Skios by Michael Frayn

Dr. Norman Wilfred, world famous authority on the scientific organization of science, arrives on the private Greek island of Skios to give a lecture at a foundation dedicated to delivering high-minded ideas to a gaggle of wealthy, social climbing, elderly guests. Thus begins a series of accidents, misadventures, and mistaken identities that leave Wilfred stripped of his identity and questioning everything. Michael Frayn is a playwright ("Noises Off") and does a wonderful job of creating visual descriptions that jump from character to character building error on error. But over-all the story is a little thin. Misunderstandings that work well on stage or screen don't work as well in the slower medium of print. This is a light, enjoyable read but moved a little too slowly for me.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce This is a book about faith and courage. Harold Fry was born unwanted and unloved, and attempted to go through life making as little impact as possible to avoid pain. The one exception was his meeting and loving his wife, Maureen. But the biggest challenge of his life was raising a son, having no experience to bring to it and being frightened of the intense love he felt. The story begins as Harold is retired and living with his failures. A letter comes from a previous co-worker, a woman he hadn't heard from in many years. She is in a hospital, dying of cancer and has written to say good-bye. Harold writes to her and walks out to post it. But he is unable to do it and walks to the next box, then the next, until he is miles from home. A chance encounter with a young girl causes a mission to form in his mind. We follow his walking journey, the people he encounters and the effect he has on them and the wife he has left behind. The author is a very good writer and brings the reader along on the journey, describing Harold's awakening senses to the world around him and gradually revealing the surprising details of his life. He is a wonderful character, flawed, weak and full of humanity. I was touched by this story and strongly recommend it.

The Coral Thief: An Novel by Rebecca Stott

I picked this up because of it's historical setting, 1815 Paris, when Napoleon was on his way to St. Helena. The city is filled with political tension but also an exciting sense of academic discovery in the natural sciences. The main character is Daniel Connor, a young Scotsman who has come to study with Cuvier at the Jardin des Plantes. He is bringing valuable coral specimens and a manuscript from his tutor for Cuvier. Along the way he meets a mysterious older woman who steals his bag. From this, Connor is caught up in a world of philosophers and thieves. A lot of the philosophical discussions are between students of Cuvier's catastrophism and LaMarcke's evolutionary theories. Interspersed with this plot are short chapters on Napoleon's voyage to St. Helena. It was unclear to me why these were included as the author made no attempt to really tie these together. This is an interesting novel of ideas but for me it moved slowly, probably because I could not identify with the character of Daniel. He was naive but also a bit of a slow-top. I kept wanting to give him a good shake. Edit | More

Underground Time: A Novel by Delphiine de Vigan

I think I have rarely read a book that was so depressing and unsatisfying. Mathilde is a battered woman, although the abuse is in the workplace instead of at home. Her boss and mentor turns on her with incredible vengeance. Her initial reaction," this must be a misunderstanding, I'll try to talk to him", was understandable. But after he figuratively smashes her in the mouth each day for months, that gets a little hard to believe. Her behavior is really inexplicable. There is nothing in her background to indicate an insecure woman, an easy target of abuse. On the contrary, she was a very confident, competent career woman. Her story is paralleled with that of Thibault, a doctor who has just ended an unhealthy love affair and is suffering regret and loneliness. The reader expects their paths to cross with some kind of significant result. In fact, their paths cross so slightly that one wonders why the author even bothered with the second plot line.

Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

A young British woman, raised in America, has returned to London on family business. When war breaks out, she joins Churchill's staff as a typist. My initial impression was that the book was intended as an historical novel because early on the author includes many of Churchill's speeches and devotes some time to describing the work in his office. But the book is really a combination of historical novel and mystery and doesn't really measure up as either one. The characters are sketches to a large degree and the plot twists and turns are unbelievable and confusing. Our heroine encounters Nazi spies, IRA terrorists, long lost relatives, secrets involving her life which are being kept from her by British Intelligence. The story builds rather slowly but the last part heads in to a wild ride of crazy plot turns and unbelievable rescues.

Paris in Love: A Memoir by Eloisa James

Mary Bly is a Shakespeare scholar who writes Regency romances under the name Eloisa James. I thought it was interesting that she wrote this memoir under her pen name. After dealing with breast cancer, James and her Italian husband and two children pack up and move to Paris for a year to recover. The book is a series of short entries originally entered on Facebook. I was a little put off by the format initially but it actually worked quite well. Much of the memoir describes how her family adjusts to the new culture, especially her children in school, eating new food, visits by friends from the US and relatives from Italy. But she also meditates on French women, diet, clothes and other cultural differences with great insight and humor. One of the most memorable parts were her regular descriptions of the Parisian sky through her office window. The metaphors were beautiful and brought such a clear sense of what she was seeing. James writes with great humor and insight and, although I've not read any of her other books, I think I'll have a look.

The Brothers K by David James Duncan

This was a Christmas present from my son. He told me I was always recommending books to him and he wanted to recommend a book he loves to me. A very sweet idea! This book is set in the Pacific NW, the story of a family of three brothers and two sisters. The father is a minor league baseball pitcher and coach. From the title, the author intends some kind of parallel to the Brothers Karamazov and certainly the themes of religion and family are there. But in an interesting twist, Duncan uses baseball as a metaphor for just about everything. He looks at all the big issues, religion, love, family, purpose, war, politics with this theme. It's a fascinating book with some very clever ideas. My only criticism is that there is a lot of wandering off on side stories/issues that don't really advance anything. But he has drawn very interesting characters and I definitely enjoyed it.

Dancing with Colonels; A Young Woman's Adventures in Wartime Turkey

This is a collection of letters written during Havreberg's years working as a stenographer in Washington DC in 1936 and later in Ankara, Turkey from 1944 – 1946.

She had left the small town in South Dakota where she grew up to work for Senator Peter Norbeck in his Washington office. After his death, she began looking at opportunities abroad and chose Turkey, which was neutral during most of the war.

The letters are typical of a young woman in her 20’s, full of social activities, descriptions of friends, and a small town girl’s reaction to the big city. She describes in great detail the wartime partying of ambassadors, governments in exile, and Turkish politicians.

But an interesting aspect of her letters is how they reflect the change in woman’s opportunities brought on by the war. The new government agencies in Washington were crying for staff and paying very good wages. A young girl like Havreberg, who had attended a stenographer’s school and was expected to find work in a local office, now had a much broader horizon. Opportunities for travel and the benefits of the big city, attending concerts and lectures, visiting museums, were available to middle class girls as they had not been before. Havreberg was surprisingly open to new experiences and took advantage of all of these.