The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes weaves the tale of two stories together to create a captivating book. The first story, set in World War I France follows a young woman named Sophie, the owner of a hotel. When the Germans make their way into France, Sophie and her sister are forced into using their hotel restaurant to feed the German soldiers and their Kommandant. With her husband gone to war, the Kommandant and Sophie begin to chat about art, particularly the piece entitled The Girl You Left Behind which was painted by Sophie's husband. Not hearing from her husband for several months has Sophie desperate to do just about anything to ensure that he is safe, even if it means sleeping with the enemy. When things don't go according to plan, Sophie is sent to a prison camp in Germany and little is known about after that.

Fast forward to the year 2000 in London, where Liv is still grieving her architect husband. On a whim one night, Liv decides to go out on the town where she meets Paul, a former cop. The two strike up a relationship only to have that relationship go awry when Liv finds out that Paul is working for a firm that recovers stolen art work. When Paul realizes that Liv is now the owner of the once looted, now sought after painting of The Girl You Left Behind things get far more complicated.

Moyes does an amazing job of weaving together two captivating stories so different from one another. Who will keep the painting? What happened to Sophie? Can Paul and Liv work things out? All of these questions come down to the final few pages. Using beautiful language, Moyes once again wrote a book that's unable to be put down.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

In Department of Speculation, author Jenny Offill employs an unusual style to tell the story of a marriage. In this book, the wife (all characters are unnamed) records thoughts and experiences about her life in New York City.  She ruminates about earlier suitors, how her husband wooed and won her, the birth of their child, the stress of living with bedbugs and, eventually, the strain of infidelity on a marriage, even a marriage with what seems to be an ideal partner. With small observations about Buddhism, stars, Antarctic exploration, space travel and other diverse subjects, Jenny Offill tells a modern day love story in lyrical, poetic language. 

Check out Dept. of Speculation at the library today!

Margot by Jillian Cantor

At some point in life, whether it be in school or based on personal interests, chances are you've read the classic, The Diary of Anne Frank. Thanks to Anne's diary quite a bit is known about the Franks and the Annex they hid out in to avoid Nazi persecution during World War II, yet not much is known about Anne's older sister Margot.

Margot, a work of fiction by Jillian Cantor, is written from Margot Frank's perspective had she survived and not died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 along with her sister Anne. Margot follows Margie Franklin (Margot Frank's Americanized name) as she's a typist for a law firm in the United States during the 1950s. Settling on Philadelphia after the war, Margie struggles to find her true love Peter van Pelt, who lived alongside the Franks during hiding in the Annex. Margie does everything she can to keep her former identity hidden including lying to her friends, wearing a sweater even in the hottest weather to cover up the tattooed number on her arm, saying Shabbat in secrecy on Friday nights and even denying any Jewishness. When The Diary of Anne Frank comes to theaters, Margie's life is turned upside down. Will she reveal her true identity or do everything she can to avoid embracing who she once was?

Much of the book reflects on Margot's life during hiding while also focusing on the overwhelming guilt she would feel, as many did feel as a Holocaust survivor. Cantor has woven a wonderful story around the classic Diary of Anne Frank and such a tragic historical event while shining light on the stories of survival and never forgetting where one comes from.

Check out Margot @ the library!

Beauty Poetry: She Walks in Beauty and Nature Poetry: Make Me a Picture of the Sun by Sheila Griffin Llanas

Two slender volumes filled with information about poets and poetry, Beauty Poetry: She Walks in Beauty and Nature Poetry: Make Me a Picture of the Sun by Sheila Griffin Llanas will be of interest to readers who like words, rhyme, rhythm and history. Each volume contains eight poems with a chapter devoted to each poem. Each chapter provides a biography of the poet, a short discussion of the poem in its historical context, an analysis of the rhyme and rhythm scheme and a discussion of the meaning of the poem. The writers are well-known poets of the English language, such as William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare and Lord Byron. Many of the poems, but perhaps not all, will also be familiar. The explanations of all elements of each poem are easily understood and, just as an art expert can point out the importance of brush strokes or tints in a famous painting, Ms. Llanas isolates particular words and phrases that add to the understanding of a poem. These books are a good introduction or a good refresher to poetry. 

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste NG

Leo Tolstoy wrote that, “…each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Lee family, living in a small town in Ohio during the 1970s, is a good example of this. Their unhappiness, which had driven middle child Lydia to disappear on a summer night, involved none of the usual components of the dysfunctional family. There was no alcoholism, drug abuse, physical violence, mental illness, poverty or infidelity. There was simply a lack of communication.

The parents, James and Marilyn, were disappointed with their lives. Marilyn had planned to defy her mother’s expectations for her, perfect wife and homemaker, by becoming one of the few women of the 1950’s to qualify for medical school. James, the son of Chinese immigrants, striving to be accepted as a true American, became a professor who taught a class focusing on the American cowboy. Unfortunately, Marilyn’s plans for medical school were disrupted by an unexpected pregnancy. And the academic community put little value on James’ area of expertise. He was viewed as odd and was offered only one teaching position.

So they transferred their ambitions to their children, particularly Lydia. Marilyn, making the same mistake her own mother had made, assumed that Lydia wanted what she had wanted, medical school. And James pushed her into a tortured social life which had her lurking at the edges of the gym at school dances and pretending to talk to friends on the telephone. Meanwhile they ignored their other two children, Nath and Hannah, whose real interests and abilities seemed insignificant in comparison to those imagined for Lydia.

The family imploded after Lydia’s disappearance, shortly after her sixteenth birthday. Rage and recrimination from past slights and injuries came to the surface and drove the family members apart. It seemed a point of no return had been reached. Only quiet and observant Hannah, who knew some of Lydia’s secrets, could help the others come to terms with what had happened.

Check out a copy of Everything I Never Told You @ the library!

The Sound of Music Story by Tom Santopietro

Given the fact that the critically acclaimed, beloved movie The Sound of Music turns fifty years old this month, the timing of Santopietro's new book couldn't have been timed any better. For the avid Sound of Music fan, this book provides lots of "new" details about the real life von Trapp family, Rogers and Hammerstein's productions (both on Broadway and in theater), filming in Austria, and the cast. Though there are often a lot of details, it is fun to read this book, especially with chapter titles like "A Captain with Seven Children: What's So Fearsome About That" and "Let's Start at the Very Beginning..."

Find out all about how Julie Andrews almost missed being the infamous Maria and how Christopher Plummer really felt about the idea of seven children. While all of the movie facts are sure to teach even the biggest Sound of Music fan a thing or two, perhaps the most interesting part of this book is when Santopietro talks about the real von Trapp family. It's interesting to compare the real von Trapps to the characters we've all grown to love in this classic movie.

Read this book and then watch the movie. You'll notice all sorts of things you didn't realize before.

Check out a copy of The Sound of Music Story @ the library today!

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson

The rural Montana depicted in Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson is a rough, hard-scrabble place and not an easy place to be a social worker. Pete Snow is a Montana social worker based in the small town of Tenmile. He is a decent man who has too much empathy for his own good. He often takes chances and breaks rules to keep dysfunctional families together, knowing that a foster home or institution might be a more damaging, dangerous place for children than a home headed by a drug-addicted parent. So when a young boy from a survivalist family wanders into town from the mountains, Pete buys him some clothes, food and medicine and escorts him back into the wilderness. There he meets the boy’s father, Jeremiah Pearl. Over time, Pete befriends Jeremiah and his son, Benjamin. He learns that Benjamin is just one child in a large family but, mysteriously, he never encounters any of the others. At the same time, Pete must continue to tend to the needs of his other difficult clients. Further, when his own family, having its own problems, disintegrates, he loses his wife and daughter.

Fourth of July Creek is set in the very early 1980’s after President Reagan is shot, the Pearls and other survivalists come under closer scrutiny by agents of the Federal Government. Mistrust and ignorance on both sides complicate matters and violence erupts in town and in the mountains. Pete Snow is a man caught in the middle—a government agent who has compassion for those with anti-government inclinations. Fanaticism and violence can only end in tragedy even though a good man, Pete Snow, does his futile best to prevent it.