BOOK REVIEWS 2003 – 2023
BOOKS RATED ON A SCALE OF ONE (LOWEST) TO FIVE (HIGHEST)
“Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett (5)
“Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd (5)
“Leap of Faith” by Queen Noor (5)
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee (5)
Books about Menopause (3)
“The Murder Room” by P.D James (3)
“DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown (4)
“The No. 1 Ladies Detective Story” by Alexander McCall Smith (5)
“Persian Pickle Club” by Sandra Dallas (5)
“Desert Queen” by Janet Wallach (5)
“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini (5)
“Eye of the Beholder” about the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum (4) +Field trip to Boston with tour of the Museum
“Madame Secretary” by Madeline Albright (4)
“The Other Boleyn Girl” by Philippa Gregory (5)
“Think Big, Act Small” by Jason Jennings (5) guest speaker Brian Solon
“Killing Rain” by Barry Eisler (3)
“Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden (4)
“Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by Lisa See (5)
“The Majesty of the Law” by Sandra Day O’Connor (5)
“With No One as a Witness” by Elizabeth George (4)
“Lucia, Lucia” by Andriana Trigiani (4)
“A Thousand White Women” by Jim Fergus (5)
“The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway (4)
“Mao’s Last Dancer” by Li Cunxin (5)
“A Place Called Self” by Stephanie Brown, PH.D. (5) guest speaker Stephanie Brown
“Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger (3)
“Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven” by Fannie Flagg (3)
“Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson (5)
“Code 211 Blue” by Joe McNamara (5) guest speaker Joe McNamara
“Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama (4)
“The Red Tent” by Anita Daimant (2)
“Start Late, Finish Rich” by David Bach (5) guest speakers, Les Koonce & Tom Curran
“The Woman in White” by Wilkie Collins (5)
“Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen (5)
“Little Heathens” by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (4)
Steinbeck – various books plus guest speaker (5) guest speaker Sue Blois, John Steinbeck’s niece
Biographies about Steinbeck plus A&E special (5)
“A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson (4)
“The Good Earth” by Pearl Buck (4)
“Run” by Ann Patchett (4)
“Waiting for Banana Peel” by Fran Adams Kearton (3) guest speaker Fran Adams Kearton
“My Life in France” by Julia Child (4)
“Daughter of Fortune” by Isabel Allende (3)
“The Wednesday Sister” by Meg Waite Clayton (4) guest speaker Meg Waite Clayton
“Agent Zigzag” by Ben Macintyre (3)
“Stone Diaries” by Carol Shields (3)
“The Life of Edgar Sawtelle” by David Wroblewski (5)
“Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer (2) guest speakers Katherine Luttrell & her 2 friends
“The Whistling Season” by Ivan Doig (3)
“Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery (5) (50 books read)
“Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout (5)
“The Nature of Music” by Maureen Draper (4) guest speaker Maureen Draper
“One Minute to Midnight” by Michael Dobbs (5)
“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett (5)
“The Blind Side” by Michael Lewis (3)
“Stones for Schools” by Greg Mortenson (5)
“Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi (4)
“Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” by Alan Bradley (5)
“Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” by Helen Simonson (5)
“Sarah’s Key” by Tatiana de Rosnay (4)
“Innocent” by Scott Thurlow (3)
“The Thirteenth Tale” by Diane Setterfield (5)
“When Everything Changed” by Gail Collins (4)
“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society” by Mary Ann Shafer (5)
“Cutting for Stones” by Abraham Verghese (5) + attended lecture by Abraham Verghese
“Snow Falls on Cedars” by David Guterson (3)
“The Scarlett Pimpernell” by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (3)
“Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (5)
“The Lacuna” by Barbara Kingsolver (4)
“Angle of Repose” by Wallace Stegner (5)
“Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell (4)
“The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey (2)
“Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand (4)
“Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin (3)
“Turn of Mind” by Alice LaPlante (5)
“Let’s Take the Long Way Home” by Gail Caldwell (4)
“Love and Death in Silicon Valley” by Joe McNamara (3) guest speaker Joe McNamara
“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson (5)
“The Cat’s Table” by Michael Ondaatje (4)
“Strength Finders 2.0” by Tom Rath (4)
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte (3)
“The End of Life Book Club” by Will Schwalbe (3)
“Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg (4)
“The Burgess Boys” by Elizabeth Strout (4)
“Prisoner of Heaven” by Carlos Zafon (4)
“And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini (4)
“Maids of Misfortune” by Louise Locke (3)
“Pursuit” by John Mindermann and Brian Solon (2) guest speakers John Mindermann and Brian Solon
“Bartender’s Tale” by Ivan Doig (4)
O’Henry stories (4)
“Speed” by Stephanie Brown (5) guest speaker Stephanie Brown
“The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd (5)
“Big Alma” by Bernice Scharlach (4) plus field trip to SF
“When Being a Grandma Isn’t So Grand” by Donne Davis (4) guest speaker Donne Davis
“Daring, My Passages” by Gail Sheehy (3-4)
“The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown (5)
“The Book Thief”, Markus Zusak (5)
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer (3-4)
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” by John LeCarre (2)
“Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett (5) (100 books read – plus 10 Year Reunion)
“The Red Notice” by Bill Browder (5)
“Race to Paris” by Meg Waite Clayton (3)
“Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande (5)
“Our Souls at Night” by Kent Haruf (5)
“The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah (5)
“The Gratitude Diaries” by Janice Kaplan (5)
“My Name is Lucy Barton” by Elizabeth Strout (4)
“Last Bus to Wisdom” by Ivan Doig (5)
“Notorious RBG” by Irin Carmon & Shauna Knizhnik (5)
“The Girl who Wrote in Silk” by Keilli Estes (3)
“The Mistletoe Murder” by P.D. James (4)
“The Year of Wonder” by Geraldine Brooks (3)
“Sully: My Search for What Really Matters” by Chesley (5)
“Rest” by Alex Pang (4) guest speaker Alex Pang
“American Kingpin” by Nick Bilton (4)
“Option B” by Sheryl Sandberg (3)
“A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman (4)
“A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles (5+++)
“The Rent Collector” by Camron Wright (4)
“Cry the Beloved Country” by Paton (5)
“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society” (movie & book review) (5)
“Have a Little Faith” by Mitch Albom (4)
“Call the Nurse” by Mary MacLeod (3)
“The Greatest Good” a Memoir of Davida Coady (5) guest speaker Stephanie Brown
“Bad Blood” by John Carreyrou (5)
“Becoming” by Michelle Obama (5)
“The Story of Arthur Truluv” by Elizabeth Berg (5)
“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens (5)
“The Only Woman in the Room” by Marie Benedict (4)
“No Stopping Us Now” by Gail Collins (3)
“Catch & Kill” by Ronan Farrow (3)
“I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith (3)
“Are we French Yet?” by Keith Van Sickle (4) guest speaker Keith Van Sickle
“Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” by Helen Simonson (4)
“White Fragility” by Robin DeAngelo (4)
“Neutralized – FBI vs. Jean Seaberg” by Jean Russell Larson & Garry McGee (3)
“Talking to Strangers” by Malcolm Gladwell (4)
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee (5)
Mary Oliver poetry (3)
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou (5)
“The Three Sisters” by Anna Malaika Tubbs (3)
“Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah (3)
“The Last Thing He Told Me” by Laura Dave (4)
“Tangled Vines” by Frances Dinkelspiel (4)
“The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett (3)
“State of Terror” by Louise Penny & Hillary Clinton (4)
“The Postmistress of Paris” by Meg Waite Clayton (5) guest speaker Meg Waite Clayton
“The Lincoln Highway” by Armor Towles (4)
“The Sweetness of Water” by Nathan Harris (5)
150 Books Celebration!!! (10)
“This is Happiness” by Niall Williams (4)
“Still Life” by Louise Penny (3)
“The Moment of Lift” by Melinda Gates (4)
“The Light We Carry” by Michelle Obama (4)
“Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Grams (3)
“Young Forever” by Dr. Mark Hyman (3)
“Horse” by Geraldine Brooks (3)
“How the Light Gets In” by Louise Penny (4)
“The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese (3)
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt (3)
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins (3)