LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2018

These candidate books come from several sources, including suggestions from LAVA members, lists of award-winning books, favorites of other book clubs, the Harvard Bookstore’s best-seller list, literary blogs, etc.  Several were carried over from the previous voting list.  There are 22 books on this list, but we will choose only 7 of them in this balloting, which unfortunately means that many worthwhile books will be excluded from next year’s reading schedule.  As before, the most popular runners-up will be included in the next list of candidates.

Why do we need to choose only 7 books to cover 12 meetings?  We don’t read a book for January because that month is occupied with choosing the next list of books.  In March we read the book chosen by Writers and Books for their "Rochester Reads" program.  In July and September, we see a film at The Little Theater instead of discussing a book.  When it became clear that we wouldn't have enough copies of Hillbilly Elegy to read in February, 2018, the last month of our scheduling cycle, we pushed it to sometime later in 2018, hoping that more copies will be available.  (We replaced it with Boys in the Boat as our February book, which removed it from this voting list.)   That leaves us 7 books to choose for the year from this list.

LAVA members are encouraged to research these book candidates in bookstores, libraries, on the web, etc.  Bring this list and your thoughts to the special January meeting at Bill and Andi's house on Saturday, January 13, which will be devoted to sharing information and opinions on these books (and sharing good food).

After the January meeting and prior to the voting deadline of Sunday February 4, please "mark your ballots" and return them to Bill.  First review the guidelines for choosing LAVA discussion books, which reflect some of the things we have learned about choosing books over the years.  Then, using a system similar to the one used in the Olympics, rate each book individually on a scale of 1 to 10, using 10 to indicate books that you think would generate the best Lava discussions. If you aren't familiar with the system used by the Olympics, think of the traditional way of grading classroom papers: you would grade each one individually based on its own merits, not on how it compares with others.

The system works best if you provide a rating for every book on the list.  If you wish, you can write your rating for each book in the margins of this document.  Members often rate each book as we discuss it during the January meeting and then hand in their marked list before they leave, but you can use any method you prefer as long as you get your ratings to Bill by the voting deadline.

The candidates are divided into three groups: shorter fiction, shorter nonfiction, and longer works.  This division doesn’t affect how you cast your vote, but it does affect how the final schedule is created.  If no nonfiction book is among the top vote-getters, the most popular nonfiction book will go on the list anyway to assure that we get a little variety in our reading.  Any of the longer books among the top vote-getters will be assigned to the August and October meetings because that will give us two months to read them.

Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.  314 pages, 2014. This novel is based on a true story about a woman convicted of murder in Iceland who, for lack of jails, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.  The farm family, at first horrified at the idea of sharing their house with a murderer, learn that there is another side to her story. New York Times: "[A] gripping tale about what Agnes was actually guilty of." Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Kent brings a bleak beauty to this grim tale, her prose illuminating the stark landscape of the far north and the deepest recesses of a woman's soul." Washington Post: "Bleak and beautiful.... Kent handles her starkly austere story with uncanny precision and an utter lack of sentiment." Christian Science Monitor: "A sensation among book reviewers drawn to its depiction of the struggles of a gritty people and a doomed woman amid a harsh landscape."  The New Yorker: "Gorgeously atmospheric.... [with] memorable, complex characters." Review in the Washington Post.  26 copies in the library system.

The Children Act by Ian McEwan.  221 pages, 2014.  A judge who presides over family court issues finds herself dealing with a crisis in her own marriage.  At the same time, she must decide the case of a boy who, three months too young to be able legally to make such decisions himself, is citing religious beliefs for refusing medical treatment that could save his life.  His parents support him.  Boston Globe: "Highly subtle and page-turningly dramatic... Only a master could manage, in barely over two hundred pages, to engage so many ideas, leaving nothing neatly answered."  NPR: "Begins with the briskness of a legal brief written by a brilliant mind, and concludes with a gracefulness found in the work of few other writers."  New York Daily News: "Convincingly presents a complex woman in all her nuances... A paragon becomes all too human in this aching tale." Previous novels by this author won the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.  LAVA read the author's Atonement in 2007 and Enduring Love in 2003.  More than 40 copies in the library system.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.  322 pages, 2016.  In the 1960's, a policeman hosts a christening party for his daughter.  His cousin kisses the hostess, kicking off a chain of events that affects two families for decades. Washington Post: "Very soon, we're thoroughly invested in these families, wrapped up in their lives by Patchett's storytelling, which has never seemed more effortlessly graceful.  This is minimalism that magically speaks volumes."  Guardian: "All of this will make Commonwealth sound like a domestic novel, and it is—one of the finest in recent memory... The commonwealth of this novel is family, it is nation, it is history shared and history lost". LAVA read Patchett's Truth and Beauty in 2016, State of Wonder in 2014, and Bel Canto in 2010.  Suggested by Connie. More than 50 copies in the library system.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.  390 pages, 2015. According to a review in the Guardian named "Why Fates and Furies Was This Year’s Most Talked-about Novel," this book is "about a marriage in which each partner has a radically disparate view, not just of their union, but of the type of narrative constituted by their lives. It’s as if husband and wife each inhabit a different novel, in a different genre – one sunnily domestic, the other gothic."  New York Times Book Review (cover review): "Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers – with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout."  Washington Post: "Lauren Groff just keeps getting better and better. Fates and Furies is a clear-the-ground triumph." This novel was a finalist for the National Book Award.  More than 40 copies in the library system.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.  343 pages, 2017.  The bardo, in Tibetan Buddhism is a transitional space occupied by the souls of the dead.  In this Booker-Prize-winning novel, President Lincoln, plagued by uncertainty about his leadership skills, visits the grave of his recently deceased son during the early part of the Civil War.  His visit is narrated by a number of graveyard ghosts, many of whose backstories are presented.  Los Angeles Times: "A book of singular grace and beauty, an inquiry into all the most important things: life and death, family and loss and loving, duty and perseverance in the face of excruciating circumstances."  Pittsburg Post Gazette: "This is an original and devastating novel about the difficulty of rising to life's toughest challenges."  USA Today: "Saunders's rapid-fire dialogue makes the pages zip by.  And yet, for all its divine comedy, Lincoln in the Bardo is also deep and moving."  More than 40 copies in the library system.

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, 245 pages, 1988.   Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize in 2017, and this novel is his best-known work.  LAVA read it in 2002 and liked it, so the proposal is for us to repeat a book discussion for the first time ever.  Amazon: "The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking, pitch-perfect novel -- namely, Stevens' own ability to allow some bit of life-affirming love into his tightly repressed existence." The New York Times described it as "an intricate and dazzling novel", Newsweek as "brilliant and quietly devastating," and The New York Review of Books as "a virtuoso performance ... put on with dazzling daring and aplomb."  It was made into a Merchant-Ivory film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The idea of reading a book by Ishiguro was suggested by Diane.  LAVA read Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in 2011.  17 copies in the library system.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. 287 pages, 2006.  Amazon: "A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind...Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there... it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation."  This novel won the Pulitzer Prize.  San Francisco Chronicle: "His tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful. It might very well be the best book of the year, period."  New York Times: "Illuminated by extraordinary tenderness... Simple yet mysterious, simultaneously cryptic and crystal clear. The Road offers nothing in the way of escape or comfort. But its fearless wisdom is more indelible than reassurance could ever be." Suggested by Connie. List of reviews.  More than 50 copies in the library system.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht.  338 pages, 2011.  Publishers Weekly: "Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé, the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare Natalia."  Washington Post: "That The Tiger’s Wife never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic... Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing."  This novel won the Orange Prize.  It was widely expected to win the National Book Award in 2011, which went instead to Salvage the Bones (which LAVA read in 2016).  Several reviews.  Suggested by Judy.  42 copies in the library system.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks.  308 pages, 2002.  Inspired by a true story, this novel is about the outbreak of plague in an isolated English village in 1666.  Some of its inhabitants add to the community's disintegration by engaging in witch-hunting, which induces a housemaid with healing skills to take the lead in dealing with the crisis.  New York Times: "She gives us what we want in historical fiction: a glimpse into the strangeness of history that simultaneously enables us to see a reflection of ourselves."  The Guardian: "Year of Wonders is a staggering fictional debut that matches journalistic accumulation of detail to natural narrative flair."  LAVA has read several novels by Brooks: March (which won the Pulitzer Prize) in 2008, People of the Book in 2011 and Caleb’s Crossing in 2013.  Review in the Guardian. Suggested by Connie.  Held over from last year.  45 copies in the library system.

Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)

Bellvue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky.  2017, 322 pages.  This is the story of the nation's oldest hospital and the largest public hospital in its largest city.  Chicago Tribune: "[Oshinsky] is a master of finding and relating memorable anecdotes to embody the history. The result is a serious story studded with juicy and occasionally blood-curdling bits from the past."  Boston Globe: "The story of Bellevue, Oshinsky convincingly demonstrates, is the story of modern medicine, of New York City, and of America itself."  New York Times: Oshinsky’s chapters about the early days of medicine are especially, distractingly interesting—so much so that they’ll inspire you to read them aloud to anyone who’ll listen." The author, who is director of the Division of Medical Humanities at the NYU School of Medicine, won the Pulitzer Prize for an earlier book on the history of polio. 21 copies in the library system.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan.  252 pages, 2012.  The true story of an investigative reporter who developed a rare and deadly brain disorder.  Correctly diagnosed only at the last moment, she recovered and later used her parents' journals to write about her descent into paranoia and violent psychosis.  Washington Post: "Cahalan's tale is told in straightforward journalistic prose and is admirably well-researched and described... This story has a happy ending, but take heed: It is a powerfully scary book."  New York Times: "Cahalan's prose carries a sharp, unsparing, tabloid punch in the tradition of Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin."  Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology: "...a superb case study of a rare neurological diagnosis; even experienced neurologists will find much to learn in it."  Review in the Guardian.  Held over from last year.  26 copies in the library system.

Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy.  Two editions of this book are available.  One is subtitled "How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens," 288 pages, 2007.  The other is subtitled "How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants," 2009, 358 pages. According to Booklist, the book argues that "beneficial insects are being deprived of essential food resources when suburban gardeners exclusively utilize nonnative plant material. Such an imbalance, Tallamy declares, can lead to a weakened food chain that will no longer be able to support birds and other animal life."  New York Times: "If you cut down the goldenrod, the wild black cherry, the milkweed and other natives, you eliminate the larvae, and starve the birds. This simple revelation about the food web—and it is an intricate web, not a chain—is the driving force in Bringing Nature Home." Washington Post: "Provides the rationale behind the use of native plants, a concept that has rapidly been gaining momentum... The text makes a case for native plants and animals in a compelling and complete fashion."  Suggested by Lindsey, who says, "It sounds dry as a bone, but it really isn't."  The library system has 6 copies of each of the two editions. 

Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard, 318 pages, 2016.  This is a chronicle of the 24-year-old Winston Churchill's exploits during the Boer War in South Africa, which began in 1899.  Traveling with British soldiers as a war correspondent, he was captured but later escaped and returned home as a war hero.  New York Times: "In Ms. Millard's retelling, young Churchill was entitled, precocious, supernaturally confident—one of those fellows whose neon self-regard is downright unseemly until the very moment it is earned."  Financial Times: "[The author's] eye for humanizing detail, her vivid topographical descriptions and her keen awareness of the realities (and surrealities) of war come together in a truly fascinating book."  New York Times: "This book is an awesome nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one."  LAVA read Millard's Destiny of the Republic in 2015 and River of Doubt in 2014.  Suggested by Connie.  24 copies in the library system.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, 282 pages, 2016.  This memoir, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, is by a prominent geobiologist.  According to Wikikpedia, "Geobiology applies the principles and methods of biology and geology to the study of the ancient history of the co-evolution of life and Earth as well as the role of life in the modern world."  An important aspect of the book is the author's relationship with her brilliant but eccentric lab manager.  New York Times: "Does for botany what Oliver Sacks's essays did for neurology, what Stephen Jay Gould's writings did for paleontology."  American Scientist: "At its core, Lab Girl is a book about seeing—with the eyes, but also the hands and the heart."  The author is one of four scientists who have been awarded both of the Young Investigator Medals given within the Earth Sciences, and she has been the recipient of three Fulbright Awards.  24 copies in the library system.

Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian-American life by Jerre Mangione.  285 pages, 1941. Thinly disguised as fiction at the insistence of his publisher, this is actually Mangione's memoir of growing up in a neighborhood of Sicilian immigrants in Rochester, NY in the early 1900s.  The author is the uncle of musicians Chuck and Gap Mangione. San Francisco Chronicle: "One of the best books yet published in its field--a book in which you will learn more about the making of an American than in the most solemn or fictional volumes that purport to tell you all about the subject."  Mangione's obituary in the New York Times includes a discussion of the book.  Suggested by Robert, who says it would be instructive to compare an actual historical work from that period with a work of fiction set in the same period, such as Euphoria, which LAVA recently read.  Held over from last year. More than 50 copies in the library system.

Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, 292 pages (softback in April 2018), 2017.  In the 1800's, the Osage tribe was forced to move from Kansas to what was considered to be worthless land in Oklahoma.  When oil was found there, envious whites used a variety of methods to limit their ability to profit from it.  More than two dozen tribal members were murdered, leading to the involvement of the newly formed FBI.  New York Times: As a reporter, [Grann] is dogged and exacting, with a singular ability to uncover and incorporate obscure journals, depositions and ledgers without ever letting the plot sag. As a writer he is generous of spirit, willing to give even the most scurrilous of character the benefit of the doubt."  Washington Post: "...a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug."  Suggested by Terence.  More than 30 copies in the library system.

Longer Books (suitable for August and October)

We read no more than two books in this category per year, and we reserve these for our August and October discussions, which gives us two months to read them.  This does not imply that our August and October books must come from this section.  If all the top choices are shorter books, that is what we read all year.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 588 pages, 2014.  In this novel (which won the National Book Critics Circle Award), two Nigerian teenagers fall in love and separately flee their country's military dictatorship, one to the US and one to Britain.  Years later, Obinze returns to Nigeria and becomes wealthy, while Ifemelu, a successful writer, also returns. They renew their relationship and face tough decisions.  Chicago Tribune: "Sprawling, ambitious and gorgeously written, 'Americanah' covers race, identity, relationships, community, politics, privilege, language, hair, ethnocentrism, migration, intimacy, estrangement, blogging, books and Barack Obama. It covers three continents, spans decades, leaps gracefully, from chapter to chapter, to different cities and other lives... [Adichie] weaves them assuredly into a thoughtfully structured epic. The result is a timeless love story steeped in our times." The Washington Post said Adichie writes, "with ruthless honesty about the ugly and beautiful sides of both" the U.S. and Nigeria.  Tess suggested this book and Judy seconded it. More than 30 copies in the library system. 

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  657 pages, 2009.  Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon come of age in Ethiopia, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.  One is studious and the other is a moody genius. The latter narrates their "long, dramatic, biblical story set against the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia, the life of the hospital compound in which they grow up and the love story of their adopted parents, both doctors... The boys become doctors as well." San Francisco Chronicle: "An epic tale about love, abandonment, betrayal and redemption, Verghese’s first novel is a masterpiece of traditional storytelling. Not a word is wasted in this larger-than-life saga that spans three countries and six decades." San Antonio Express-News: "I feel changed forever after reading this book, as if an entire universe had been illuminated for me." It won the Indie's Choice Book Award, which is given by owners of independent book stores.  Several reviews.  Suggested by Ken.  28 copies in the library system.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.  2017, 418 pages (softback in April 2018).  This novel won the British Book Award for Fiction.  In 1893, rumors appear that the Essex Serpent, a mythical creature, has returned to a coastal area outside London.  A young window investigates, certain that she will discover what is in fact a new species.  She is drawn into a relationship with the local vicar, who thinks the rumors are caused by the moral panic felt by those who have strayed from the righteous path.  Sunday Times (London): "For originality, richness of prose and depth of characterization, it is unlikely to be bettered this year ... one of the most memorable historical novels of the past decade."  New York Times: "A novel of almost insolent ambition--lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable.  I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home."  Booklist: "The vivid, often frightening imagery… and the lush descriptions… create a magical background for the sensual love story between Sarah and Will.  Book-discussion groups will have a field day with the imagery, the well-developed characters, and the concepts of innocence, evil, and guilt."  17 copies in the library system.

Middlemarch by George Elliot.  864 pages, 1872.  George Elliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans Cross. 

Amazon: "A sprawling work set in a provincial English town, Middlemarch boasts a large cast of characters whose stories interweave against a backdrop of political upheaval."  Hermione Lee: "The most profound, wise and absorbing of English novels ... and, above all, truthful and forgiving about human behavior."  Julian Barnes: "Middlemarch is probably the greatest English novel."  A. S. Byatt: "It is possible to argue that Middlemarch is the greatest English novel."  Martin Amis: "Certainly the greatest [English] novel."  Suggested by Terence.  An electronic version is available for free from Gutenberg.org.  About 25 copies in the library system.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan.  416 pages, 2015.  This novel won the Booker Prize.  Amazon: "Moving deftly from a Japanese POW camp to present-day Australia, from the experiences of Dorrigo Evans and his fellow prisoners to that of the Japanese guards, this savagely beautiful novel tells a story of the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost." The story is based partly on the experiences of the author's father, who was a prisoner of war during World War II.  The Guardian: "A symphony of tenderness and love, a moving and powerful story that captures the weight and breadth of a life... A masterpiece."  The Sunday Times (London): "A devastatingly beautiful novel."  The Observer (London): "A novel of extraordinary power, deftly told and hugely affecting."  Review in the New Yorker.   21 copies in the library system.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson.  538 pages, 2010.  This book, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, is the story of the migration of almost six million African Americans from the South to the North between 1915 and 1970, as illustrated partly through the lives of three individuals.  New York Times Book Review (Cover Review), by David Oshinsky (the author of Bellvue, another book on this year's voting list): "A narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future place on Oprah’s couch."  Wall Street Journal: "Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth."  The author previously won the Pulitzer Prize for her work as a journalist.  Several reviews (scroll down): http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/national_book_critics_circle/  Suggested by Leah.  31 copies in the library system.