Mama Day by Gloria Naylor

Cocoa, whose real name is Ophelia, is a young southern woman living in New York who is still deeply connected to her family and ancestry. George grew up an orphan, overcoming a multitude of challenges in order to become an engineer who  and the co-owner of an engineering company. Cocoa and George meet when Cocoa interviews for a job at George's firm. George and Cocoa begin to date and marry suddenly, but George doesn't visit Willow Springs with Cocoa for four years, during which time Cocoa never shares with him the more unusual and even supernatural aspects of Willow Springs.

After several years they return to Willow Springs together. When George finally does accompany her, he has a hard time believing in or understanding some of the events that take place. When he discovers that Cocoa is dying because of a hex put on her by a conjure woman, George wants to use practical means to save her life.

338 pages

The Night at the Crossroads (Inspector Maigret Book 6) by Geroges Simeone

When called to a small village at a crossroads, Maigret finds that everyone
in the vicinity has something to hide. He eventually discovers an intricate
system of thievery, which leads to murder.

160 pages

The Judge's House (Inspector Maigret Book 22) by Georges Simeon

Maigret has been exiled from Paris to a remote province, having offended his superiors. Out of his element, he finds himself utterly bored—until a murder case arrives.

He solves that murder, and in the process discovers another that happened 20 years before.



176 pages

Love and Mary Ann by Catherine Cookson

Mary Ann is growing up - she's going on seventeen now, and in love with her childhood sweetheart Corny Boyle. But Mr. Lord (the old devil) entices him by dangling a carrot in front of him. And Corny tries to grab the carrot, deserting Mary Ann to go to America. The field is now open for Mr. Lord's grandson to court Mary Ann, and of course he proposes to her. Will she marry him? Will she ever see Corny again?


220 pages.

Unfollow: a memoir of loving and leaving the Westboro Baptist church by Megan Phelps-Roper

Many of us have seen the newspaper photos and read the articles about Westboro Baptist church, which began picketing to protest LGBTQ people being accepted by society, and moved on to protesting at military  funerals, carrying hate filled signs. The author of this memoir grew up in  the church, starting her picketing 'career' at age 5. She became the chief social media face of the church. But a funny thing happened along the way; arguing online with people who challenged her ideas eventually caused her to begin questioning the theology she had been taught. She eventually left the church, thus being exiled from all contact with her family. This excerpt from the book says it all:

Doubt was nothing more than epistemological humility: a deep and practical awareness that outside our sphere of knowledge there existed information and experiences that might show our position to be in error. Doubt causes us  to hold a strong position a bit more loosely, such that an acknowledgment of ignorance or error doesn’t crush our sense of self or leave us totally unmoored if our position proves untenable.

Certainty is the opposite: it hampers inquiry and hampers growth. It teaches us to ignore evidence that  contradicts our ideas, and encourages us to defend our position at all costs, even as it reveals itself as indefensible. Certainty sees compromise as weak, hypocritical, evil, suppressing empath and allowing us to justify inflicting horrible pain on others. Doubt wasn’t the sin, I came to believe. It was the arrogance of certainty that poisoned Westboro at its foundations.

In today's fractured world, we would all do well to listen to her words and experience.

293 pages

Maigret Goes to School by Georges Simeon

 
173 pages
Maigret is called from his usual duties in Paris to investigate a murder in a small village located close to La Rochelle. A local postmistress has been killed and suspicion has fallen on the local schoolmaster. When Maigret gets there, he discovers a very inward-looking community of people who hated the victim because she knew all their secrets. Maigret must determine if one of those secrets was enough to make someone into a killer.

Curtains for Three by Rex Stout

Three Nero Wolf novellas:

First there is the case of the two passionate lovebirds who want to make sure that neither is a cold-blooded killer.

 Then it’s off to the races, where Wolfe must choose from a stable of five likely suspects to corral a killer on horseback.

And finally the detective finds himself the confidant of a distraught, self-described grifter who claims a murderer is stalking Wolfe’s own brownstone.

Homicide Trinity by Rex Stout

Three Nero Wolf novellas. In the first, the killer has the audacity to leave a corpse strangled with Wolfe’s own soup-stained tie.

In the second, he is hired by a wife to take charge of the gun that she is afraid she may use to shoot her husband.

When the third course is served: a cop-hating landlady brings Wolfe counterfeit cash—that leads to genuine murder. It’s up to Wolfe to see that the malefactors get their just deserts.  



224 pages

Love and Mary Ann by Catherine Cookson

This is the fourth book of the Mary Ann series. Mary Ann is growing up fast. As she begins to learn about the feelings of adults, she sees that the more they love someone, the more they can hurt and be hurt. And isn’t just grown-ups who feel this way either. She realises that whenever she catches sight of Corny Boyle – she can recognise those same feelings swelling up inside herself…

223 pages

The Devil and Mary Ann by Catherine Cookson

 
224 pages
This is the third in the Mary Ann series. Mary Ann starts to mature.  She is starting to see that there is a darker side in most folks, and that even her beloved 'Da' gets the devil inside of him once in a while.

The Lord and Mary Ann by Catherine Cookson

Mary Ann loves her Da, more than anything in the world. Da has a drinking problem, but Mary Ann is convinced that if she can find him just the right job, he would be set for life. So she finds him a job on a farm, believing that if he was away from the temptations of town, he would change into the perfect Da she knew deep down he was.

However, she can't count on others to do what she thinks they should, so her plans go awry in this second book of the delightful Tyneside series featuring Mary Ann, an extraordinary child.


192 pages

A Grand Man by Catherine Cookson

"A Grand Man" is what Mary Ann calls her 'Da'. Determined, mischievous,  loving Mary Ann and her father share a special love. 'Da" adores Mary Ann, is usually drunk, and keeps the family in poverty because of his inability to hold down a job. Mary Ann will never admit 'Da' is drunk; she insists he is "sick."  She schemes to keep him in a job and away from the booze.

 I  read the entire Mary Ann series 30 years ago and decided to re-read it since Cookson has a double letter. I still love the irrepressible Mary Ann.

 152 pages

The Lonely Silver Rain: A Travis McGee Novel by John D. MacDonald

 
272 pages
Billy Ingraham asks Travis McGee to locate his $700,000 custom cruiser.  McGee doesn’t feel like sticking out his neck for this case, but Billy’s wife  convinces him to take the case. With the help of a  pilot friend he locates it, only to find everyone on board murdered.

McGee finds himself in center of an international cocaine ring, while being confronted by a secret from his past.

Breakthrough: The Making of America's First Woman President by Nancy L. Cohen

Nancy Cohen interviewed dozens of women politicians from both parties, political consultants, and voters. She takes us through the history of women's involvement in the public square, starting with the fight to win voting rights. The book was written during Hillary Clinton's campaign for president,  but deals with the path she followed to get there, not whether or not she would win (which of course, she did not.

Focusing on the struggle to get women elected, she examines attitudes about women in this country, and the way young women are breaking through the barriers erected to hold them back, especially in politics, but also in many other areas.

I think this is an important book for everyone to read, but especially women. We need to understand our own biases toward ambitious women, and why it is important to have their leavening influence on society.


338 pages

Heartland: A memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh

Sarah Smarsh is from a fifth generation Kansas wheat farm family on her Dad's side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her Mother's side. Writing about her experiences growing up on a farm west of Wichita, she gives her perspective into the lives of poor and working class Americans living in the heartland.

Her legacy was a work ethic that enabled her to create a solid professional life for herself, but that doesn't alleviate the pain of growing up seeing the way that poor people are marginalized and made to feel
"less than".

304 pages

A Deadly Shade of Gold : A Travis Mc Gee Novel by John D. MacDonald

In this Travis McGee mystery, his old friend Sam Taggart enlists his help to reunite him with the woman he left in Fort Lauderdale to seek his fortune in Mexico. But Nora, his girl, and Travis find Sam dead in his motel room, and set out to salvage the money Sam would have gotten had he sold the golden idol he found there.

418 pages

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd and her husband Arthur leave Georgia for Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. She watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. She gives birth to nine more children.

Arthur is a disappointment to her, as he works at a series of menial jobs; she was raised to believe she was better than that, and deserved more. As she becomes more and more distant, Arthur turns to other women, and Hattie herself has an affair with another man.

Each chapter of the book follows the life of one of the children, with the dysfunctional family life threads running through it.

322 pages

The Last Runaway: a novel by Tracy Chevalier

Honor Bright, having been jilted by her fiancée, accompanies her sister to America, where she is to be married. It was a difficult voyage; she was ill for the entire trip, and knows she can never go back to England again. Her sister catches yellow fever and dies before they reach Ohio, where she is to be married. Honor stays with her sister's fiancée until she meets and marries Jack Haymaker.

This being 1850, and Honor being a Quaker, she becomes involved in helping runaway slaves, despite her husband's (and his family's) objections. They order her to stop hiding slaves, even threatening to take her baby away and disown her. Yet Honor must remain true to her "inner light".


353 pages

Educated : a memior by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was raised by Mormon survivalist parents at the base of a mountain in Idaho, one of seven children. The older children went to school, but as her father became more and more convinced that the government (and the medical establishment; and pretty much everyone else) was out to get them, they were no longer allowed to attend, and the younger children never went at all.

The family lived a precarious and sometimes dangerous existence, isolated from society at large. Tara was particularly close to one of her older brothers, who decided he wanted to go to college over his father's objections. When Tara was 15, he convinced her that she should also go to college. Having had very little education of any kind, she had to study on her own to pass the entrance exams, but having decided to do it, she doggedly pursued her goal, until she managed to get admitted to Brigham Young University.

As she worked, and got scholarships and got her undergraduate degree, then her Master's, and eventually a PhD, she became increasingly alienated from her family, until they no longer allowed her to come home.


336 pages

The Green Ripper: A Travis McGee Novel by John MacDonald

Travis McGee has been living a carefree live on his houseboat, with a lot of casual relationships with women But when he meets Gretel, he is ready to settle down. Then Gretel suddenly dies, seemingly as the result of an insect bite. But when Travis learns that she was murdered, he becomes unhinged.

He leaves Florida for California, taking on an alias, and posing as a fisherman searching for his daughter. He starts picking off targets. Has it lost it completely?

257 pages