Book 45 for 2025: “Atmosphere”, Taylor Jenkins Reid


Joan, the main character, is an astronomer obsessed with the stars since childhood. She is content with her life as a physics professor until she sees an ad seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space program. While her initial attempt fails, she applies again and succeeds.

In the summer of 1980, she begins her astronaut training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, along with other trainees, including some from the military and others chosen because of their specialist expertise. She is one of those. Some of the top military pilots are nice and some like to make jokes at the expense of women. The women know they won’t all be chosen to go to space. As a consequence one woman in particular becomes excessively competitive. Others help each other and hang out together.

The novel details the rigor of astronaut training both mentally and physically, how trainees behave under stress, and how all the stress makes some people nicer and others increasingly rude. In the midst of all this Joan continues to care for her beloved niece and discovers a love she never dreamed of in her wildest dreams.

Book 44 for 2025: “Kafka on the Shore”, Haruki Murakami


This is my first Murakami novel; it will not be my last. It’s fascinating and profound. A 15 year old boy, Kafka, runs away from home. His mother and older sister disappeared when he was four. He does not remember them. His father, a famous sculptor, ignores him. Although they live in the same house, they rarely see each other. After running away, he finds a private (but open to the public) library in another city and is taken in by the two people in charge of the library.

Nakata, another main character who is an elderly man, is not very bright due to a bizarre event that sent him to the hospital in a coma when he was a child. He talks to cats and makes fish and eel fall from the sky like rain. He becomes friends with another principal character, a young truck driver, who helps him out because Nakata reminds him of his grandfather.

The novel portrays the lives of these characters through their actions, dreams, and fantastical events. The unreal becomes real and people learn about their true selves through these events.

Book 43 for 2025: “Salt Bones”, Jennifer Givhan


This novel surprised me by being a page turner. Once I read through the first couple of chapters, I had to keep going. In Southern California the Salton Sea, once much larger and the home of a thriving resort, now has shrunk and only a few people live there. Not far away lies the Imperial Valley, one of the largest agricultural regions in the US which is close to the Mexican border. This is the setting of the story of the little town of El Valle, the surrounding areas, and the tale of two families, one rich, white landowners, the other Mexican-indigenous. Mal, one of the main characters, has always lived on El Valle, worked hard, tried to forget the disappearance of her sister, and raised two daughters alone. Another local girl goes missing, then a week later her youngest daughter also goes missing. Frantic, she searches for answers, wonders if there is a link, and keeps dreaming of the local, indigenous legend of the horse headed woman, El Siguanaba. Meanwhile readers learn about the long friendship and affair between Mal’s oldest daughter, Griselda, and the son of the valley’s largest, white landowner, Mal’s difficult, disabled mother, her father, and brother’s, one of whom is running for office after going to Stanford, and the youngest brother, Benny, who is now a detective. Not only does this work of fiction combine Latinx and indigenous cultures, it also addresses environmental collapse, family secrets, and the complex relationships between mothers and daughters.

Book 42 for 2025: “Hope In A Time of Dying”, Len Leatherwood


This autobiographical novel was written by a good friend of mine whose own family experienced some of the horrors of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. The main character, Hope Winterfield, and her husband make their living as antique dealers in Texas when her elder brother, Robert, a doctor with HIV, convinces them to move with their three daughters to the LA area to help him out. Because their antique business is not doing well and she wants to help her brother, they move, thinking that if it does not work out, they can move back to Texas.

Robert has an ex, Anthony, who is also his business partner, who hates Robert’s new love, the charming, handsome, younger man, Cody. Hope takes the job Robert has offered her, only to discover the dynamics surrounding the job, her brother, friends she has known for years, and many others are nearly overwhelming and that quite often nothing is as it seems. Added to all this is Hope’s difficult mother who often denies the realities of her own life. This is the tale of a family and complicated family dynamics where the main characters have to decide what it most important in life and what they should value the most and fight for.