July '23 Book List

 Eight and a half* books read this month.

The Wind Knows My Name is the latest novel by Isabel Allende. This author is always worth reading, especially for insight on why and how so many risk their lives trying to enter our country. I particularly found this book interesting by the way the author intertwines the lives of a young Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing present day El Salvador.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is a number one Sunday Times Bestseller that I first heard of on CBS Sunday Morning. Set in the 1960's when women were still so objectified, Elizabeth Zott was a young educated woman who wanted nothing less than being the chemist she longed to be and trained for. When she is allowed to be no more than an assistant at the lab where she works and cannot support herself and her young daughter on that salary, she accepts the job of hosting a TV cooking show. She gets off on the wrong foot on the first on air show by telling the audience that all cooking is chemistry. Along the way she empowers not only herself, but other women as well. I really liked this book and easily identified with it.

The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag is the second book in her Elena Estes series.

Moscow Rules, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy and The Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva are the next four books in the Gabriel Allon series that I've been reading my way through. In addition to the solving of crimes, the spying, mystery and thriller aspects of these books, I really like the references to art and all the art stolen by the Nazi's in WWII - much of which has never been recovered.

Long Shadows by David Baldacci is #7 in his Amos Decker/Memory Man series. I love this writer, this series and the damaged main character. Amos has a new partner and neither of them is thrilled about it. But they learn to get along, appreciate the other's strengths and solve all the murders of this particular case. 

I've had this book on my list since last fall, but never found it in on the new books shelves. Finally I checked the library's website and found that it had already been moved to the regular book shelves. Duh. I could have read it much sooner. But it is always worth the wait for one of Baldacci's titles. 

Night of Miracles is the latest Elizabeth Berg offering. I have been a fan of this author since reading her very first book, Talk Before Sleep, in 1995. For a long time she was one of my adopted authors at the library but after several years with no new titles, I thought she had quit writing and replaced her with a different adopted author. 

This is a follow up of Berg's The Story of Arthur Truluv which I read in 2017. Some of the same characters are featured as well as several new ones. Every few pages begins a new 'chapter' about one or more of the characters and their interactions. I love the way Berg illustrates each character and all the positive ways their lives entwine in the small town of Mason, Missouri. It is impossible to read a Berg book and not feel good about life.

(* Mentioned as a half book read this month because I am only half way through it - but I will have finished it by tonight.) 😉