Winter Garden

Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 448
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life; the fairy tale will be told one last time - and all the way to the end.

The tale their mother tells them is a captivating, mysterious love story that spans more than sixty years and moves from frozen war-torn Leningrad to modern-day Alaska. Nina's obsession to uncover the truth behind the story will send them all on an unexpected journey into their mother's past, where they will discover a secret so shocking, so terrible, it shakes the foundation of their family and changes who they believe they are.

Review: I'm a huge fan Kristin Hannah fan, but this novel took a few chapters to build traction. I was wondering early on at what point that we "would get on with it." 

The story/plot was good. Anya's storytelling was an effective device. However, there were conversation and details that didn't propel the story forward as well. I'm giving this a good, not great, rating.

Only the Beautiful

Author: Susan Meissner
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024
Pages: 400
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: California 1938: When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser's daughter. She moves into Celene and Truman Calvert's spacious house with a secret, however, Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she'd never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calvert's, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place that seeks to forcibly take her baby - and the chance for any future babies - from her.

Austria 1947: After witnessing firsthand Adolph Hitler's brutal pursuit of hereditary purity - especially with regard to "different children" - Helen Calvert, Truman's sister, is ready to return to America for good. But when she arrives at her brother's peaceful vineyard after decades of working abroad, she is shocked to learn what really happened nine years earlier to the vinedresser's daughter, a girl whom Helen had long ago befriended. In her determination to find Rosanne, Helen discovers a shocking American eugenics program - and learns that while the war has been won in Europe, there are still terrifying battles to be fought at home.

Review: I guess there's something about this time of year. . .I knew I had read another Susan Meissner novel, and when I looked at my reading history I saw that I finished As Bright as Heaven on November 17, 2019. I had not intended to wait so long before reading this author again. I loved As Bright as Heaven, and I loved this one as well.

Meissner's characters float off the pages and into your heart. Could not put this one down, and stayed up entirely too late reading it.

Susan Meissner Novels
As Bright as Heaven

Multipliers

Author: Liz Wiseman
Genre: Business / Professional Development / Nonfiction
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2017
Pages: 384
Rating: Highly Recommend 

Synopsis: We've all had experience with different types of leaders. The first type drains intelligence, energy, and capability from the people around them and always needs to be the smartest person in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are the leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, light bulbs go off over people's heads; ideas flow and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now when leaders are expected to do more with less.

Review: If you've followed this blog for any amount of time, then you have surely realized that reading for me is an escape. I'm not one who reads for professional development. However, when my supervisor approached me and two of my colleagues about starting a small book club, we agreed.

We started reading Multipliers one chapter at a time and meeting to discuss each one last December. We just finished it. In addition to discussion, we also took the Multipliers 360 assessment. 

Multipliers gets a highly recommend from me. We had great discussion, the assessment and results were helpful, and I learned a lot.

We are all set to choose our next book.

While Idaho Slept

Author: J. Reuben Appelman
Genre: True Crime
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2023
Pages: 288
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Just after 4:00am on November 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students were viciously stabbed to death in an off-campus house. The killings would shake the small blue-collar college town of Moscow, Idaho, dominate mainstream news coverage, and become a social media obsession, drawing millions of clicks and views. While a reticent Moscow Police Department, the FBI, and the Idaho State Police searched for the killer, unending conjecture and countless theories blazed online, in chatrooms and platforms from Reddit to YouTube to Facebook and TikTok. For more than a month, the clash of armchair investigators and law enforcement professionals raged, until a suspect - a 28-year-old PhD. candidate studying criminology - was arrested at his family home 2500 miles away in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania on the day before New Year's Eve.

Review: I followed this case closely in 2022, and was interested in reading more about the students and murders. Interesting that I finished it just before the second anniversary of the crime. My heart breaks for the families, and with daughters graduating this year and next, it reminded me that I'll soon be sending my own children out into the big, crazy world.

Auschwitz: A History

Author: Sybille Steinbacher
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Penguin UK, 2005
Pages: 176
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: At the terrible heart of the modern age lies Auschwitz. In a total inversion of earlier hopes about the of science and technology to improve, extend and protect human life, Auschwitz manipulated the same systems to quite different ends. 

The reader is led through the process by which something unthinkable to any European in the 1930s had become a sprawling, industrial reality during the course of the world war. How Auschwitz grew and mutate into an entire dreadful city, how both those who managed it and those who were killed by it came to be in Poland in the 1940s, and how it was allowed to happen, is something everyone needs to understand.

Review: Some chapters were more interesting than others. This was a little dry in parts, but I hadn't given much thought before as to how (or why) Auschwitz came to be a death camp.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Author: Michael Quinn
Genre: Self-Help
Publisher: Lightening Source, Inc, 2015
Pages: 105
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Guided by "Akira-sensei," John comes to realize the greatest adversity on his journey will be the challenge of defeating the man in the mirror. This powerful story of one boy's journey to achieve his life long goal of becoming a samurai warrior, brings the Train to be CLUTCH curriculum to life in a powerful and memorable way.

Review: This book is excellent, and maybe the best I've ever read in this genre. So much good information, and I found myself wanting to share this book with everyone I know.

The Other Einstein

Author: Marie Benedict
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks, 2016
Pages: 336
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: This novel resurrects Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory or relativity is hotly debated. Was she simply Einstein's sounding board, an assistant performing complex mathematical equations? Or did she contribute something more?

Mitza Maric has always been a little different from the other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. Then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.

Review: My sister recommended this book, and toward the end I texted her, "Einstein, what a jerk." My prior issue with Marie Benedict is that she doesn't take a deep dive into her subject matter, but that concern is unfounded in this novel. I'm glad someone finally told Mileva Maric Einstein's story, even if the author did have to fill in some of the gaps herself.