and Butter (2014) by Michelle Wildgen. Three brothers -- Leo, Britt and Harry -- go into the restaurant business. Leo and Britt are partners in Winesap, an upscale restaurant with a rather sophisticated menu. They are surprised when Harry decides to open his own restaurant, eventually named Stray, in a "bad" part of town. Britt eventually becomes a partner in Stray, and he and Harry go into business together. This book is all about family dynamics, as the three brothers compete, but also about food, food, food, as they design their menus and experiment with different dishes they want to offer. It's a most enjoyable read, with romance thrown into the mix for Leo and Britt, and I was thoroughly entertained for most of the way through the novel. Grade: B+

Once Upon a Lie

Once Upon a Lie (2014) by Maggie Barbieri. When her childhood tormentor, a cousin named Sean, is killed, Maeve becomes a suspect. The police try to smoke her out by acting as if her father Jack is the principle suspect, but it just doesn't work. Maeve goes about her life, dealing with her ex-husband and her two daughters (one of whom is a real terror), and running her bakery (she is an excellent cook). Every once in a while her father takes an unauthorized leave of absence from the assisted-living place where he is being cared for, and Maeve has to round him up and bring him back. At 80, he is verging on senility, and Maeve can't believe the police even suspect he could have done the murder. Also every once in a while, the police detectives pop up to talk to Maeve, but she's not telling them anything useful. The identity of her cousin's killer is supposed to be the Big Reveal of this thriller, but I really wasn't surprised. If you've ever read Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," you too will easily guess who the killer is. In fact, I would recommend you read "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" instead of this book. It's basically the same idea, but much better done. Once Upon a Lie: Grade: B

The Apartment

The Apartment (2012) by Greg Baxter. An American with no name moves from a desert city in the United States to a cold city in a country with no name. A woman he meets there agrees to help him look for an apartment, and this book covers the day they spend together exploring the city and looking at apartments. Towards the middle of the novel, the man starts telling of his memories of his previous life in the United States and in Iraq, where he did war work for the Americans. His memories are quite vivid and revealing, and they provide the meat on the bones of this book. It's a pretty easy read, though not terribly emotionally rewarding. Grade: B+

The Bully Pulpit

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (2013) by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This monumental book (750 pages) tells in goodly detail about the early part of the 20th Century, when Theodore Roosevelt served two terms as president, followed by Taft, who served one term. The two were close friends until 1912, when Roosevelt came out of retirement and challenged Taft's re-election bid, thus ushering Woodrow Wilson into the White House. This book is very interesting when talking about the dynamic Roosevelt and his many exploits, less interesting when on the subject of the jovial Taft. The book also goes into quite some detail about the famous journalists who were at work during this time, foremost among them S.S. McClure, founder of McClure's Magazine. McClure's was the first and most successful of the so-called muckraking magazines that flourished in the first decade of the 20th Century. The story of the magazine and of the journalists who researched and wrote the stories for it is quite fascinating. Overall, this is a very good book, if it just wasn't so long. Grade: A-   

The Water is Wide

The Water is Wide (1972) by Pat Conroy. His year spent as a teacher on remote Yamacraw Island is the subject of this memoir by the immensely talented Conroy. The children, and most of the population of the island -- located off the shore of South Carolina -- are African-American. Or, as Conroy puts it in this book, they are black. He went into the teaching job in 1969 with starry-eyed optimism, having failed to get accepted by the Peace Corps, and hoping to do some good. This book is a spirited account of how he strove to teach the neglected kids of Yamacraw Island how to read and do arithmetic, and of how he had to battle the authorities along the way. It's an excellent read, and has many amusing moments included among the dramatic accounts of trying to teach in a backward school system. Grade: B+