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Book 27 for 2025: “Violeta”, Isabel Allende

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Although technically not a sequel, “Violeta” seems to be a sort of sequel to “A Long Petal of the Sea”. If you are interested in Chilean history just before, during, and after the demise of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the horrors of Pinochet’s rule which the CIA helped to implement, this novel is for you.

This is the story of one woman, Violeta, told from her viewpoint via a long memoir written for and to her grandson. She begins life as the youngest child of a wealthy businessman whose poor and risky decisions lead to the family’s downfall, forcing them to escape to the remote, far southern regions of the country. It is the tale of a strong, passionate, determined woman who lived a lifestyle far ahead of her time, other family members, the far right Hitler sympathizing German farmers who immigrated to the far south, and others she knew including a renegade pilot who flew contraband and “prisoners” for various nefarious groups. Although not a murder mystery or a work of fiction that could be called adventurous, the story of Violeta’s life is so fascinating that I kept wanting to read on and on.

Books 24 and 25 for 2025: “Song Yet Sung”, James McBride and “The River Is Waiting”, Wally Lamb

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“Song Yet Sung” is the final book for me for McBride. I have now read all his books. Like most of his novels, this one is historical, taking place when slavery still existed. Here the setting is the coastal/tidal areas of Maryland and Virginia where many of the men make a living on the water harvesting seafood. This includes both whites and blacks, slaves and free. At least one escaped slave lives in the swamps where no one has been able to find him. One of the characters is an attractive, tough, ruthless woman who makes her living hunting down escaped slaves and sometimes even capturing freemen and selling them South as slaves. Another is a retired slave hunter who cannot get over the death of his son. Finally there is a widow who owns several slaves but totally depends on them for her living, one of whom is a major character in the novel. I had no idea how people lived in this area of the country, the codes, both slaves and free persons, used to survive and sometimes escape. There is a lot of violence in this novel but also plenty of hope and redemption.

“The River Is Waiting” has made it to the top ten fiction list for the last couple of weeks. Without doubt it has to be one of the most depressing novels I have ever read. A young man who hides his addictions causes a horrible, tragic accident. Sent to prison where he really does not fit in at all, he experiences many horrific events but also has a cell mate who is a kind and caring person. Add to this the two hideous, sadistic prison guards and their actions and you have a tale of woe relieved occasionally by acts of honor, beauty and kindness.

Note: Decades ago when I worked at a DOE facility where everyone had to take a psychological test to get a clearance to work there, a specialist came to give us a presentation on the test and how the results were used. As I read “The River Is Waiting”, I kept remembering something the presenter told us: when a test was given at a maximum security prison, the guards scored higher on hostility and anger than the inmates.

Book 23 for 2025: “A Long Petal of the Sea”, Isabel Allende

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If you do not want to read history books but want to know some history, many of Isabel Allende’s novels will be perfect for you. The title of this one comes from Pablo Neruda; it is what he called his native land, Chile. Each chapter begins with a quote from several of his poems. The novel begins during the Spanish Civil War; one of the main characters, Victor Dalmau, is a medic for the Republican side. He and Roser, a pregnant young widow who was married to Victor’s brother who is killed, have to escape Spain to save themselves. The novel details their struggles crossing into France, how they are forced to marry in order to board the SSWinnipeg, a ship commissioned by Pablo Neruda to help Spanish refugees emigrate to Chile. With 2000 other passengers they arrive in Chile and make the best of their new life. World War II breaks out and their hope of returning to Spain diminishes.

Victor becomes a successful doctor, their lives become intertwined with that of a prominent Chilean family, Roser becomes a famous musician, traveling back and forth to Venezuela, and the socialist government of Salvador Allende is overthrown in a military coup with the aide of the US. Then Pinochet’s reign of terror comes, once again civil unrest affecting their lives.

The novel demonstrates how little control people sometimes have over what happens to them, how some are better at dealing with adversity than others, and how lies are eventually discovered. It is also a testament to personal character and strength.

Note: Isabel Allende’s father was a distant cousin to Salvatore Allende.

Book 22 for 2025: “The Wind Knows My Name”, Isabel Allende

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This novel details the lives of several immigrants fleeing violence in their own countries. One is a five year old boy in Austria whose father disappeared during the beginning of the Holocaust and whose mother put him on one of the Kindertransport trains from Nazi-occupied Austria to eventually reach England. He never sees her again. All he was allowed to take is one change of clothes and his violin.

Another is Leticia who is now a US citizen; she was carried on her father’s back across the Rio Grande after they escaped the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, only because they were out of town when when paramilitary men came and killed everyone in their village.

The third is Anita, a blind, eight year old girl whose mother brought her to the US from El Salvador to escape threats on her life from a former military officer who was dismissed because of his behavior. She is separated from her mother by US officials and taken first to a detention center and then later to various “foster” shelters for such children.

Other characters include Selena, a woman working for a non-profit that helps such children and Frank, the high powered attorney she convinces to help her with Anita’s case. The novel illustrates how so many lives intersect and inter-relate in ways no one ever expected.

Book 21 for 2025: “A Trip of One’s Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why Traveling Solo Could Change Your Life”, Kate Wills

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This book was not quite what I expected. It is somewhat memoir in that she talks about her career as a journalist accompanied by photographers and such which is not really on your own, about her marriage and divorce, the new guy, and actually traveling on her own. However, a large part of it, which is quite fascinating, is the history of the solo women travelers in history starting with the nun Egeria, who wrote about her own travels throughout the Middle East in the years AD 381-384. Centuries later the book, “Itinerarium Eerie”, provides the details of her journeys and her “boundless curiosity”.

The book provides details of the adventures of many women who traveled solo: Emily Hahn, Nellie Bly, Martha Gellhorn–once married to Hemingway, Annie Londenberry, Gertrude Bell–the first woman to ride by camel across the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, Helena Swanwick, Ethel Smyth, Jean Baret–the first woman to circumvent the globe, Isabelle Eberhardt, Elspeth Beard. I realized in reading this I had actually read about one of these women, Sarah Hobson, who rode all over Persia (Iran) on horseback disguised as a man and have read several books about Gertrude Bell. In the 1700s, Jeanne Barat sailed around the world on a scientific expedition disguised as a man. In 1983, Elspeth Beard circumvented the globe on a motorcycle to heal the trauma she had suffered. Others rode bicycles, some used various forms of navigation, but all defied the norms of their time. Many encountered all sort of dangers and nearly died.

Yes, the book does give women advice on how to travel safely alone, what to pack, etc. And toward the end she tells the reader how to find adventures nearby in the countryside or streets where you live, how to open the eyes and ears, all the senses, and notice your surroundings in new ways.

Book 20 for 2025: “The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother”, James McBride

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I will confess that I read this book before when it first came out decades ago. This past week, I reread it because several women on the street where I live decided to start a book club and this is our first book. McBride’s mother was a remarkable woman who grew up under horrible conditions in the South. Her father, an orthodox rabbi, did not love his crippled wife and made everyone work hard. He was more obsessed with money than religion. Jews were not very welcome where they lived and McBride’s mother found more acceptance and understanding among their Black neighbors. She escapes to NYC, meets and marries a Black, Christian man, converts, and they start a church together. He dies suddenly; she is left with their many children and works hard to make sure her children are successful, sending them off to schools where they are often the only children of color. Then she marries another man and has more children so there are 12 children. This remarkable woman makes sure all of her children go to good schools, go to college, and become successful while she works at what most would consider menial jobs. In this book McBride details not only his own growing up but also the history of his mother and his siblings. It is a remarkable tale of one woman’s determination to keep going, educate her children, and never give up no matter the circumstances.

Book 19 for 2025: “Tell Me Everything”, Elizabeth Strout

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This latest Strout novel takes the reader back to Crosby, Maine, the site of most of her other novels. The same cast of characters appear, Olive, the Burgess boys, Lucy, William, Margaret, and all the others. This one, however, has a new twist, a heinous murder occurs. The most obvious suspect is the victim’s reclusive son who lived with her. Bob Burgess is hired as his lawyer. Lucy starts visiting Olive and they tell each other stories about people they have known , what Lucy calls “unrecorded lives”. Meanwhile, Lucy keeps asking, “What does anyone’s life mean?” Lucy and Bob take walks every week, spending the time talking about all the things they feel they cannot talk about with anyone else. William becomes more obsessed with the parasites he is studying and never quits talking about them.

This, like all of Strout’s novels, focuses on relationships, the good and the bad, and how they sustain us, sometimes transform our lives, sometimes nearly ruin us. Although, readers do not have to read her novels in sequence and this one could be read alone, I think it would make more sense to the reader to at least read three others first: “Olive Kitteridge”, “The Burgess Boys”, and “Oh, William”.

Strout has a unique, easy to read style, that is both simple and profound. She talks about people as they are with empathy and concern. She talks about the many forms of love–“…it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”

Book 18 for 2025: “The Great Hippopotamus Hotel”, Alexander McCall Smith

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After reading 17 serious books to date this year, I decided it was time to read something lighter and found this latest in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series at the library. If you are looking for lighter reading, sort of mystery stories without murders, and insights into a different culture, Botswana, this series is for you. Start with at least several near the beginning of the series so you get to know all the main characters to fully appreciate what occurs and who’s who.

This novel gets its name from a traditional hotel located way out in the countryside far from city. It is a relaxing place with a lovely veranda and native gardens full of flowers and succulents. Strange things begin to occur–food poisoning, scorpions in rooms, laundry disappearing from the clothes line–too many for it to be by accident. The hotel manager comes to see Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi for help. At the same time Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has a male client who asks him to find him a fancy, red, Italian sport car without his wife knowing anything about it. With their customary good humor and kindness, these characters set out to solve the problems of the hotel and deal with the sports car issue.

As usual in this series, one learns that quite often people accuse the wrong person, that things are often not as they seem, and that your own prejudices and inclinations can lead you totally astray.

Book 17 for 2025: “Songs for the Flames”, Juan Gabriel Vasquez

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The characters in the eight stories of this collection are people touched by violence of one sort or another, reflective of the violence that has occurred in Colombia’s history. A photographer’s obsession for a woman with a traumatic past, a writer’s fascination with the history of a woman whose grave is outside the official cemetery, two people whose own personal shared histories meet at a grandiose ceremony pretending they do not know each other–are examples of all the tales of complexity found in life and how morals change over time. These are not stories for the faint of heart. They do reveal how traditions of the past harmed people in ways that do not occur today, how lies can catch up with the liar, and how often pretending to be someone you are not often fails.

Book 16 for 2025: “The Blue Hour”, Paula Hawkins

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Given the nature of the previous book I read by this author and this novel, I have come to the conclusion that she likes to create seriously disturbed, dysfunctional characters. The setting helps with the “mystery”–a somewhat remote island which really is not an island except when the tide comes in. Only one house with only one inhabitant, a steep wooded slope that ends in a rock outcrop with a long plunge to the sea, the disappearance twenty years before of the philandering husband of the famous artist who lived there, and now a lonely, strange, old woman living there alone add to the atmosphere. The relationships among several other characters reveal the continued class structure of British society, its effects. and add to the unsettling nature of the story. To top it all off, a gruesome discovery is made about an art exhibit of the deceased, famous artist who once lived on the island. Although not classified as a mystery, this really is several bizarre mysteries combined. If you like British stories, art, and mystery novels, you will like this novel.