good reads
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And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a difficult book to describe in a nutshell. Beautifully written, but not fast-paced, it’s one you sink your teeth into and relish. Only nine chapters, but they’re long and told from different perspectives as you travel from Afghanistan to Paris
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr My rating: 5 of 5 stars “All the Light We Cannot See” is a rich, evocative novel set during World War II. The third person narrator primarily follows two characters: a blind French girl whose father is a locksmith at a museum in Paris, and an
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A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France by Miranda Richmond Mouillot My rating: 5 of 5 stars Miranda Richmond Mouillot was young, romantic, and naive when she set out to retrace her grandparents’ story, one she imagined to be like a fairy tale, full of love but with stars crossed that
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Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert My rating: 4 of 5 stars A refreshing read for the discouraged creative soul, Big Magic is essentially a long, written pep talk encouraging you to stop quivering in fear about your creative projects and go out and make stuff already, for no reason other than:
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Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan My rating: 4 of 5 stars New York City during World War II. A father who disappeared after getting tangled up with the mob. A daughter with secrets of her own trying to become a diver at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Manhattan Beach is about a father and daughter and
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The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead My rating: 4 of 5 stars A nonlinear narrative composed of straightforward, at times lyrical, writing, The Underground Railroad tells the story of Cora, a slave girl whose escape of the plantation leads to conflict and loss and love and meditations on what it means to be free. Whitehead’s
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The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer My rating: 5 of 5 stars A stream-of-consciousness narrative tackling dual themes of mental illness (schizophrenia, in particular) and grief, “The Shock of the Fall” follows 19-year-old Matthew Homes as he seeks to write his story, partly on his treatment program’s computer and partly on the typewriter
Meredith Sell 