Isabel lives her life through other people’s stories; old movies, old photographs and clothing she finds in thrift stores, and old books she repairs in the basement of the library. But when she finds an old postcard of Amsterdam in her favorite junk shop, she is surprised to find a message on the back. She imagines it is a message from one lover to another, and she begins to think about the way she lives her life.

She resolves to reveal something of herself to Spoke, a veteran of the war in Iraq who also works in the basement of the library. Spoke, too, is a solitary figure, liked by his co-workers, but extremely private. Isabel struggles to make a connection while she can.

Glaciers by Alexis M Smith on the surface seems disarmingly simple, but as the story quietly unfolds and Alexis reveals more about herself and her childhood near the Glaciers in Alaska, the portrait emerges of a twenty-something woman who values the things that others have discarded, while she struggles to find beauty and meaning in the present. Her hometown of Portland, Oregon plays a strong role in the story, as it allows her to be isolated even in the midst of an urban landscape that is on the surface much the same as Isabel.

Glaciers has a restless quality to it that will keep Isabel’s story in your mind long after you have turned the last page of this small but provocative novel.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book for review.

Glow is a fascinating story that starts during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s and goes back in time to tell the story of a remote mountainous region in Georgia and the generations of whites, African Americans, and Native Americans who lived there. I enjoyed it from beginning to end, and I have a copy to giveaway to one reader who leaves a comment before midnight (PDT) on Thursday, May 24. Also, tomorrow I am featuring a Q and A with the author, Jessica Maria Tuccelli. So read on to for my official review, leave a comment, then check back tomorrow for the author interview.

Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli

When Amelia McGee gets a threatening rock through her window on the eve of a picket by blacks in Washington, D.C. in 1941, the first things she thinks to do is send her daughter Ella back to the homestead in Georgia where she will be safe. But something goes wrong on the way. The bus breaks down and deposits Ella late. When she begins to walk to her uncle’s home, two men in a pickup attack her, but she’s rescued before she is seriously injured. So begins the tale in Glow, a novel by Jessica Maria Tuccelli that starts with these early stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement and goes back in time to slavery and the removal of Native Americans from their land.

In remote Hopewell County, Georgia, a mix of fiercely independent people worked a hardscrabble existence in the hills. When preacher Solomon Bounds brings in a hardy strain of tobacco and builds a home with his family and slaves, he lays the footwork for a dynamic that will exist for generations to come.

The storytellers are mostly women: Amelia, Ella and Willa Mae Cotton. Ella is still young and impressionable, not aware of the cruelties of the world for a mixed race child in the 1940s. Amelia suffered the taunts of children who called her a half-breed when she was young, and she remembers her Cherokee grandmother sharing with her the lore of her people. She couldn’t understand hating or loving someone because of the color of their skin, and it seemed natural to her to fall in love with Obadiah Bounds, a black man who is Ella’s father. Willa Mae was born into slavery, and she knew that both her happiness and grief depended on the character of the man who owned her.  She navigated the tricky waters of freedom and survived as a bridge from the old ways to the generations that came after her.

Throughout the saga, Glow paints a story of people for generations who want nothing more than the freedom to decide their own fate and care for their families. It’s a sweeping tale that reminds me Cold Mountain with it’s descriptions of life in the Georgia mountains, and of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman for its scope of American history. Mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 15 and above will find a lot to talk about including the role of women in the times represented, slavery, Civil Rights and the relocation of Native Americans from their homeland.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Kara’s life in Manhattan roars at a dizzying pace. She feels she is always rushing to something—work, her children’s activities, or an event with her husband. There’s no time for her to think, just to do. Then, one day when she encounters paintings in a gallery from her former lover in college, she begins to question what she really feels is important as well as how she wants her future to unfold.

Henny on the Couch by Rebecca Land Soodak takes a look at how easy it is for us to go through every day in charge of the details and lose sight of the big picture we want to create with those details. Kara experiences what many moms do: she is generally happy with her life, yet she’s also restless for something more. She started a successful business, but the work there doesn’t make her happy. She always wonders if she’s spending enough time with her children, particularly when her daughter Henny starts to have trouble in school. And her husband seems sure of where he wants to go, which is to grow his business and move the family to the West Coast, but Kara’s not sure she wants to do that either. She wants to address the issue, but she doesn’t know how to do that and stay married.

Underlying it all is Kara’s own experience as a child, with a mother who was always disappointed that she wasn’t talented enough to pursue her dream of singing professionally and drank to numb her sense of failure. When Kara meets Oliver, her old lover, again, and when her best friend makes a life change Kara doesn’t approve of, she finally takes the time the think about what she really wants and how she wants her life to be going forward.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

When Annia Ciezadlo started dating a Lebanese man she met in New York, she had no idea how his culture and his family would influence her life. After all, most of Mohamad’s family lived elsewhere, in Lebanon, France and Spain. But when Newsday appointed Mohamad to chief of its Middle East bureau, he wanted to be stationed in Beirut, and Annia moved with him. Soon they were both in Iraq, Mohamad reporting and Annia working as a freelance writer. Annia’s story, Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, And War talks about their days living there and the subsequent years they spent back in Beirut.

A girl from the Midwest, Annia saw importance in food from the time she was very young. She eats anything, which is part of what makes her account so fascinating. While Annia’s story takes place in war zones, her story is not about the conflicts themselves as much as it is about the people that experience it. How do they live, how do they eat, and how do they comfort themselves amid the uncertainty and violence? The people she befriends, the people she interviews for stories, all experience loss and deprivation, yet they carry on in ways that people have probably been carrying on from the beginning of conflict—with food, with friends and family, and with hope for the future.

As Annia meets Mohamad’s family and gets to know them, eventually even learning how to cook traditional Lebanese foods from his mother, she also confronts what it is about herself that makes her crave life in a war zone. Her descriptions of the conflicts she finds herself in the middle of and recent histories there are interesting. It’s a fascinating account of a place and a time that few of us have experienced outside of news stories. A bonus with Day of Honey is all the recipes in the back—nearly 20 of them that you’ll be eager to try so you can bring a taste of the Middle East into your own kitchen.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Brother, I’m Dying is Edwidge Danticat’s memoir of growing up in Haiti and the U.S. In Haiti, most of her years were spent with her aunt and uncle, who felt more like the mother and father she barely remembered until they came back from New York to get her and her brother, Bob. Once in New York, she adjusted to life with new siblings who were born there.

Danticat weaves a story of the rich culture of Haiti, and the easy-going way of life many of its people enjoy. A few folk tales illustrate this culture and give a glimpse of the Haitian spirit and way of thinking. She also talks about the political unrest that has punctuated so much of its history, and the devastating effect on its citizens.

In many ways, Brother, I’m Dying is as much a story of the two men who were central in Danticat’s life—her father and her Uncle Joseph—as it is a story of Danticat herself. Members of a large family with many siblings, these two men were at opposite ends of the age range, with Danticat’s father the younger of the two. Uncle Joseph cared for the children of other friends and siblings over the years, and as the pastor of a church in the Bel Air neighborhood, his generosity of spirit was a role model to many neighbors. Danticat’s father, Mira, sacrificed a lot for his children, and he instilled a love of family that comes through the narrative.

I’ve seen this book described both as autobiography and as memoir. In my opinion it has less the feel of memoir, which seems more like a conversation to me, and more the feel of autobiography, although it may be a bit of a hybrid. I kept hoping to learn more about Danticat’s emotional reaction to events in her life and her native country, but it was more a telling of the details. Those details are very interesting and well worth reading, but different than I’ve come to expect from memoir. More emotion does come through in the last chapters, which deal with the deaths of both Joseph and Mira.

Brother, I’m Dying is interesting to read to find out more about the complicated country of Haiti, which has recently suffered much misery after the devastating earthquake.

In southern California on the eve of World War II, Maddie and Lane go against each of their family’s wishes and marry. Although Maddie is white and Lane is a Nisei, an American born to parents who emigrated from Japan, they are sure their love for each other will help them overcome the obstacles.

Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war changes everything in ways they could not have anticipated. Suddenly, Lane’s father is spirited away to a detention center for questioning, and the weeks drag on without his return. The rest of the family is forced to leave everything behind and enter an internment camp. But the challenges they face have only just begun, and they will continue to be taxed as long as the war is on.

In Bridge of Scarlet Leaves author Kristina McMorris returns to the time in history she brought to life in Letters from Home. In her new book, she focuses on the challenge Japanese Americans faced during World War II, and what it was like for the people who looked beyond race to see them as simply Americans. Even before the war, mixed relationships were frowned upon, and anyone bold enough to enter into one had to endure whispers, stares and disapproval. After the war began, it was even more difficult.

This sweeping tale goes behind the fences of an internment camp and a POW camp. It looks at the experience through the eyes of American soldiers in the Pacific arena, and at the lives of those back home. Through it all, the focus is on human resiliency—the inner reserves of strength that can help someone shore up when circumstances conspire to bring them down.

While McMorris’s story is fictional, it has a personal significance as well, as she is half-Japanese. The research she conducted for the book was extensive, and it shows not only in the life she breathes into her characters, but in the way she paints the places they inhabit. In Bridge of Scarlet Leaves she tells a great story that I highly recommend.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Here’s a review of a book I recommend for moms, and I have one copy to give away. Just leave a comment by midnight (PST), Tuesday, March 13 for a chance to win a copy of The Darlings by Cristina Alger. U.S. and Canadian addresses only please. (Please note: the giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Michelle on winning.) Here’s my review:

The Darling family of Manhattan seems to have everything: good looks, money, excellent taste in the things that matter, and a bright future. But when a close associate of Carter Darling commits suicide, the façade that was holding that future together starts to fall apart. Suddenly there’s talk of investor fraud, an SEC investigation and possible criminal charges. Everyone in the family—Carter and his wife, their two daughters and sons-in-law—stands to lose. Will their fierce loyalty to family help them through the crisis, or can they even trust each other now?

The Darlings by Cristina Alger is a fascinating look at the financial crisis of 2008 as seen through the eyes of wealthy investment bankers and lawyers as well as the secretaries who work for them and the journalists who write about them. As the story unfolds, readers get a behind-the-scenes look at the relationships and actions that could lead smart people to do things that were not so smart just to hold onto their lifestyles.

The lifestyle of the very wealthy is on display—lavish purchases, vacation homes, and charity fundraisers that are more about the women organizing them than the cause are all part of the story. That alone is fun to read about, but it’s also interesting to get a peek into the lifestyles of the working class Manhattanites and the reasons they keep living in the city.

Author Cristina Alger knows what she’s writing about. As a native New Yorker, she graduated from Harvard and NYU Law School, then worked as an analyst and attorney before becoming an author. In her novel, she shows she is also skilled at telling a good story. And while keeping track of all the players in the action was sometimes a challenge, it was worth it when it all came together at the end with nearly every character playing a critical role in the outcome.

Check back tomorrow when I feature an essay by Cristina Alger about her mother’s influence on her reading and writing.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Sarah Kay has been a performing poet since she was 14-years-old. At 22, she is now a slam poet who wrote a powerful note of love for an unborn daughter.

First performed at TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), “B” opens with the lines, “If I should have a daughter, instead of mom, she’s going to call me Point B. Because that way she knows that no matter what happens at least she can always find her way to me.”

In her poem, Kay tells her daughter she will always be there to help with the heartache that is sure to come from life. She also wants her daughter to know that she should never stop believing, never stop hoping, and never stop loving. It has been called a “thank you note, love letter, wish, promise, confession, and a secret.” All this from one small poem that can be read or listened to in minutes.

I encourage you to watch Kay’s performance (http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html), which is compelling, but you can also get a copy of the book, which will let you keep it always and read aloud to your own daughter. The slim volume includes beautiful, yet simple black-and-white illustrations by Sophia Janowitz,

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

On her 50^th birthday Pesi Dinnerstein recognized the need to address the mountain of clutter that had built up in her life. It overflowed at her home and at her office, and she wasn’t sure where to start getting rid of it, or even if she could. She turned to a group of women friends for support and advise, and thus began the journey she tells in her memoir, A Cluttered Life: My Search for God, Serenity and My Missing Keys.

While many of us likely have too much stuff in our lives, Dinnerstein found that hers was weighing her down in more ways that one. Yet as she started to deal with the piles, she also came to realize something important about herself: being surrounded with things that reminded her of past events brought her comfort. Her decisions about what to get rid of therefore, had to honor her need for attachments, while helping her let go of things that didn’t matter. Often, that meant paper clutter.

In her quest to find a way to keep what was important to her and get rid of the rest, Dinnerstein eventually found help not only in the support of her friends, but also with backing from others in Clutterers Anonymous. Her honesty about her struggles and the story she tells of her efforts to be closer to God and live more spiritually aware, is sure to strike a chord with many, even if they don’t face similar issues.

In her introduction Dinnerstein says her book is about her relationship with clutter—not an instruction manual on how to get rid of it or a guide explaining how to organize it. What it is, is an honest story that will may inspired you to ponder some of your own issues that may keep you from achieving what you long for in life.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Here’s a guest book review by author Christina Hamlett (AuthorHamlett.com).

Title: “Growing Up Jewish in Small Town America: A Memoir”
Author: Elaine Fantle Shimberg
Published in 2011, Abernathy House Publishing

Among the numerous delights in Elaine Fantle Shimberg’s latest release, Growing Up Jewish in Small Town America: A Memoir, are the inclusion of quotes that speak as much to Jewish culture and philosophy as they do to the universally bewildering dichotomy of wanting to blend in and yet still stand out as unique. Shimberg’s fond recollections of being one of the 32 Jewish families living in 1940’s Fort Dodge, Iowa are funny, conversational and reminiscent of a safer era in which kids could ride their bicycles after dusk down neighborhood streets and not worry about ending up on the back of a milk carton. The black and white captioned photographs sprinkled throughout the text are sweet frosting on an already delicious cake, and it’s easy to see how the young Elaine’s curiosity, daredevil sense of adventure, and unabashed mirth laid the foundation for such a successful career as an author, columnist and talk show host when she grew up.

As a former actress, I can likewise find much to relate to in her anecdotes about treading the boards as the Virgin Mary at her kindergarten’s Christmas pageant and turning her time in the spotlight into a boisterous solo of “Rock a Bye Baby.” That she disavows blame or credit for her embarrassed teacher later joining a convent is one of many humorous postscript remarks guaranteed to have liquid come out of your nose if you’re foolish enough to be drinking while reading.

What I especially admire about Shimberg’s breezy and approachable style is that she doesn’t resort to one of the common practices of others who have penned life stories; specifically, their penchant for analyzing, interpreting and justifying actions and events from the 20/20 perspective of adulthood instead of just relating them from the innocence of memory. Though written decades after-the-fact, the voice in which she whimsically brings her past to life is that of an inquisitively impatient young adult who wants to rush headlong into the future and yet recognizes that – like Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” – everything that defines her true values has not only been with her all along but was shaped by the experiences of her ancestors, themselves strangers once upon a time in a strange land.

Shimberg’s book will resonate as much with teenagers starting out on their own journey as it will with well traveled adults caught up in the introspection of all the roads not taken. If I have any criticism at all of the book, it’s that it was much too short. One can only hope that this exceptional storyteller has many more chapters and pictures up her sleeve that will entertain us in the coming years.