• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
• Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight
• The Splendid and the Vile: by Erik Larson
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

In this novel, a free-spirited 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.

Here are several reviews of this book. The author's web site provides links to several interviews.

An interview with the author in the Guardian.

A seventeen-minute video interview with the author.

An excellent hour-long audio conversation with Celeste Ng about this book.

On page 79, Izzy posted lines from T. S. Elliot's poem "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" on her school's bulletin boards, and she scandalized her teacher by reciting Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse". The Prufrock link provides an option of listening to a reading of the poem (click on the red arrow inside a red circle).

The author's web site.

This novel has been made into a TV series on Hulu.

The Cleveland Historical Society has photos of houses in Shaker Heights, including smaller ones (like the one the author grew up in), larger ones, and some grand ones.

On page 8, the book says that Mia and Pearl moved into the upper apartment at 18434 Winslow Road in Shaker Heights. There actually is a two-family house at that address. I wonder if it has an association with the author's childhood.

According to Wikipedia, more than a third of the residents of Shaker Heights are African American. Local groups, especially the Ludlow-Community Association and the Lomand Association, have worked for years to encourage the peaceful and orderly integration of the formerly overwhelmingly white suburb.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland is prominently located on Shaker Boulevard in Shaker Heights. Against the wishes of the city administration, it played an early role in the racial integration Shaker Heights. The history of the church says that many of the congregation's members were conflicted about this process.

In this novel, a mother abandons her family to serve the poor in India. Her son and his over-protective sister are then exiled by their stepmother from the lavish estate they grew up in, and for years afterwards they obsess about what had happened.

Several reviews provided by Bookmarks magazine.

Several reviewers noted that this novel has a fairy-tale aspect that makes it resemble certain classic novels. It explicitly references Henry James's What Masie Knew, which Maeve has on her bedside table, and Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, the favorite book of both Maeve and her mother. The reviewer in the Guardian discussed similarities to Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. The reviewer in the Boston Globe noted similarities to Bronte's Jane Eyre and Dickens' Great Expectations.

The reviewer in the New York Times called attention to the number of pair relationships in this novel, beginning with Danny and Maeve watching Mr. Conroy and Andrea in front of the paintings of the two VanHoebeeks with the two servant-sisters undoubtedly watching from the side.

Here is a brief video of the author discussing the book and another video of her discussing the painting on the book cover (see page 313).

The author's web site.

Here is the Larkin poem that Maeve and Celest quoted on page 139. (We've had Larkin poems for two months in a row!)

The Wikipedia articles on Ann Patchett and The Dutch House.

The Dutch House is a fictional building, but Elkins Park, the community in which it is supposedly located, is a real place. Elkins Park happens to be the location of the first house designed by Louis Kahn, First Unitarian's architect. It is interesting to compare this relatively modest structure, the Oser House (page down to the third image), to Kahn's magnum opus, the parliament building for the new nation of Bangladesh.

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." 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." The title refers to the wartime restrictions that permitted only a few dim lights during the night.

Here is Bookmark's collection of reviews of this novel. I found the review in the Washington Post to be helpful, and also the lengthy and somewhat critical review in the London Review of Books.

A sixteen-minute video of the author discussing the novel.

In the first paragraph of the book we are told that the narrator lived on a street in London called Ruvigny Gardens. It is later described as a small, U-shaped street near Biggs Row. Those are real streets in southwestern London. Using Google Maps, you can "walk" along that street by clicking on the big arrows in the street.

The Wikipedia articles on the author and the novel.

In addition to being a novelist, Ondaatje is also a poet. Here are some of his poems.

Ondaatje won the Golden Plate award for achievement in the arts. His name appears in the 2000 section along with Chuck Berry, Dan Rather and other notables.

Roof thatching plays an important role in this novel. Here is a six-minute video on how it is done.

Ondaatje works to connect the reader with the general atmosphere of the time. On page 59, Olive taught the children the words to "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To", a song popularized by Dinah Shore during the war.

"Schwer" is mentioned often in the book. Here is a five-minute video of Schumann's "Mein herz ist schwer" (my heart is heavy), which is discussed on page 151.

Based on an actual institution that operated for 111 years, this novel is about "two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida." New York Journal of Books: "His story is utterly engrossing, funny, at times, suspenseful, flawlessly constructed, moving, and absolutely brilliant." This novel won the Pulitzer Prize.

Several reviews of this novel. The review in the Washington Post contrasted the writing style of this novel with that of the author's The Underground Railroad, which LAVA read in 2017.

The Wikipedia articles on Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, and the Florida School for Boys

Trevor Noah's eight-minute video interview with the author

A two-minute TV newscast about the discovery of yet another group of bodies at Dozier. It includes photos of the Dozier School and an interview with a man who was beaten while imprisoned there.

A five-minute video report by the University of South Florida team that uncovered the unmarked graves

A web site maintained by survivors of beatings at the infamous "white house"

The report from the U.S. Department of Justice on the Dozier School

Elwood was from the Frenchtown neighborhood in Tallahassee.

The author's website

In this novel, a sixteen-year-old girl in Tokyo puts her thoughts to her diary and decides to commit suicide; a novelist living on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest discovers the diary in a Hello Kitty lunchbox -- possibly debris from the 2011 tsunami. The author is a novelist, film maker and Zen Buddhist priest. This novel was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

This thirteen-minute video interview with the author provides some surprising insights about this book

Several reviews of the book

The author's web site includes biographical information

"A Vacation with Ghosts", a non-fiction piece by Ozeki in the New York Times in 2004, foreshadows much of this novel.

A three-minute video about the book by the publisher

The Wikipedia articles on the author and the book

The Everyday Zen website is edited by Ruth Ozeki.

The atmosphere at the Rochester Zen Center on Arnold Park would feel very familiar to Nao's grandmother.

Quotes by Dogen Zenji

A web site about the community on Cortes Island, where Ozeki lives part-time.

An article about bullying in Japanese schools

Here are images of the Hello Kitty lunchbox. Is the lunchbox perhaps a reference to the Schrodinger's Cat paradox, which involves a cat in a box?

A biography of the African American who escaped slavery and became an abolitionist leader, orator, and major literary figure. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for History.

Several reviews of the book

If you didn't get a chance to finish the book, the Wikipedia article on Douglass provides a good summary of his life.

The Wikipedia article on on the author (who definitely was not born into an elite family).

The author's web site

Blight teaches a course at Yale called "The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877."   All 27 lectures of this course are available as free videos on the web. I listened to Lecture 15, "Lincoln, Leadership, and Race: Emancipation as Policy," and found it both informative and moving.

Blight is director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

In the Acknowlegement section, Blight shares his admiration for the Walter O. Evans Collection of Frederick Douglass and Douglass Family Papers, which have only recently become available. Walter O. Evens is a remarkable person who perhaps deserves his own biography.

A well-researched account of the first year of World War II in Britain, focusing on the Nazi's brutal bombing campaign and the personal experiences of Churchill and his family.

Photos of the aftermath of the blitz.

Maps of bomb targets in London. The first map is truly startling.

Several reviews of the book.

The Wikipedia article on the Battle of the Beams, the method the Nazis developed for guiding their bombers at night.

An article with photos about Bletchley Park: Home of the Codebreakers

A 33-minute audio NPR interview with Larson about the book.

During this month, we traditionally discuss the book chosen by Writers & Books for their "Rochester Reads" program. This year's selection is a non-fiction work by a professor of Environmental Biology and a member of the Potawatomi Nation who lives in Syracuse. Amazon: "In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world."

The Writers & Books website has information about the author and this year's programs, including a reader's guide and a list of resources.

The Wikipedia article on Robin Wall Kimmerer.

An interview with the author on the potawatomi.org website, and another interview in the Guardian.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture article on Sweetgrass. The Wikipedia article has a photo of a mat of sweetgrass.

The web site of the Onondaga Nation has an article with photos about the polluted Onondaga Lake. NPR has an article about efforts to clean it up.

A twenty-minute video of the author leading a nature walk in a park near Syracuse.

This article on the website of the British Library includes several illustrations by E. H. Shepard, which, although not in the original book, have become associated with it. Toward the bottom of the article is a "window" with four more illustrations. Click the red arrow to browse through them, and click the four-headed arrow to enlarge them.

An analysis of the book by the author's biographer.

This essay on Lithub says Wind in the Willows isn't really a children's book, and it isn't really about animals.

This article on lithub by the digital editor of the Economist says the irresponsible driving of some early motorists generated fierce hostility among the general public. He suspects the real-life inspiration for Mr. Toad may have been William K. Vanderbilt II, whose escapades led to the imposition of speed limits near his home.

The Guardian included Wind in the Willows in their list of of the 100 best novels written in English.

While Grahame was traveling, he wrote a series of letters to his young son that included stories that became the basis of Wind in the Willows. His son's nanny saved the letters, and Grahame later used them to produce the book. This story, along with scans of the letters, are on the website of the Bodlean Library at the Universithy of Oxford.

The Wikipedia article on the book.

This charming stop-action animated film covers most of the book. It lasts an hour and fifty minutes.