Moonglow: a Novel / Michael Chabon, 430 pp.

Chabon's grandfather died of cancer in the late 80s; before he did, Chabon cared for him for a week while he was on heavy pain meds.  What he learned about the story of his grandfather's life forms the contents of this novel, a 'speculative autobiography.'  I can't do this beautiful novel justice here, but it's a gorgeous rendering of the life of a twentieth century American Jewish man: hardscrabble Philadelphia beginnings, intelligence service in WWII, economic opportunities and failures in the booming postwar economy, intense fascination with rocketry and space flight, and a great deal more.  Fluid, funny, painful, and full of truth.

The Plague of Doves / Louise Erdrich, 313 pp.

My first Erdrich read and definitely not my last.  In a small town in the Dakotas in the early 20th century, an (almost) entire family is brutally murdered in their cabin.  A group of native American men are quickly fingered and hanged for the crime.  It soon emerges that they couldn't have been the killers, but the crime is never fully solved, and continues to reverberate through the lives of the townspeople and the residents of the surrounding reservation.  Erdrich lets the crime roll forward through history by telling us the story of a few fascinating characters: the young Evelina Harp and her grandfather Mooshum, the nun Mary Louise Buckendorf, and the Judge, among many others.  Not just a great novel; this is art of a readable and satisfying variety.

Does This Book Make My Butt Look Big? A Cheeky Guide to Feeling Sexier in Your Own Skin and Unleashing Your Personal Style / Carson Kressley, 181 pp.

Cheeky, yes, guide, not so much.  Occasional tips on things like the proper dress style for your figure are heavily interspersed with celebrations of Carson's life and saucy attitude.  And name dropping.  Lots and lots and lots of name dropping.  Pass.

The Unseen World: a Novel / Liz Moore, 451 pp.

13-year-old Ada Sibelius leads a very special life in 1980s Boston.  Her father, David Sibelius, runs a computer science lab at the BIT (Boston Institute of Technology, you get the idea), and as a single parent, he homeschools Ada while she works in the lab, takes her on delightful and enriching outings, and generally creates a loving world for her in almost complete isolation from her peers.  And Ada is happy until David's memory begins to fail.  Then Ada's life is turned upside-down and bewildering secrets surface.

A thoughtful meditation on artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and identity, this was ably and unobtrusively read by Lisa Flanagan.  Not a thrill ride, but an intelligent and engaging listen.

Love, Nina: a Nanny Writes Home / Nina Stibbe, 320 pp.

In the mid-eighties the author worked as a nanny to a well-connected literary family in London.  She wrote letters to her sister throughout the period, and thankfully for us the sister kept all of them.  Sally reported that Stibbe's (the author of the terrific Paradise Lodge) letters made her laugh out loud, and they had the same effect on me.  Take this, a conversation about 'knicker theft:'

Me: But - this is the thing - he pegged them onto the line again, after.
MK: After what?
Me: Soiling them.
MK: Eew!
AB: (aghast) Oh no:
Me: No! Not like that, only with mustard.
                                     Both: Eew!
It put a bit of a downer on supper, really.

Love, Nina was made into a BBC series last year.  I feel a purchase suggestion coming on.

Speaking American: How Y'all, Youse, and You Guys Talk, a Visual Guide / Josh Katz, 203 pp.

A charming collection of infographics detailing the geographic distribution of peculiarities of American speech; the title, for example, shows that 'you guys' covers a big swath of the country, and 'y'all' - well, we all know where that is.    Katz tells us that in a tiny slice of the country around Pittsburgh the favored expression is 'yins,' and I give him points for ferreting out that where I grew up in metro Cincinnati one says 'you all.'  You'll learn a little about American speech patterns here and a lot about the mighty power of the infographic to convey data.  Lots of fun.

Best American Infographics 2016

Best American Infographics 2016 edited by Gareth Cook, 168 pages

This is a stunning collection of infographics, covering everything from plant distribution in the U.S. to long-running British reigns to the movement of refugees to the ebb and flow of baseball teams to the deaths on Game of Thrones. All are beautiful and so packed with information that I could pore over it for months without parsing all the info. Flat out awesome for info geeks.

Lamb

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, 444 pages

When Levi who is called Biff (for the sound it makes when his mother smacks him upside the head) was 6, he met his lifelong best friend, who just happened to be the Messiah. This fantastically smart and funny book attempts to fill in the story of the years missing from the gospels by letting Christ's foul-mouthed, womanizing best friend tell his side of the tale. The resulting story weaves together many religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and does so hilariously, but without being offensive. This is truly one of my favorite books and I thought that the time was ripe to re-read something that celebrates religious and cultural similarities rather than differences.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky  213 pp.

This has been on my "to read" list for years and I finally did it. I'm sorry I waited so long. The story of sweet, sensitive, teen-age Charlie and his first year of high school as the not really popular younger brother to a football star and a class Salutatorian is told through letters he writes to a "friend". Charlie ends up befriended by some older kids and an understanding teacher who take him under their wings. There is all that "awful" stuff that teenagers do that they shouldn't; smoking, drinking, sex, drugs, etc. along with the usual crushes, unrequited love, bad relationships, and parental issues. This book has ended up on multiple "banned book" lists for portraying the teen years as they really are for many kids which just proves that many parents and other adults should "get a clue." Charlie is a wonderful character who navigates his life with honesty, compassion, and hope while dealing with his own demons.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman, PhD.

Dr. Richard P. Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist, a raconteur, a drummer, a prankster, and an all around interesting character. He is very possibly one the most intelligent men who ever lived because of his ability to look at a problem and analyze it from all sides at once. His physics lectures are famous and still in use in college classrooms. And he is the epitome of the eccentric professor stereotype. This book is a collection of stories about his life from his childhood repairing radios for friends and neighbors through his work on the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos to his career as a professor at CalTech and winning the Nobel Prize. The stories run from the humorous and not so serious to more weighty topics like how he pushed his grief after the death of his wife from tuberculosis aside for the first atomic bomb test. The book is a fascinating look at an amazing man and his life, in his own words.