LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2020
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, Bookmarks magazine, literary blogs, etc. Several were carried over from the previous voting list. There are 22 books on this list, but we will choose only 8 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 8 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. That leaves us 8 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 11, 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 9, 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. 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)
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny. 371 pages, 2010. In this work of crime fiction, Armand Gamache, head of the Sûreté du Québec's homicide squad, is using his free time to research Quebec's history in the ancient library of the Literary and Historical Society, in whose cellars the body of an amateur archeologist is discovered. Meanwhile, trouble emerges in Three Pines, a charming village that is the heart of this series of books. Publishers Weekly: "Few writers in any genre can match Penny's ability to combine heartbreak and hope in the same scene. Increasingly ambitious in her plotting, she continues to create characters readers would want to meet in real life." Booklist: "[Penny] constructs an absolutely airtight ship in which she manages to float not two but three freestanding but subtly intertwined stories." Several of the books in Penny's Gamache series, including this one, have been New York Times #1 best-sellers. This one won five different awards for crime fiction excellence. Review. Suggested by Leah. About 40 copies in the library system.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. 256 pages, 2019. Set in the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula, located about mid-way between Japan and Alaska, this literary thriller is told by a series of women and centers around the disappearance of two young sisters. Bookmarks: "Each woman's intimate story intersects with that of her tight-knit community and the missing girls in troubling ways." New Yorker: "As remote as this world is, readers will find it strangely familiar... Young mothers chafe at the confinement of family responsibilities, craving risks their older counterparts dread." Los Angeles Review of Books: "A sophisticated and powerful literary thriller... By taking us through the year after the sisters were kidnapped, character by character, slowly spiraling back, Phillips is able to strike at so much of what ails not only Russia but also most tradition-bound areas all over the world today." Wall Street Journal: "Fascinating, immensely moving... In the simplest and most shattering chapter, a woman reaches the brink of despair when her dog runs away. You wonder if the kidnapped girls are going to be forgotten, but Ms. Phillips returns to their fate, tying together subtly dropped clues." This was one of five finalists for the National Book Award. Reviews. 28 copies in the library system.
Emma by Jane Austen. 350-450 pages, depending on edition; 1815. Monroe Country Library: "Generally considered Austen's finest work, Emma is the story of a charmingly self-deluded heroine whose injudicious matchmaking schemes often lead to substantial mortification." Wikipedia article." Suggested by Lindsey. Many 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 one of five finalists for the National Book Award. Reviews. Held over from last year. 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 graveyard ghosts, many of whose backstories are expressed. Amazon: "Generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us." 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." 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." Reviews. Held over from last year. More than 40 copies in the library system.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. 2017, 336 pages. A single mother and her teenage daughter rent a house in a wealthy suburb of Cleveland, where their lives begin to intersect with an established family. Boston Globe: "What Ng has written, in this thoroughly entertaining novel, is a pointed and persuasive social critique... But there is a heartening optimism, too. This is a book that believes in the transformative powers of art and genuine kindness — and in the promise of new growth, even after devastation, even after everything has turned to ash." New York Times: "She offers a nuanced and sympathetic portrait of those terrified of losing power... the magic of this novel lies in its power to implicate all of its characters — and likely many of its readers — in that innocent delusion. Who set the little fires everywhere? We keep reading to find out, even as we suspect that it could be us with ash on our hands." Reviews. This novel was on several lists of the best books of the year. More than 50 copies in the library system.
The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth. 391 pages, 2004. In this speculative novel, Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election by promising to keep America out of the war. Afterwards, the country descends into anti-Semitism. New Yorker: "It’s not a prophecy; it’s a nightmare, and it becomes more nightmarish—and also funnier and more bizarre—as it goes along." Christian Science Monitor: "Clearly Roth's real target isn't an anti-Semitic aviation hero who died 30 years ago. It's an electorate he sees as dazzled by attractive faces, moved by simple slogans, and cowed by ominous warnings about threats to our security." Washington Post: "The real core of the book is family, community and country, and the consequences for all these of America's flirtation with fascism." Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for another novel. LAVA read Roth's The Human Stain in 2008. Suggested by Terence. Reviews. 21 copies in the library system.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. 350-400 pages, depending on edition; 1813. Monroe Country Library: "One of the most universally loved and admired English novels, an effervescent tale of rural romance transformed by Jane Austen's art into a witty, shrewdly observed satire of English country life." Wikipedia article. Suggested by Tess. Many copies in the library system.
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje. 285 pages, 2018. This novel's first sentence is: "In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals." The title refers to the dim lights used by emergency vehicles during the war. Minneapolis Tribune: "The pleasure of spy novels is their suggestion that smarter and savvier figures are protecting our lives. Ondaatje tweaks the notion, considering Nathaniel’s life in the context of spies falling down on the job." London Review of Books: "Whenever you come across a striking detail... you can be sure it will crop up again, be charged with more significance, be joined with the rest of the story in a long chain of meaning, even if that meaning may never become entirely clear." Seattle Times:" Warlight is a spy story, a mother-son story and a love story. They are eloquently told and heartbreakingly believable, but the main reason to read this novel is that no other writer builds a world with the delicacy and precision of Michael Ondaatje." LAVA has read several books by Ondaatje: The Cat's Table, Anile's Ghost, Running in the Family and The English Patient. Reviews. This novel was on Obama's 2018 recommended list. More than 40 copies in the library system.
Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)
1619 Project. According to Wikipedia: "The 1619 Project is a program organized by the New York Times in 2019 with the goal of re-examining the legacy of slavery in the United States and timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival in America of the first enslaved people from West Africa. It is an interactive project ... with contributions by the paper's writers, including essays, poems, short fiction, and a photo essay. Originally conceived of as a special issue for August 20, 2019, it was soon turned into a full-fledged project, including coverage in the newspaper and on its website." Here is the original content of that issue. Resource materials are at https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/1619-project-pulitzer-center-education-programming. Here is the Wikipedia article on the 1619 Project. Suggested by Ken
Becoming by Michelle Obama. 421 pages, 2018. This is Michelle Obama's memoir, beginning with her childhood on the south side of Chicago. As an adult, she balanced her role first as lawyer and mother to two daughters, and then as first lady with two daughters in the spotlight for eight years. This book was a #1 New York Times best-seller. The Atlantic: "Obama writes with a refreshing candor, as though her keen awareness of her celebrity is matched only by her eagerness to shed the exhausting veneer that helped enable her husband’s political rise." Here are several reviews in Bookmarks, which called it the "hottest book of the season." Suggested by several people. More than 50 copies in the library system.
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America by Beth Macy. 363 pages, 2018. The author traces the disastrous growth of opioid addiction in the US, beginning with the introduction of Oxycontin in 1996. New York Times: "A harrowing, deeply compassionate dispatch from the heart of a national emergency... a masterwork of narrative journalism, interlacing stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate greed and regulatory indifference." USA Today: "You've probably heard pieces of this story before, but in Dopesick we get something original: a page-turning explanation." The Guardian: "Macy weaves a complex tale that unfolds with all the pace of a thriller." Los Angeles Times: "Where the factories and mines have closed down and the safety net, after years of budget cutting, is in tatters, selling drugs is a way to get by... What comes through most clearly is that we have to undo the vast transfer of wealth from poor and middle-class Americans to the rich." Reviews. 28 copies in the library system.
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. Reviews. Held over from last year. 24 copies in the library system.
The Lost City of Z by David Grann. 319 pages, 2010. In April of 1925, a legendary British explorer, financed by the Royal Geographic Society, launched an expedition into the Amazon to search for the lost city of El Dorado, the "City of Gold." The expedition was never seen again. Author David Grann, with little sense of direction and an aversion to camping, found himself in the Amazon in 2004, tracking down this mysterious disappearance. Grann wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, which LAVA read in 2019. New York Times: "At once a biography, a detective story and wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing ... Reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude and detail of firsthand reportage." Washington Post: "David Grann, recounts Fawcett's expeditions with all the pace of a white-knuckle adventure story… Thoroughly researched, vividly told, this is a thrill ride from start to finish. Review. More than 30 copies in the library system. Suggested by Connie in Feb 2019.
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 of 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. Held over from last year. More than 50 copies in the library system.
One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission that Flew Us to the Moon by Charles Fishman. 332 pages, 2019. Amazon: "One Giant Leap is the sweeping, definitive behind-the-scenes account of the furious race to complete one of mankind’s greatest achievements." Publishers Weekly: "Astronauts take a back seat to politicians, project managers, engineers, and the marvelous machines they created in this engrossing history of the moon landings… Fishman’s knack for explaining science and engineering and his infectious enthusiasm for Apollo’s can-do wizardry make for a fascinating portrait of a technological heroic age." Wall Street Journal: "Nearly every sentence has a fact, an insight, a colorful quote or part of a piquant anecdote. What’s more, he has pondered the meaning of the moon landing and arrived at a surprising and persuasive answer." Suggested by Lindsey. Review. 17 copies in the library system.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari. 416 pages, 2015. The relatively young author teaches history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. One of the best-selling non-fiction books of modern times (according to this article in the Guardian), Sapiens is highly educational and brimming with sweeping statements (some of them quite debatable!) The Atlantic: "This was the most surprising and thought-provoking book I read this year." Forbes: "He does a superb job of outlining our slow emergence and eventual domination of the planet." Washington Post: "Harari’s formidable intellect sheds light on the biggest breakthroughs in the human story." According to Barak Obama, "It gives you a sense of perspective on how briefly we’ve been on this earth, how short things like agriculture and science have been around, and why it makes sense for us to not take them for granted." Review. Suggested by Bill. There might be more to absorb and discuss here than can reasonably be handled in one meeting. Should the proposal be to discuss it over the course of two LAVA sessions? Let's discuss this proposal at the January meeting. 24 copies in the library system.
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre. 338 pages, 2018. The true story of Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB bureau chief in London who, as a double agent, funneled a steady stream of information to British intelligence. The CIA wanted to know his identity, but the person they assigned to find out was himself a Soviet double agent. His identity discovered, Gordievsky, who by then was in Moscow, was spirited out of the USSR in a daring rescue. The author has written several best-selling non-fiction books about espionage. San Francisco Chronicle: "It’s nonfiction, but it reads like the best of thrillers… The toll spying takes on Gordievsky’s personal life is enthralling, and the details of how deep the effects of one KGB agent’s deception can go are, in these days of Russian election meddling, quite frightening." Booklist: "Macintyre’s way with details, as when he explains exactly how the KGB bugged apartments, or when he delves into KGB training, is utterly absorbing. The action is punctuated with plenty of heart-stopping near-discoveries, betrayals, and escapes." Suggested by Connie. Reviews. 16 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.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. 462 pages, 2016. In 1922, a Bolshevik tribunal orders Count Rostov to live the rest of his life in an attic in a grand hotel near the Kremlin without ever leaving the building. A man of erudition and wit who has never worked a day in his life, he embarks on a journey of emotional discovery. Kirkus Reviews: "In all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight." New York Times: "Towles’s greatest narrative effect is not the moments of wonder and synchronicity but the generous transformation of these peripheral workers, over the course of decades, into confidants, equals and, finally, friends." Wall Street Journal: "The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, twists of fate and silly antics... Stalin’s Soviet Union is another matter... he writes about matters as if one could just as easily be referring to Paris or Rome." Suggested by Judy. Reviews. More than 50 copies in the library system.
Moonglow by Michael Chabon. 2017, 430 pages. This work of "fictional non-fiction" is based on stories told to the author by his dying grandfather. Bookpage: "We follow his work as a soldier tasked with kidnapping Nazi scientists before the Soviets can do the same; his postwar life loving a broken, secretive Frenchwoman during her descent into madness; and finally his days as a widower in a Florida retirement community, stalking a python that preys upon small pets." Wall Street Journal: "A flamboyantly imaginative work of fiction dressed in the sheep’s clothing of autobiography... Moonglow is a movingly bittersweet novel that balances wonder with lamentation." New York Times: "Chabon constructs a loving, partial portrait of an unlikely, volatile and durable marriage... Whatever else it is—a novel, a memoir, a pack of lies, a mishmash—this book is beautiful." Boston Globe: "Chabon nails the essence of how memory and denial can be intimately interwoven." The author won the Pulitzer Prize for an earlier novel. Suggested by Ken. Reviews. More than 40 copies in the library system.
Overstory by Richard Powers. 502 pages, 2018. Amazon: "Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond." Boston Globe: "Powers juggles the personal dramas of his far-flung cast with vigor and clarity. The human elements of the book―the arcs his characters follow over the decades from crusading passion to muddled regret and a sense of failure―are thoroughly compelling. So are the extra-human elements, thanks to the extraordinary imaginative flights of Powers’s prose, which persuades you on the very first page that you’re hearing the voices of trees as they chide our species." San Francisco Chronicle: "A rousing, full-throated hymn to Nature’s grandeur." This novel won the Pulitzer Prize and was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Reviews. Suggested by Connie. 21 copies in the library system
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. 480 pages, 2018. In alternating chapters, this novel tells the stories of two families living on the brink of financial ruin during a period of disorienting societal shifts. They live at different times (the 1870s and in 2016), but they live at the same address in New Jersey, and their lives curiously echo one another. Washington Post: "The first major novel to tackle the Trump era straight on.... Kingsolver suggests it’s never been easy to find oneself unsheltered, cast out from the comforts of old beliefs about how the world works... We’ve adapted before. With a little creative thinking and courage, we might do so again." New York Times: "Kingsolver creates a sense... that as humans we’re inevitably connected through the possibility of collapse, whether it’s the collapse of our houses, our bodies, logic, the social order or earth itself." Bookpage: "Despite their immense struggles, these characters experience numerous comic, uplifting and revelatory moments." LAVA read Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible in 2001 and Flight Behavior in 2014. Suggested by Lindsey. Reviews. More than 40 copies in the library system.