• Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
• The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller
• The Summer of 1787 by David O. Stewart
• The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
• Your Children are Very Greatly in Danger by Justin Murphy
• Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
• South to America by Imani Perry
• The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
• In Love by Amy Bloom

In 1580's England, a young Latin tutor (whose name is not given by the author but who clearly is William Shakespeare) marries a talented and eccentric woman who grows plants to make healing potions. Their young son, Hamnet, dies during the plague.

The Wikipedia articles on this book and its author, Maggie O'Farrell.

Wikipedia has information about many aspects of this book, including Anne Hathaway (Agnes), the house she lived in as a child, their son Hamnet, their hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare, the house he lived in during his younger years, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.

A 10-minute video of the author's message to the Stratford Literary Festival discussing this book.

A 48-minute video of the author and Ann Patchett discussing this book.

Here are several reviews of the book in Bookmarks. The review in the New York Times was written by Geradine Brooks, the author of several books that LAVA has read. In this review, Brooks includes a discussion of the near-death experiences that O'Farrell herself experienced within her own family

On page 275, Agnes worked in her knot garden

Here are several reviews of the book. I liked the one in the New York Times.

Wikipedia has articles about the islands of Svalbard as well as the communities of Longyearbyen, Barentsburg, Pyramiden, and Camp Morton. The article on Isfjorden has some good photos.

Svalbard is home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. In case of global disaster, it provides long-term cold storage for important crop seeds.

On page 36, McIntyre introduces Sven to Dvorak's melancholy "Dumka", the second movement of his Piano Qunitet in A Major.

On age 54, Gibblet teaches Sven how to make Spotted Dick, a dish that reportedly has been renamed Spotted Richard by the restaurant in the British Parliament.

On page 95, Sven is introduced to travel by skijoring.

McIntyre and Sven talked at length about Siegfried Sassoon. Here are some of his poems.

Helga named her daughter Skuld, after one of the norns, the trio who control the ultimate destiny of both gods and humans. At the end of the book, Helga gave herself a last name that was patterned on Icelandic naming conventions.

An hour-long video interview with the author about the book.

The author's website. Click on the "News & Press" link just to see the astonishing photo of a cabin's walls.

This work of non-fiction tells the story of the writing of the U.S. Constitution over a four-month period in 1787. Stewart is the author of several histories.

A seven-minute segment from an hour-long video interview with the author about this book.

The Wikipedia article about the author.

A review of the book in the New York Times.

The Constitution was written in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The Constitution was written in the Assembly Room, the same room where the Declaration of Independence was written. Here is a 1795 painting of the delegates gathered in the Assembly Room. Here is a modern photo of the room and another one from a different angle.

The National Archives has a reproduction of the original, hand-written Constitution.

Stewart was formerly president of the The Washington Independent Review of Books, a volunteer organization with a website for book reviews.

Three teenage siblings save the life of a young man who had been attacked and left in a field. The aftermath of the event leads them in three different directions. New York Times (which listed this novel as a "Notable Book of the Year"): "In the broadest sense, Margot Livesey's exquisite novel The Boy in the Field is a whodunit ... But the real mysteries lie elsewhere, specifically and most compellingly with the characters who are witnesses to the crime."

Here are several reviews of the book. I liked the one in the New York Journal of Books.

The Wikipedia article on Margot Livesey

The author's website

An hour-long video interview with the author about this book at the Harvard Bookstore. The interviewer is Alice McDermott, who herself is a noted novelist. Toward the end of the interview, both novelists speak highly of novelist Andrea Barrett, who used to live in Rochester.

Living in a small town near Oxford, Zoe and Luke were able to bike to Blenheim Palace and Wychwood Forest.

Zoe became romantically involved with Rufus, who lived at Holywell Manor at Oxford University.

Duncan was fascinated by the painter Giorgio Morandi. Here are images of his work.

Hans Christain Anderson's The Little Mermaid was important to Duncan.

At the costume party at the end of the book, Mrs. Lacey, the harmless shoplifter whose understanding husband keeps bailing her out of trouble, wore a sign that said, "Reader, I married him." Here is a short essay about that sentence, which comes from Jane Eyre.

Accrding to Cornell University Press (the publisher), the author shows how "discriminatory public policy and personal prejudice combined to create the racially segregated education system that exists in the Rochester area today. Alongside this dismal history, Murphy recounts the courageous fight for integration and equality, from the advocacy of Frederick Douglass in the 1850s to a countywide student coalition inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s." The author is a reporter for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The author's website

The website of the Rochester City School District

Wikipedia has an article on the Rochester City School District. That article has links to shorter articles on various Rochester schools, such as the School Without Walls, the School of the Arts, and East High School, which now is divided into East Lower School and East Upper School.

A useful summary of the book's contents can be found in this review of the book in Radical Teacher ("A Socialist, Feminist and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching"!).

Here is an audio interview with the author by the League of Women Voters. (There is also an intervew with the author by WXXI's Evan Dawson, but I can't get it to work.)

In this novel, Lucy Barton's unfaithful first husband learns that his mother had a previous family and asks Lucy to travel to Maine with him to learn more about his stepsister. Washington Post: "So much intimate, fragile, desperate humanness infuses these pages, it's breathtaking. Almost every declaration carries the force of revelation." The Guardian: "This novel ends with the assurance that the source of love lies less in understanding than in recognition -- although it may take a lifetime to learn the difference." Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for a previous novel. This one was a finalist for the Booker Prize.

Here are 33 (!) reviews of this book. (Is that some kind of record?) I liked the the review in the Los Angeles Times and the one by Jennifer Egan in the New York Times.

An interesting article in the New York Times titled "At 66, Elizabeth Strout Has Reached Maximum Productivity".

The Wikipedia article about the author and about this novel.

The author's web site

A three-minute video of Anna Friel, a British actress, reading from the novel. If I had imagined that much emotion while reading it, it would have taken me much, much longer, and it would have left me exhausted.

A six-minute video of Strout answering readers' questions.

A forty-five-minute video discussion of this novel with Strout, sponsored by three bookstores.

A short history of Presque Isle, the community where William's step-sister lives. It is five miles from the Canadian border in the extreme north-eastern part of Maine.

In this work of non-fiction, a Black woman returns to the region she has always called home to look at it with fresh eyes. NPR: "[Perry] focuses on a place and reflects on its distinctive relationship to the region's history of slavery and racism, drawing on her own extensive knowledge of literature, music, art, and folklore, as well as her own family history." This book won the National Book Award for nonfiction.

Reviews of the book.

An eleven-minute video of an interview with the author about this book.

On page xvi, the author mentions a political cartoon called "The Political Quadrille".

On pages 20-21, the author discusses the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster.

On pages 29-31, the author discusses the Highlander Folk Center.

On page 195, the author mentions Slave Bibles, which had been edited to remove all references to freedom.

On pages 255-256, the author discusses the Gullah people in coastal regions of the south who retain significant aspects of African language and culture.

Here is the Wikipedia article about the author. Its last section, "Controversy over arrest", generated a dispute among Wikipedia editors that is still not settled. To see how such disputes are handled in Wikipedia, click "Talk" immediately above the first paragraph in the article.

During this month, we traditionally discuss the book chosen by Writers & Books for their "Rochester Reads" program. This year's selection is a fantasy novel in which great cities have souls that appear to humans as avatars. New York City has six, including one for each borough. NPR called it "a love letter, a celebration and an expression of hope and belief that a city and its people can and will stand up to darkness, will stand up to fear, and will, when called to, stand up for each other." The author is a three-time winner of the Hugo award, the top award for science fiction.

The Writers & Books website has information about the author and this year's programs.

Reviews of the book.

Wikipedia has articles about the author and this novel.

The protagonists needed to find someone who turned out to be hidden in the old City Hall subway station. An important clue was an image of its Guastavino tiles (page 327).

Brigadeiro pastries helped to revive a team member from Brazil on page 322.

Bronca is a Native American of the Lenape people.

One of the opening events of the novel occur in Inwood Hill Park at Shorakapok Rock

The author's website.

The Wikipedia article about the author.

An excellent Wikipedia article on assisted suicide that includes arguments for and against, as well as other information.

A thirty-three-minute video interview with the author about this book.

The website for Dignitas, the organization that agreed to "accompany" Brian's suicide.

A handout for medical students who are studying psychiatry that explains how to do a mental status exam. It is illustrated with Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

For those of us who are hoping for a less dramatic end to our life, the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Greater Rochester, which was started by members of First Unitarian in 1957, offers price comparisons and other information that is helpful for planning a simple and dignified funeral.