1.  The Bielski Brothers : The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy, 1/11/2024, 5 stars.  This is one the best documented books I've read about treatment of the Jewish people in WWII.  A fascinating story indeed by brothers who saved over 1200 Jewish people in Belarus.

2.  All But My Life : A Memoir by Gerda Weissmann Klein, 1/13/2024, 4.5 stars. Check out this wonderful memoir of a Polish woman who lived through six years of Nazi domination.  Learn what helped her survive and recover her health and build a new life in America as she put her past aside.  She never forgot and the life and love of her parents and brother.

3.  The Boyhood of Diego Revira by Leah Brenner (Not listed by PBS.), 1/15/2024,  3 stars.  When the author interiewed Rivira she felt much was fantasy so she chose these to print.  Not surprising as his vivid imagination flourished from childhood on.

4.  Girlfriends: Invisible Bonds, Enduring Ties by Carmen Renee Berry, Tamara Traeder, 2/27/2024, 3 stars, is an older book that shares friendships, both good and bad, and how women cope with them.  3 stars.  Sometimes friendships last a lifetime.  Other times friendships are short.  One woman described how her friendship group dissolved.  When she lost her job she turned to this group for solace but found only ridicule, anger and disgust.  No support at all so she left the group and searched for new friends and a new job.

5.  All That Fall (Faber Paper-covered Editions) by Samuel Beckett, 2/27/2024, 3 stars.  This is the script of a play written for radio about a woman who is walking to the rain station to meet her blind husband.  She encounters many people including one who give her a ride but goes to considerable trouble to get her into and out of the car.  She is a BIG woman.

6.  The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich takes the reader into the heart of Wyoming.  2/27/2024, 3.5 stars.  Any individual who has traveled or lived in this beautiful state will enjoy her descriptions about life, the beautiful environment and the wild creatures that live there.  This reader found it thrilling.  Almost like being there.  It makes one want to travel those open spaces once more to see what one can see. 

7.  An American Breakfast by Hideo Asano, 2/28/2024, 4 stars.  A Japanese student is taking a car acoss the US to deliver to thel new owner when it breaks down in Nebraska.  It's an awakening about how farmers in our country cope with the challenges of weather and living with a growing family with dreams beyond farming.  Some parts are sad but others are hilarous.

8.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, 3/13/2024, 3.5 stars.  This little book shares many of the experiences the author endured as a youngster growing up as a slave.  It's was sad to see how demeaning some of those supervising treaded him during those periods.  Reading cannot help one understand the effect it could have on anyone but it's enlightening to learn about it.  

9.  The Loneliest Polar Bear: A True Story of Survival and Peril on the Edge of a Warming World by Kale Williams, 3/31/2024, 4 stars.  A native hunter steps onto a high portion of an iceberg only to fall through into a polar bear's cave.  He shoots the bear but discovers that she has two cubs which he hopes to rescue.  Only one survives.  This is her story in captivity as she moves from one polar bear enclosure to another.

10.  Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy, 4/11/2024, 3.5 stars.  This is an impressive and lengthy book about how our country worked to crack the many secure codes used by the Germans and Japanese during WWII.  The author spent years searching archives in many places, including petitioning for unclassification of secure files.  Sometimes she was successful, sometimes not but the book she put together has so much information it's one readers can come back to again and again and discover more tidbits that were missed or forgotten thrhough the first read.

11.  Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields, 5/13/2024.  Fun read.  While Nelle Harper Lee refused to give the author of this book any interviews he did a wonderful job of researching her life and experiences.  There are some very fun tales about her.  Furthermore, he did his best to stay away from any negative incidents that would reflect on this talented woman.

12.  The Secret Life Of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar, 5/15/2024.  Incredible and inspiring.  Johanna Bonger was a determined and persistent young woman whose work brought the painints of her brother-in-law to the world.  His name was Vincent van Gogh who saw breauty and color in the world around him.  She was married to Theo van Gogh, who died a few years following his brother, perhaps of heartbreak for the loss of his brother.

13.  The Heartsong of Charging Elk : A Novel by James Welch, 4 stars, 5/19/2024.  Charging Elk is a Lakota Indian who joines Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to travel throughout Europe to enact the way of life on the South Dakota prairies.  He becomes ill and left in a French city only to struggle with a language he doesn't know and culture he doesn't understand.  

14.  The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me by Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski, 6/10/2024, 4 stars.  Adopted, Paul Fronczak, needs to know his origins. While his parents identified him as the baby his mother lost to a kidnapper he discovers adoption papers that prompt him to begin searching for his past.

15.  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) by William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer, 4 stars, 6/22/2024.  This is really an interesting read about a boy growing up in a small African country.  Reviewers have used many terms to describe this read all of which I agree apply.   Read it and walk in the footsteps of Kamkwamba's life.  I did and highly recommend it.

17.  Blue Nights by Joan Didion. 6/23/2024, 5 stars.  A book about life. A book about a daughter. A book about love and loss.  VWritten with flair and words that flow flawlessly page after page this is an experience that should not be missed.  I'd forgotten how much I loved the author's writing until I picked up Blue Nights. The portraits of her daughter are lovely and the grief she feels with her loss are painful. It ends with not only reflections about her daughter but also about aging and coping with her loss of loved ones and the changes that come with age.  

1. Awful Beautiful Life: When God Shows Up in the Midst of Tragedy Author: Rebecca Powell, Katherine Reay This was a great read. It was written well, so I read in one sitting. This tells the story of a woman whose husband committed suicide and left behind a great deal of debt. She was counseled to declare bankruptcy and then she wouldn't have to pay, but she was determined to pay back what was owed.
2. The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir Author: Steffanie Strathdee, Thomas Patterson The subtitle pretty much tells you what this book is about. But it is well-written, and the narrator is up front about mistakes she made along the way, and about how the objectivity of science mingled with the personal tragedy that was taking place, and the realism makes it hard to put this book down.
3. Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers Author: Anne Lamott This is a very short book but very thought-provoking. 
4. No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) Author: Kate Bowler A short memoir a bout the author's battle with stage 4 colon cancer.
5. The Premonition: A Pandemic Story Author: Michael Lewis I gave this book 5 stars and I almost never do that! A well-written book that looks at the backstory of several people who were instrumental in the response to Covid.
6. From We to Me: Embracing Life Again After the Death or Divorce of a Spouse Author: Robert C. De Vries, Susan J. R.N., Ed.D R.N., Ed.D Zonnebelt-Smeenge This was a very good book and I wish I had had it earlier in my journey to be single. It is very supportive and there is a lot of good advice for any newly single person.
7. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated Author: Alison Arngrim This is a memoir by the person who played Nellie Oleson on the Little House on the Prairie TV series. She went on to be an activist for victims of child abuse and later AIDS.
8. Celebrating Board Games (Collectibles) Author: Nina Chertoff, Susan Kahn This was a fun little book. Most pages showed a picture of a board game and had a paragraph about the game. A few card games, like Touring, were included. But some childhood standbys were strangely missing, it appeared the authors just went through one person's collection and didn't go to wider sources.
9. The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan: Discover the Joy of Spending Less, Sharing More, and Living Generously Author: Liesl Clark, Rebecca Rockefeller I belong to a very active Buy Nothing group, so it was interesting to read about how they got started. There were lots of good ideas about reusing things and substituting.
10. Why Did I Get a B?: And Other Mysteries We're Discussing in the Faculty Lounge Author: Shannon Reed This was a collection of writings by the author about teaching. She taugh preschool, high school, and college, so her views are interesting. Some items were autobiographical, and others were poetry, or essays. It was a much better book than I was expecting.
11. Spoken For: Embracing Who You Are and Whose You Are Author: Robin Jones Gunn, Alyssa Bethke This was written for younger women, but I still found value in it.
12. Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved Author: Kate Bowler This was kind of a memoir and kind of a rambling explanation of her philosophy, but it didn't hang together well for me.
13. Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World Author: Henri J. M. Nouwen This had a great message which is hard to hear. Each of us is beloved by God, and we don't need to earn that love. Our culture says we have to work harder, faster, and earn everything, but this is not the truth, but it makes it hard to accept the love of God as the gift it is.
14. When Faith Matters Most Author: Marc Cargill (see my review on the book's page)
15. Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (Midwife, Bk 1) Author: Jennifer Worth I couldn't get into this book while reading it, but once I switched to listening to a recorded version, I couldn't stop. Fascinating, and I also listened to the next two.
16. Shadows of the Workhouse (Midwife, Bk 2) Author: Jennifer Worth
17. Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End Author: Jennifer Worth