Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

The always funny Mindy Kaling is back with another hilarious read, picking up where her New York Times best selling Is Everyone Hanging Out Without ME? (And Other Concerns) left off. Why Not Me? touches on subjects like her days as writer and actress for The Office, writing, starring in, and producing The Mindy Project, how she truly feels about her friends getting married, awkwardly filming sex scenes, her friendship with B.J. Novak, and body image. And in true Mindy fashion, she goes off on ridiculously, funny tangents.

With her usual wit and charm, Kaling writes as if you're having an actual conversation with her over a cup of coffee or a few drinks. Just your average girl, she dreams about what her life would've been like had she not moved to LA and would've married a Jewish guy like she always planned. She understands what it's like to be thirty-something while all of her friends are getting married. Mindy Kaling candidly writes about her body, and how she's [still] learning to embrace her curves.With parts that are laugh out loud funny, Kaling's new book is difficult to put down. It's no wonder she's currently Hollywood's it-girl.

The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James

In The Tusk That Did the Damage, by Tania James tells the story of ivory poaching in southern India from three different points of view: the poachers; American documentary film makers; and an elephant, a rogue man-killer who buries his victims after the kill. Orphaned and captured by poachers as a young calf, the Gravedigger eventually escapes captivity and terrorizes the countryside, destroying crops and human life at will. The poachers hunt elephants to protect their crops and community and, also, for the valuable ivory tusks.  Brothers Jayan and Manu have lost a cousin to an attack by the Gravedigger and set out to kill the elephant as much for revenge as for his tusks. Jayan has killed elephants previously and even served prison time for the crime, but Manu is a gentler soul and very conflicted over the plan. Meanwhile, the American film makers document the work of an Indian veterinarian who has devoted his life to protecting elephants. Elephants are a species that needs protecting, but a rampaging elephant can destroy the lives and resources of people who have very little to start with, people who have their own need for protection. This struggle involves both man versus nature and man versus man. It’s an age old conflict with the addition of two modern elements: overpopulation and endangered species. 

The Stories We Tell by Patti Callahan Henry

In The Stories We Tell, Eve and Cooper Morrison have everything they could ever want. They have money, perfect careers, a beautiful house in Savannah, and the perfect, well-to-do, old family. Eve owns a letterpress studio, where she focuses on designing and making homemade cards, invitations, and special paper items. Her husband, Cooper, owns an e-magazine company. On the outside, everything is exactly how it should seem.

While everything appears perfect from the outside, that facade couldn't be farther from the truth. Eve's sister Willa is staying with Eve and Cooper just until she gets her life "sorted out." Eve's teenage daughter is going through a rebellious state. And as if that isn't bad enough for Eve, Cooper thinks that she's is so busy devoting time to everything else except her marriage to him.

Amid all of the chaos in the Morrison family, Cooper and Willa wind up in a car accident that leaves Willa with some memory loss. When Cooper tells what happened the night of the accident, things don't seem to match up. Why would Cooper say that Willa was drunk when she wasn't? Where did the money in Eve's business bank account go? Why is Eve receiving cryptic messages written in greeting cards designed by letterpress ?

Sorting through Coopers story, Willa's memories, and the real facts, Eve has to decide if her perfect life is really worth all of this.

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

The marriage of Lila Dahl and John Ames did not seem to be a match made in heaven, if heaven there be. The Reverend Ames, a minister with deep roots in Gilead, a small town in Iowa, was an elderly man who lived in the same house and preached in the same Congregationalist church that his father and grandfather had. Lila was a younger woman, a homeless vagrant laborer without religion, education, family, or even her own last name. However, when she stepped into Reverend Ames’ church during a service, seeking shelter from a rainstorm, she immediately caught his interest. Over the summer, they cultivated a relationship that eventually led to marriage and the birth of a child.  Lila had long been an independent woman and she did not easily accept anything the minister offered her, including security and, most particularly, his religion.

During the 1920’s, in the rural Midwest, a woman named Doll had snatched a very young Lila away from neglectful and possibly dangerous caretakers. They joined a small group of migrant workers, walking from farm to farm, seeking out a precarious existence by providing extra hands for the planting, weeding and harvesting that needed to be done. This life sustained them until the dust storms destroyed the farms, impoverished the farmers and eliminated any work for itinerant labor. But no matter how difficult their circumstances got, Doll always put Lila’s needs first, even ensuring that she received a small amount of education.

So, when in the early post-War years, an adult Lila wandered into Gilead and into Reverend Ames’ life, she resisted his theology or any theology at all. Quite a disadvantage for a friend, let alone a wife, of a small town minister. But Lila had her own ideas and looked at Christian teaching with a cool, analytical eye. Doll and her friends were uneducated in all matters except hard work. They were too busy surviving in a hard world to consider matters of religion or patriotism. Yet, they provided for and protected Lila for no other reason than their own human decency. Lila was not willing to abandon them or believe them to be in Hell for eternity because they were not baptized and did not know their prayers. They were “people no one would miss, who had done no special harm, who just lived and died as well as they could manage.”

John Ames was a patient and thoughtful man who did not insist that his wife adopt his religious beliefs. Lila was a thoughtful and introspective woman who eventually came to her own accommodation with Christian teaching. Their natures made their marriage possible.

Lila by Marilynne Robinson is a prequel to her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead although it can be read as a stand-alone book. (After reading this beautifully written book, some may be interested in reading [or rereading] Gilead. Definitely not action-packed, this is a book for readers interested in ideas and personalities.