The Paris Architect: A Novel by Charles Belfoure

The setting is occupied Paris and the plot revolves around an architect who both takes commissions from the occupying Germans and build hiding places for French Jews.  As expected, there is much suspense as Lucien Bernard, the architect, builds more hiding places and more German factories.   The book highlights the moral dilemmas as well as drawing a rich picture of life during the occupation.

The Black Box by Michael Connelly

This is number 18 in the Harry Bosch series.   Bosch is now assigned to the cold case unit and is intent on solving a murder of a Norwegian reporter during the LA riots following the Rodney King trial.   As usual Bosch is locking horns with the upper brass, but he takes some vacation to follow up on the case and eventually solve it.  

Blood of the Prodigal by Paul L. Gaus

This is the first in a series of mysteries set in Ohio's Amish community.   The story and the mystery are rather light but cover much of the life of the Amish.   There is a nice cross between the respectful investigator called in by the bishop to find his wayward son and his grandson.  The story resolves itself in favor of the prodigal son, as one might anticipate, but with a twist.

Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

The book follows the lives of a mother and daughter.   The mother was born in China and her life weaves before and through the Communist revolution in China, then off to America.   The daughter is born in America.   The story joins them when the mother is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow

Wow!!   She sure doesn't like Ronald Reagan!    This was an audio book read by Maddow with all of the sarcasm she brings to her daily show.

Turns out she's not real fond of any president since Reagan either.    Not a fan of Congress either!

Mostly, Maddow turns out to be a strict constructionist and admires Jefferson most of all in his call for a very limited military.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Interesting take on time travel.   Kids who are obsessed by time travel because of books they have read find a way to experience it themselves.   The story revolves around several middle schoolers in New York City.

The Inventor and The Tycoon by Edward Ball

This book chronicles the lives of Leland Stanford, the founder of Stanford University, and Eadweard Muybridge, the inventor of still-motion photography. Along the way, much of the history of the founding of the motion picture industry is covered by the paths Muybridge crosses. While Stanford's path covers the building of his fortune through the transcontinental railroad and other financial pursuits. The private lives of each of the men take many odd twists and turns including a murder by Muybridge and Stanford's involvement with spiritualists.

You Are One of Them by Elliott Holt

Intriguing story wound around the lives of two young girls starting in 1980's Washington, DC.    For different reasons, both girls send notes to Yuri Andropov, then Russian leader.   One of the girl's letters is answered and sets her on a path as a child ambassador of sorts.   The story leads to Russia where the plot unfolds further.

Impulse by Frederick Ramsay

This is another in the decades-old, unsolved crime story.    Interesting group of characters return for a multi-year class reunion at a high-cost prep school.    The group includes a mystery writer in the 50-year reunion group whose wife had disappeared from the school years ago.   They mystery also involves the disappearance of 4 boys who would have been in the 25-year reunion group.   The mystery writer gets involved in the solving of the boys.  

Interesting intertwining of all the lives.

Out of Order by Sandra Day O'Connor

This book, whose full title is Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court takes us over a wide terrain of Supreme Court history and facts.    O'Connor's views on customs, justices, appointments, clerks and all the information surrounding the Court make for a rather light, but interesting skimming over 200 years of Supreme Court history.

Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt

This mystery/novel spans the lives of 3 children from around age 8 to their 30's, as well as the lives of their single mothers.    The setting is 1950's and 60's  Massachusetts.   One of the mothers is a divorcee and receives the kind of snubbing one might expect.   The other is a widow.

Their lives unfold until one day one of the boys disappears.   This becomes the focal point of the story dictating life plans for both of the remaining children as well as their mothers.

Heir Today by J.J. Lamb

When a pair of twins are contacted by a "lost inheritance" company,  each twin has a different approach.   One wants to pay the finder's fee immediately.  The other, working with her husband, tracks down the source of the funds, the history of her uncle, and much more across several continents.

The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly

The next in the Mickey Haller series.   Haller is a lawyer who works out of a Lincoln Continental....making him one of the "Lincoln Lawyers."   This case involves several murders, one recent and one far in the past.   Lots of double-dealing and twists and turns.    Quite a good read.

The "Gods of Guilt" are the jury members and much of the book revolves around getting the jurors (always off to the side) convinced.

Death of Yesterday by M.C. Beaton

Another in the Hamish Macbeth series.  The plot is simple, as usual, but the many characters are interesting and the story moves along nicely.

This one revolves around the town's factory which threatens to be shut down.  

Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson

First book in this series.   I listened to the audio book but there is a lot of reference to the illustrations to make this more of a graphic novel.

The story is cute and as lightweight as a middle schooler would like.  There are some complex situations including an abusive live-in boyfriend, a deceased twin and a rough transition to middle school.

Rafe Khatchadorian has enough problems at home without throwing his first year of middle school into the mix. Luckily, he's got an ace plan for the best year ever, if only he can pull it off: With his best friend Leonardo the Silent awarding him points, Rafe tries to outwit his school's oppressive Conduct. Chewing gum in class–5,000 points! Running in the hallway–10,000 points! Pulling the fire alarm–50,000 points! But when Rafe's game starts to catch up with him, he'll have to decide if winning is all that matters, or if he's finally ready to face the rules, bullies, and truths he's been avoiding. Blockbuster author James Patterson delivers a genuinely hilarious—and surprisingly poignant—story of a wildly image, one-of-kind kid that you won't soon forget.

Beyond the Sling by Mayim Bialik

Bialik gives complete advice on how to work with "attachment parenting." She and husband always have taken care of the kids with no outside help. Emphasis on breast-feeding, home schooling, whole family bed, non-toilet training, and gentle discipline.

Mayim Bialik was the child star of the popular 1990s TV sitcom Blossom,but she definitely didn't follow the typical child-star trajectory. Instead, Mayim got her PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, married her college sweetheart, and had two kids. Mayim then did what many new moms do—she read a lot of books, talked with other parents, and she soon started questioning a lot of the conventional wisdom she heard about the “right” way to raise a child. That's when she turned to attachment parenting, a philosophy and lifestyle popularized by well-known physicians like Dr. William Sears and Dr. Jay Gordon. 

To Mayim, attachment parenting's natural, child-led approach not only felt right emotionally, it made sense intellectually and instinctually. She found that when she followed her intuition and relaxed into her role as a mother instead of following some rigid parenting script, both she and her children thrived. Drawing on both her experience as a mother and her scientific background, Mayim presents the major tenets of attachment parenting, including: 

CO-SLEEPING

BREASTFEEDING 

BABY WEARING

GENTLE DISCIPLINE

An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff

Read this one for the second time for book club. Story of a woman executive who befriends an 11-year-old black panhandler and the relationship lasts for their lifetimes.

“Excuse me lady, do you have any spare change? I am hungry.” When I heard him, I didn’t really hear him. His words were part of the clatter, like a car horn or someone yelling for a cab. They were, you could say, just noise—the kind of nuisance New Yorkers learn to tune out. So I walked right by him, as if he wasn’t there. But then, just a few yards past him, I stopped. And then— and I’m still not sure why I did this  —I came back. When Laura Schroff first met Maurice on a New York City street corner, she had no idea that she was standing on the brink of an incredible and unlikely friendship that would inevitably change both their lives. As one lunch at McDonald's with Maurice turns into two, then into a weekly occurrence that is fast growing into an inexplicable connection, Laura learns heart-wrenching details about Maurice’s horrific childhood. The boy is stuck in something like hell. He is six years old and covered in small red bites from chinches—bed bugs—and he is woefully skinny due to an unchecked case of ringworm. He is so hungry his stomach hurts, but then he is used to being hungry: when he was two years old the pangs got so bad he rooted through the trash and ate rat droppings. He had to have his stomach pumped. He is staying in his father’s cramped, filthy apartment, sleeping with stepbrothers who wet the bed, surviving in a place that smells like something died. He has not seen his mother in three months, and he doesn’t know why. His world is a world of drugs and violence and unrelenting chaos, and he has the wisdom to know, even at six, that if something does not change for him soon, he might not make it. Sprinkled throughout the book is also Laura’s own story of her turbulent childhood. Every now and then, something about Maurice's struggles reminds her of her past, how her father’s alcohol-induced rages shaped the person she became and, in a way, led her to Maurice. He started by cursing my mother and screaming at her in front of all of us. My mother pulled us closer to her and waited for it to pass. But it didn’t. My father left the room and came back with two full liquor bottles. He threw them right over our heads, and they smashed against the wall. Liquor and glass rained down on us, and we pulled up the covers to shield ourselves. My father hurled the next bottle, and then went back for two more. They shattered just above our heads; the sound was sickening. My father kept screaming and ranting, worse than I’d ever heard him before. When he ran out of bottles he went into the kitchen and overturned the table and smashed the chairs. Just then the phone rang, and my mother rushed to get it. I heard her screaming to the caller to get help. My father grabbed the phone from her and ripped the base right out of the wall. My mother ran back to us as my father kept kicking and throwing furniture, unstoppable, out of his mind. As their friendship grows, Laura offers Maurice simple experiences he comes to treasure: learning how to set a table, trimming a Christmas tree, visiting her nieces and nephew on Long Island, and even having homemade lunches to bring to school. “If you make me lunch,” he said, “will you put it in a brown paper bag?”  I didn’t really understand the question. "Okay, sure. But why do you want it in a brown paper bag?” “Because when I see kids come to school with their lunch in a brown paper bag, that means someone cares about them.” I looked away when Maurice said that, so he wouldn’t see me tear up. A simple brown paper bag , I thought. To me, it meant nothing. To him, it was everything. It is the heartwarming story of a friendship that has spanned thirty years, that brought life to an over-scheduled professional who had lost sight of family and happiness and hope to a hungry and desperate boy whose family background in drugs and crime and squalor seemed an inescapable fate. He had, inside of him, some miraculous reserve of goodness and strength, some fierce will to be special. I saw this in his hopeful face the day he asked for spare change, and I see it in his eyes today. Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some might call it heart. Whatever it was, it drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.