Here is an honest open memoir about a young woman and her husband moving west to begin anew in Los Angeles.  Voice is key in a memoir.  Now and again, I either give up reading a memoir having grown weary of an endless whine, poor me sort of story, or thrown a book across the room after one more self satisfied discovery on a journey around the world bringing wisdom amid the sampling of local pleasures.  Reading Shetterly’s memoir is like getting to know a new friend.  She shares her story without feeling sorry for herself.  Everything possible goes wrong, but she never whines.  The recession sets in and two creative lives are put in peril without jobs or a place to live.  I loved hearing the details of this trip and I never tired of Shetterly’s voice.  She shares her story along with the truths she discovered along the way.

What is it about memoir that so many of us find appealing?  Is it the nosey side of our nature in that we secretly hunger to learn how other people “really” live, the chance to fall into another person’s world, to try on a different life?  A good memoir usually brings a reader in close, the author sharing with the reader a personal experience or event.  We may not want to have a similiar life or experiences, but we can perhaps learn from another life, or better appreciate or understand where we are in our own lives.  I was lucky to have met Susan Conley at a recent Maine book event and her memoir is remarkable.  She tells the story of moving to China with her husband and two young sons, and while there, being diagnosed with breast cancer.  Honest, brave, and bold –her story is riveting and kept me up late into the night reading.  She writes beautifully and directly making you feel like she’s right in the room with you sharing a frightening, though fascinating, time in her life.  Weeks later, her story, is still on my mind.  A wonderful book!

This first novel by Shonna Humphrey is a gem.  Rhetta returns to her small town in northern Maine to discover all she has left behind. This is not just a portrait of one girl’s growing up, but also the community where she was raised.  Humphrey shows us the “other Maine” with the hardscrabble lives in the rural northern part of the state.   She does this with empathy and humor in this truly engaging story that captured me on the very first page.

This is a small book with a big impact.  Not a novel, my usual reading diet, but a memoir of sorts, about a woman observing a snail living in a terrarium at her bedside during a long period of illness.  The book is small in size with lovely illustrations and just by picking it up I felt a sense of calm flow into me.  Bailey writes beautifully about nature and the wonder in small things.  This book is a precious escape from the hurried noisy world most of us live in.  Reading it might leave you feeling just a bit more serene and appreciative of what the natural world offers.

I recently read this book for my book club.  One member disliked it completely.  Others felt some of the situations and characters were a little far fetched, but all agreed the story was riveting.  I ended up staying up way past my bedtime to finish it.  The tension along with the climax of the novel was so powerful –an absolute roller coaster ride that left me breathless. Set on the remote islands off Santa Barbara, the novel deals with two environmental approaches and the struggle to reach their different goals.  At times, both seemed right and the result was unsettling, even upsetting.  The writing is masterful and it’s a novel I won’t forget for a while.

Three Stages of Amazement is a novel for our times- a truly magnificent story.  Edgarian does it all: a richly complex plot, marvelously flawed characters you can’t help but care for, a detailed setting that jumps off the page ( I wanted so badly to be a guest at Paige’s engagement party) family, romance, politics, social commentary, a narrative that will keep you turning pages long into the night, and beyond all this she gives us a book filled with heart.  Edgarian tells her tale in one beautiful sentence after another.  This book is a real pleasure.  She should win something for this novel.  She has won me as a fan.

How can a quiet novel about an 80 year old woman be an absolute page turner?  How can a book about a woman living in the same house where she raised her children and where she is now the last surviving neighbor of her generation not be depressing?  Nothing big happens.  There is no violence, no mystery, no sex.  So what is there to make this my favorite book of the year so far?  O’Nan is a genius for making the small moments in life beautiful and important.  Emily’s sister-in-law has an episode that puts her in the hospital.  Emily’s less than perfect daughter comes for Christmas with her children.  Her son and his family visit at Easter.  Old friends die.  New people move into the empty house next door.  Ordinary events?  In O’Nan’s hands, they are extraordiary.  I am recommending this book to all my friends.

A wonderful writer and good friend, Leslie Pietrzyk, had been telling me for several years that I must read this book.  Why didn’t I read this novel sooner?  It is perfect selection for a book club as it raises so many questions.  I want all my friends to read it so we can talk about it, too.  The premise is dark as it has to do with a high school Columbine-like shooting. Don’t let that stop you.  Also, it’s written in the epistolary style –a mother looks back and recounts the events to her husband in a series of letters.  You might think this would be difficult to put up with for an entire novel, but I could barely stop reading.  The novel is riveting.  I keep thinking on the role of mothers- stay at home, working, and the way children turn out.  Are some children completely bad from birth?  When, how, and why do children become capable of violent acts?  Truly, this book is amazing.  Let me know what you think.

Last week I sat next to a remarkable woman, Kate Braestrup, while signing books at the Maine Book Festival in Portland.  Kate is the chaplain of the Maine Warden Service, the group that patrols the millions of acres of Maine wilderness.  Her story is amazing and beautifully told in her memoir, Here if You Need Me, a national best seller.  I love reading a good memoir and this one is heartfelt and impossible to put down.  I learned about the Maine Warden Service, so fascinating, Kate’s journey through widowhood, her path to divinity school, and her career as the first female chaplain to the Maine Warden Service.  This is a spiritual book, every event told is rich in human experience, yet it is also warm, funny, and made me feel like I had made a new friend by the end.  Now I am kicking myself that I didn’t buy all of her other books when the pile was conveniently right next to me.  I will be keeping my independent book seller busy this week!

Most novels begin with some sort of event or situation that propels the characters into action.  In Pictures of You the story opens with a fatal car accident.  While dramatic, this is not a unique set up.  Yet Leavitt creates a rich story involving the people left behind — characters whose lives are not only altered but whose situations wind together in an unexpected way.  An unsettling love story is born out of a tragedy.  What makes this novel rise above the usual “women’s fiction” category of books, is the excellent writing, as well as the depth and complexity of Leavitt’s characters.  Best of all, the scope of the novel remains large and the ending is not predictable but inevitable.  I really enjoyed this book.