• Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
• American War by Omar El Akkad
• Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
• Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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 steal their wealth. More than two dozen tribal members were murdered, and perhaps many more, leading to the involvement of the newly formed FBI.

A forty-nine-minute video of the author speaking about this book. Spoiler alert: you might want to finish the book before listening because it explains much of the mystery that drives the story.

Several reviews of the book

Two Osage sisters, Maria Tallchief and Marjorie Tallchief, were international ballet stars. Maria became America's first major prima ballerina.

The author's web site.

The Osage Nation's web site

The Wikipedia articles on the Osage Nation and on the Osage murders that are the subject of this book.

The Wikipedia article on J._Edgar_Hoover addresses the many rumors about Hoover's private life, including his relationship with Clyde Tolson.

Every March we open our meeting to the general public to discuss the book chosen by Writers & Books for the "Rochester Reads" program. This year's choice, American War by Omar El Akkad, is a dystopian novel about the second American Civil War, which breaks out in 2074. The author was born in Egypt, graduated from high school in Canada, and now resides in Oregon.

Writers & Books always provides an informative interview with the author and a discussion guide.

Here are several reviews of the book. I especially liked this one in the New York Times, which was mostly positive, and the one in The Guardian, which was more critical.

The author's web site includes links to six of the author's articles in the Globe and Mail, a major Canadian newspaper at which he worked as a staff reporter.

A fifteen-minute TED talk by the author about his experiences as a reporter in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, which helped to form the background for this book.

The Bouazizi Empire in the novel was named after Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia, who set himself on fire in protest of government policies, marking the beginning of the Tunisian revolution and the Arab Spring.

The Writers & Books pamphlet points out that the name "Sarat Chestnut" is a combination of the names of two actual women from the Civil War period: Mary Surratt and Mary Chesnut.

In the novel, a horrible massacre occurs at the Patience refugee camp. In 1982, a horrible massacre occurred in Lebanon at the Sabra refugee camp. According to the author in an interview, "Sabr" is the Arabic word for Patience. Here is the Wikipedia article.

If you could use a refresher on the plot, you can find it in this novel's Wikipedia article.

Set in rural Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, this novel tells the story of a woman who has lost her husband to an illness and feels herself slipping into an isolated life. Grief stricken, she does not fully understand herself or her children's suffering. Eventually she regains a voice of her own and an interest in life, partly through her love of music.

Pronounciation: "Colm Toibin" is pronounced something like "Collum Toybean". "Aine" is an alternate spelling of "Enya", which is pronounced the way it is spelled.

An Interview with the author and his editor.

On page 315, Conor calls for his mother to see the news on TV about the bloodshed in Derry. Here is a three-minute video of what has come to be known as Bloody Sunday.

Wikipedia articles on Bloody Sunday, the worst day of The Troubles

Here are three excellent and quite different reviews. Novelist Jennifer Egan's review in the New York Times focuses on unusual way in which the author brings out Nora Webster's character. The review in The Guardian is interested in the parallels between Nora's need to move past her grief over her husband's death and Ireland's need to move past its grief over "The Troubles" and "Bloody Sunday." The review in the Los Angeles Times says the novel makes "a stand for the beautiful plainness of life," abjuring "not just plot twists but plot advances."

The Wikipedia article on Colm Toibin points out that his father died when he was 12, which is similar to the situation in the novel. The article on Wexford includes photos of downtown and Curracloe Beach.

On pages 251-52, Nora hears Dvorak's "Hymn to the Moon" for the first time: "What she felt now more than anything was a sadness that she had lived her life until now without having heard this." Here is Anna Netrebko's version. The singer is asking the moon to find her lover, who is far away, and tell him of her love. Another piece of music, Beethoven's "Archduke Trio" is mentioned repeatedly in the novel, apparently in the version by Barenboim, Du Pre and Zukerman. The book describes the cellist on the album cover as "blond and faintly smiling, with strength in her face" Here is a ten-minute section of that recording.

This work of narrative non-fiction tells the intersecting stories of two people: Marconi, the inventor of radio telegraphy, who was frantically working to perfect his invention, and a murderer who was fleeing from the law across the Atlantic.

In 2007, forensic scientists analyzed the DNA of the victim's remains and concluded that the victim wasn't Cora after all. That conclusion has been disputed, however, as outlined in the Wikipedia article on Hawley Harvey Crippen.

The Wikipedia articles on Marconi and his "Wireless Telegraph Company" have several interesting photos.

This collection of photos shows three different designs for Marconi's huge wireless antennas at Poldhu in Cornwall. There is also a photo of the "VERY DANGEROUS" transmitter and spark gap inside the building. These antenna were designed for longwave radio. Marconi and others eventually realized that much smaller antennas would work if transmissions were sent by shortwave radio instead. It wasn't long before amateur shortwave operators ("ham" operators) were using small antennas in their back yards to communicate via Morse code with other enthusiasts all over the world.

The reviewers for the Guardian and the New York Times agree that the book is well written, and they also happen to agree that the link between the Marconi and Crippen stories is a little thin. Amusingly, the Guardian reviewer implies that the main story is about Crippen, with the Marconi story added "to let the Crippen cliffhangers dangle for an appropriate length of time," while New York Times reviewer implies that the main story is about Marconi, with the Crippen material added "mostly for the chance to throw in a lurid murder."

A five-minute video interview with the author on how he gets his ideas.

In this Pulitzer-Prize-winning comedy, a gay novelist who has been abandoned by his lover is terrified by the thought of turning 50. He tries to run away from his problems by accepting invitations to a series of literary events around the world, but, predictably, not everything goes according to plan.

Here are several reviews of the book. I liked the one in the Kenyon Review.

Prior to the publication, the chapter on Italy in this novel appeared as an article in the New Yorker. The same issue featured an interview with the author in which he described this novel's genesis.

Here is a six-and-a-half-minute PBS video of the author answering readers' questions about the book. (By a weird coincidence, the interviewer announces at the end of the interview that the next book in their series would be Pachinko, which happens to be our next book also!)

The author dedicates the book to Daniel Handler, better known by his pen name Lemony Snicket, author of a series of children's books called A Series of Unforunate Events.

On page 10, we learn that Less lives in a "little shack on the Vulcan Steps" in San Francisco. Perhaps it is this one, with just over a thousand square feet, which Zillow estimates would sell for less than two million dollars.

On page 130, Less says his father had consulted a book called Growing Up Straight, which was supposed to help parents steer "sissy sons" away from homosexuality.

On page 170, Less visited the picturesque village of Ait Ben Haddou in Morocco.

On page 233, Less eats the first of several kaiseki meals.

In this novel, a pregnant woman in Korea marries a sickly minister in the early 1900s and moves with him to Japan. They must overcome persistent discrimination there, as do their descendants over the next three generations. This fictional reconstruction of the large but often overlooked ethnic-Korean community in Japan was a National Book Award Finalist.

A twenty-five minute video interview with the author about this novel.

Several reviews of this book.

An entertaining eleven-minute video that explains the pachinko culture.

The conversation with the author at the back of the book makes several points that could lead to good discussions, such as the idea that some of the deaths in the story should be understood symbolically. Here is a link to it in case your book doesn't have it.

The author's web site.

It is often difficult for Wikipedia editors to reach consensus on articles on controversial topics such as Koreans in Japan and Yakuza, the term for criminal or semi-criminal gangs in Japan. Note the warnings a the top of the page in each case.

The book mentions tatami mats several times, a topic that is more complex than you might think.

When Sunja and Isak moved to Japan, they settled in Ikaino, a neighborhood of Osaka with many Korean residents. Here is what that neighborhood looks like today.

When Sunja arrived in Japan, she wore a hanbok, the traditional dress for Korean women. Like courting customs, attire for men and women changed drastically during the period covered by this novel.

This book tells 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. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Wikipedia article on the Great Migration provides lots of maps and statistics.

The author's web site. One of its tabs has photos of the main characters of the book. Hover over each photo for information about it.

An 18-minute video of a TED talk by the author about the book.

An hour-long video of the author answering questions about the book.

Here are Several reviews. The review in the New York Times is helpful. (It is written by David Oshinsky, author of Bellvue, which LAVA read in 2018.)

On page 203, Foster needed a copy of the "Green Book" while traveling from Louisiana to California to locate places where he could safely stay overnight.

A long article with photos by Wilkerson about the Great Migration in Smithsonian Magazine.

The Wikipedia article on Jim Crow laws.

The Chicago Defender played a major role in drawing African Americans from the south to Chicago. It no longer has a print edition, but it has an active digital edition.

According to the author (page 247), when New York State abolished slavery in 1827, 10,000 slaves in Manhattan alone were freed. In 1712, slaves revolted in New York City, and in 1741, some 200 people, mostly slaves but also at least one poor white, were arrested in a suspected conspiracy.

The Greenville Mississippi Club in Chicago is slowly fading away.

This memoir, sometimes dramatic and sometimes humorous, tells the story of the author's harrowing childhood in South Africa. At a time when sex between blacks and whites was illegal in that country, his mother was black African and his father was white Swiss/German. The author is the host of "The Daily Show" on the Comedy Central TV channel.

An ten-minute video of the author visiting his grandmother in Soweto.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has a long article on South Africa.

Here is an eleven-minute video of Trevor Noah's first time as host of the Daily Show and his ten-minute interview with Greta Thunberg, the young climate change activist.

Several reviews of the book.

The existence of the South African "coloured" community created confusing situations for the author.

The author lived most of his early life in the Soweto township of Johannesburg. Here is the famous Soweto Gospel Choir.

Several reviews.

This novel has been made into a movie. Here is the trailer. The library system has many copies of the DVD, which has English sub-titles. An English-language version is being produced by Tom Hanks.

A long blog entry on the author's web site about his problems with depression.

The Wikipedia articles on the the author and on this book.

Biographical information about the author.