LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2022

These candidate books come from several sources, mostly from suggestions by LAVA members and from recommendations in Bookmarks magazine, which summarizes book reviews in major periodicals.  Other sources include lists of award-winning books, favorites of other book clubs, the Harvard Bookstore’s best-seller list, literary blogs, etc.  Several were carried over from the previous voting list.  There are 17 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.  LAVA members are encouraged to research these book candidates in bookstores, libraries, on the web, etc. 

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 the fall, 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.

We traditionally organize a combined party and book-choosing meeting in January, but we won't be able to do that this year.  Instead, we will have a Zoom meeting at the regular time on Friday January 14 to share information and opinions on the books listed below.  We will not have time for a normal book discussion at the January meeting.

After the January meeting and prior to the voting deadline of Sunday February 6, 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 like 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.  Members often rate each book during the January meeting and turn their votes in then.  I email a list of the candidate book titles to everyone after the meeting.  If you haven't voted yet, you can enter your rating for each book into that email and return it to me.  Or you can print this document, write your rating for each book in its margins and return it to me by surface mail. You can use any method you prefer as long as you get your ratings to me by the voting deadline. 

Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)

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."  Bookpage: "Mathilde's secrets will surprise readers, and the book has a headlong momentum that suits its subject matter." 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.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. 305 pages, 2020.  This novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award.  In 1580’s England, a young Latin tutor named William Shakespeare marries a talented and eccentric woman who knows more about plants and healing potions than people. Their young son, Hamnet, dies during the plague.  Loosely based on facts, this novel was a New York Times best seller.  Geraldine Brooks in the New York Times described it as: "O'Farrell's extended speculation on how Hamnet's death might have fueled the creation of one of his father's greatest plays …  it brings its story to a tender and ultimately hopeful conclusion: that even the greatest grief, the most damaged marriage, and most shattered heart might find some solace, some healing."  NPR: "Fierce emotions and lyrical prose are what we've come to expect of O'Farrell. But with this historical novel she has expanded her repertoire, enriching her narrative with atmospheric details of the sights, smells, and relentless daily toil involved in running a household in Elizabethan England." Reviews.  Suggested by Ken. 35 copies in the library system. 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.  341 pages, 2017.  The bardo in Tibetan Buddhism is a transitional space occupied by the souls of the dead.  In this novel, President Lincoln, who is 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.  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." This book won the Booker Prize for 201.  Held over from last year.  Reviews. More than 40 copies in the library system.

Normal People by Sally Rooney. 287 pages, 2019.  This novel is about two Irish teenagers from different backgrounds: Connell is a well-adjusted star of the football team, while Marianne is lonely, proud and intensely private. Amazon says it is about "two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t … As she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other." Toronto Star: "The author’s great skill is her ability to make the crises of youth reverberate hard and personally in readers, from social ostracism to loss of virginity to the heavy desire to feel like — you guessed it — normal people."  New York Times: "There is, in the pointed dialogue, a reminder of why we call it a punch line ... Rooney is almost comically talented at keeping the lovers in her novels frustrated and apart."  Harpers: "Rooney is … a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two, leaving the knots of anguish and confusion beneath."  This book was no. 8 on Bookmarks's list of the most favorably reviewed novels of 2019.  Reviews.  37 copies in the library system.

The Stranger by Albert Camus. About 125 pages, 1942.  A few days after his mother's funeral, a Frenchman in Algeria kills an Arab who was involved in a conflict with one of the Frenchman's neighbors. During his imprisonment and trial, he ponders the meaninglessness of life and the indifference of the universe. Camus himself said, "I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game." The best-selling French novel ever, the title of L'Étranger is sometimes translated as The Outsider.  The author won the Nobel Prize for literature. Here is the Wikipedia article about this novel.  Held over from last year. Suggested by Ted.  More than 40 copies in the library system.

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi.   257 pages, 2019. Two freshmen fall in love at a highly competitive performing arts high school and devote themselves to their favorite teacher. Years later, they meet again and learn that things were not as they had seemed.  Boston Globe: "So masterfully intricate that only after you finish it, stunned, can you step back and marvel at the full scope of its unshowy achievements ... A beautifully textured, impeccably observed tragicomedy."  Washington Post: [Choi's] a master of emotional pacing: the sudden revelation, the unexpected attack … Don’t fancy you know where this is going; Choi will outsmart you at every step."  The Nation: "The reward of Trust Exercise is the way in which this novel asks to be read: not necessarily with suspicion, but with attention to the process of sorting significant from insignificant details … As it tells the same story again and again, you watch the characters enter its silences and utter their own particular meanings. Then you, the reader, intuit not only what happened but whether, in this case, playing connect-the-dots might bring you further from the truth."  This novel won the National Book Award and was no. 2 on Bookmarks's list of the most favorably reviewed novels of 2019. A previous novel by this author was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Reviews.  22 copies in the library system.

Writers and Lovers by Lily King.  324 pages, 2020. Devastated by her mother’s sudden death and disoriented by a recent love affair, the protagonist waits on tables in Harvard Square while writing a novel. Being attracted to two very different men at the same time adds to her problems.  Washington Post: "As in her previous novels, King explores the dimensions of mourning with aching honesty, but in Writers & Lovers she’s leavened that sorrow with an irreducible sense of humor... The result is an absolute delight, the kind of happiness that sometimes slingshots out of despair with such force you can’t help but cheer, amazed." Reviews.  (Andi read it and loved it.) 26 copies in the library system.

Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders. 2015, 260 pages.  Written by a young researcher working on her PhD in microbiology, this book is a charming and sometimes consciously silly explanation of the workings of the human digestive system.  It includes lots of health tips and is especially strong in its explanation of the relatively new science of the human biome, the intestinal bacteria that are necessary for our survival.  Publishers Weekly: "With a great sense of humor and ample enthusiasm, Enders explains everything readers did and didn’t want to know about their innards ... this book defies boring." The book has sold more than 3 million copies in 6 languages. Review in the New York Times. Suggested by Bill. 10 copies in the library system.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben.  250 pages, 2015.  This surprise best-seller in Germany (320,000 copies in the first year) has since been translated into several other languages.  "Peter Wohlleben … draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers."  The author worked for over twenty years for the forestry commission in Germany and is now working for the return of primeval forests.  Suggested by Tess, Connie and Carolyn.   Reviews in the Guardian and the New York Times.  23 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."  Suggested by Connie.  Held over from last year. Review.  More than 30 copies in the library system.

Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote by Ellen Carol DuBois.  317 pages, 2020.  DuBois is a prominent historian of the women's movement.  Publisher: "Explores the full scope of the movement to win the vote for women through portraits of its bold leaders and devoted activists." Gloria Steinem: "Ellen DuBois tells us the long drama of women’s fight for the vote, without privileging polite lobbying over radical disobedience—or vice versa. In so doing, she gives us the gift of a full range of tactics now, and also the understanding that failing to vote is a betrayal of our foremothers and ourselves."  Ms. Magazine: "The complex circumstances of the suffrage fight are difficult to disentangle and judge fairly; DuBois, an academic trailblazer in women’s history, brings vast knowledge and insight to the task." Booklist: [She] breaks through the dull casings that have calcified around the best-known suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony, and brings them forward as complex and compelling individuals." Suggested by Sheila. Review in the Guardian.  14 copies in the library system.

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin.  2008, 210 pages.  The author is the Provost of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History and a professor at the University of Chicago.  He was a co-discoverer of the key evolutionary link between fish and land dwellers.  This book is the story of that discovery and its meaning.  Publisher: "By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria."  KIrkus Reviews: "A skillful writer, paleontologist Shubin conveys infectious enthusiasm … Even readers with only a layperson’s knowledge of evolution will learn marvelous things about the unity of all organisms since the beginning of life.”  Review in the Los Angeles Times. This book became the basis of a three-part PBS series. 12 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.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 588 pages, 2014.  In this novel two Nigerian teenagers fall in love and separately flee their country's military dictatorship, one to the US and one to Britain.  Years later, Obinze returns to Nigeria and becomes wealthy, while Ifemelu, a successful writer, also returns. They renew their relationship and face tough decisions.  Chicago Tribune: "Sprawling, ambitious and gorgeously written, 'Americanah' covers race, identity, relationships, community, politics, privilege, language, hair, ethnocentrism, migration, intimacy, estrangement, blogging, books and Barack Obama. It covers three continents, spans decades, leaps gracefully, from chapter to chapter, to different cities and other lives... [Adichie] weaves them assuredly into a thoughtfully structured epic. The result is a timeless love story steeped in our times." The Washington Post said Adichie writes about the U.S. and Nigeria "with ruthless honesty about the ugly and beautiful sides of both".  Tess suggested this book and Judy seconded it.  This novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.  Time magazine named it one of the 10 best books of the decade. Held over from last year. Reviews.  More than 30 copies in the library system.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.  476 pages, 2020. Through stories of real people, the author says the U.S. has been shaped by a hidden caste system: "Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred, it is not necessarily personal. It is the worn grooves of comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things."  New York Times: "Wilkerson has written a closely argued book that largely avoids the word ‘racism,’ yet stares it down with more humanity and rigor than nearly all but a few books in our literature.”  Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Her reporting is nimble and her sentences exquisite. But the real power of Caste lies tucked within the stories she strings together like pearls."  This book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The author won the Pulitzer Prize for her work as a journalist.  LAVA read her earlier work, The Warmth of Other Suns, in 2019.  Reviews.  Suggested by Ken.  More than 50 copies in the library system.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane. 425 pages, 2020.  Publisher: "Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time―from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk 'hiding place' where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come―Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind."  The Irish Times: "[T]his is … an account of adventure, terror, discovery and hope. In fact, this is a plea for the world seen in mythic proportions."  New York Review of Books: "Macfarlane is gifted with qualities often mutually exclusive: the physical hardiness of travel, the sensitivity to evoke it, and a talent for scientific elucidation… At times his writing ascends to a kind of forensic poetry."  Guardian: "There is throughout a transcendent beauty to Macfarlane’s prose, and occasional moments of epiphany and even ecstasy…One of the most ambitious works of narrative non-fiction of our age."  A New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year."  NPR "Favorite Books of 2019."  Suggested by Ken.  Reviews.  18 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. Held over from last year.  Reviews.  More than 40 copies in the library system.

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broome.  372 pages, 2019.  This memoir, centered on a family home in New Orleans, won the National Book Award.  Amazon: "The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America's most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother's struggle against a house's entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina."  New York Times Book Review: "[Broom] pushes past the baseline expectations of memoir as a genre to create an entertaining and inventive amalgamation of literary forms. Part oral history, part urban history, part celebration of a bygone way of life, The Yellow House is a full indictment of the greed, discrimination, indifference and poor city planning that led her family’s home to be wiped off the map."  Reviews.  18 copies in the library system.