Like Mohter, Like Mother - Susan Rieger

 This was the best read so far this year.  My sister recommended it based on the story that is about a family whose mother was put in an asylum...or was she?  The story follows her daughter, Lila, who bore the brunt of her abusive father's treatment but didn't learn to parent herself and leaves her daughter to be raised by her husband.  Her daughter, Grace, resents her absent mother and goes on a quest to find out what happened to her grandmother.

The book is mostly dialogue, rapid moving, sharp witted and insightful as it explores the relationships between mothers and daughters.  It even uses DNA to explore the mystery of the grandmother's disappearance.  Recommended.

Quote:

[Grace reflecting on her self] "I don't so much lose my temper as I give in to it."

Published: 2024  Read: August 2026  Genre: Fiction

The In-Between Bookstore - Edward Underhill

 

This was a good read for a weekend away. A trans young man living in New York City has his job eliminated and his apartment rent increased.  Checking in at home in Iowa he finds out his Mom is selling his childhood home and he decides to go back and help her move to a new place. The story tells of his angst in returning to the place he left for college as a girl and is returning as a 30 year old man. He has to face his fears and the community where he felt he didn't belong. He has a chance to make things different when he visits his previous work place, a bookstore where time is flexible. I enjoyed the story.

Published: 2025  Read: May 2026 Genre: Fiction

Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward

 This book was highly recommended to me by my sister, who had seen the author discuss her writing. 

It's the story of a about a week in the life of a very poor family living on the Gulf of Mexico awaiting the Katrina hurricane. It's told by the only daughter, Esch, a pregnant 15 year old.  Her two older brothers, Randall and Skeetah, seek to escape, one pursuing basketball and the other raising puppies with his fighting pit bull, China.  Their mother died giving birth to their youngest brother, Junior and the older children raise him during the neglect of their angry, detached, hard-drinking father.  

What makes this story so powerful is that it is told entirely by Esch in a matter-of-fact voice that reveals their miserable living conditions and twisted family dynamics of extreme poverty.  It's not a book you enjoy but one you cringe from as the reality of the lives of those living this way.  Strongly recommended.

Published: 2011  Read; November 2025  Genre: Fiction

The Berry Pickers - Amanda Peters

 A 4 year-old girl disappears on the edge of blueberry fields where her parents are First Nation pickers from Canada.  The book tells the story of a grown woman who questions her origins and the brother of the missing girl whose life is destroyed with guilt.

A very sad read.  Some beautifully worded phrases and overall a story of forgiveness, family and life struggles.

Published: 2023  Read: November 2025 Genre: Fiction 

Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout

 This was a fun re-visit to previous characters by this author.  Olive Kitteredge reappears in Maine, a curmudgeon in her old age, observing, advising and consoling her neighbors.  It's not so much a story as a chance to walk about a group of people in their town going about their daily lives.  

Quote:

 "He had told this story to [his wife] when they first me, he had also told his first wife, Pam Carlson, and they were both kind about it but it was one of Bob's adult understandings:  People did not care, except for maybe one minute.  It was not their fault, most just could not really care past their own experiences."

Published: 2024  Read: March 2025  Genre: Fiction

Here One Moment - Liane Moriarty

 I say this often: this is the best book I've read in a while.  What makes a book a "best" for me?  One factor is that the writing doesn't distract from the story; another that the characters are believable and interesting.  Both of those find me reading without noticing the passage of time late into the night.  I want to know how the story ends, but I don't rush through because their are bits almost every page to savor.

This is a story of an older woman who predicts the death of passengers on a plane.  What do people do if they know when and how they will die?  Moriarty takes us through their reactions while at the same time revealing the lives they were living and how the prediction changes or does not change them.  Interlaced with their stories, is the story of Cherry, the prognosticator, and how she came to be on the plane.  

It's an engrossing story that made me smile and cry and appreciate how the author weaves the stories of many people into a meaningful whole.  Read this book, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Quotes:

"The belief that the probability of future events changes based on past events (assuming those events are independent) is known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the gambler's fallacy. [26 consecutive landing on black in 1913 in Monte Carlo casino]."

"Math, by the way, is a language, I would argue a beautiful one, and it's the only universal language there is, because it's the same all over the world."

"Those big open landscapes gave me a not unpleasant sensation of vertigo.  I enjoyed the feeling of being small and insignificant.  It's healthy to be reminded of your insignificance."

"I still think that, sometimes, even though I know full well I am exemplifying the just-world fallacy, which is the erroneous belief that the world is fair.  We are socialized to think that.  It makes the world feel more predictable if we believe good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior punished."

After Annie - Anna Quindlen

 

I've read many of Anna Quindlen's books over the years and have liked them.  This one was sad as it told the story of a father and his four children over a year after losing their wife and mother suddenly.  We see each of them go through the stages of grief, a different experience because of their ages (Dad 30's, children 13, 10, 8 and 6).  Much of the story is about the impact of her death on the Mom (Annie)'s best friend, Annamarie.  She spins out of control at losing her friend.  

Like all of Quindlen's books, the relationship between people are authentic. But the story wraps up too neatly and offers a "happy ever after" ending.  

Published: 2024  Read: January 2025  Genre: Fiction

The Lost Family - Libby Copeland

 

Since 2015, after attending a genealogy cruise where I learned about genetic genealogy, the field has become a passion of mine. I even started a monthly study group in my home, which is now seven years strong. Being an avid reader, I’ve sought out books on the topic over the years. This book revisits much of what I’ve learned and offers a fantastic summary of the field’s evolution up to 2020. As a bonus, I found it at a genealogy book sale!

Libby Copeland tells the fascinating story of Alice, a retired, meticulous genealogist who took one of the earliest consumer DNA tests with 23andMe in 2012. That test revealed a discrepancy in her family history, setting her on a journey to unravel the mystery. Alice’s quest serves as a compelling backdrop to the broader story of consumer DNA testing. Copeland interviews industry pioneers, including Bennett Greenspan of FamilyTreeDNA, scientists from 23andMe, Ancestry’s DNA team, and Yaniv Erlich from MyHeritage, to trace the field’s origins and progress.

I was delighted to encounter familiar names, such as Colleen Fitzpatrick, Barbara Rae-Venter, CeCe Moore, and other early women practitioners who were instrumental in launching this discipline.

The author masterfully weaves together Alice’s personal search with the larger narrative of scientific advancements, all while addressing critical issues like privacy, security, the rights of biological parents, and the ethical use of DNA data.

I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking an overview of the origins of DNA-based family research and the resolution of a compelling mystery!

Quotes/Notes

[mentioned] Alondra Nelson, Columbia University sociologist and author of The Social Life of DNA.

[mentioned] Nelkin and Lindee authors of The DNA Mystique

"as people we are the sum of other people's choices"

"We are empowering consumers, patients, family members, caregivers to obtain all kinds of information that we couldn't provide before..."

[mentioned] Diane Harman-Hoog class is an author of The Methodology, the DNAAdoption steps for working cases. 

[mentioned] Veil Maternity Hospitals for unwed mothers in Missouri and Pennsylvania

"concept of Georgetown University Law professor Paul Ohm that we are all at the mercy of massive troves of data that businesses collect and keep on us...the 'data base of ruin'...our genomes have become them."

Published: 2020 Read: November 2024  Genre: Science

A Place for Us - Fatima Farheen Mirza

Rarely do I come across a book that alters my thinking and opens my eyes to a new world.  This is a story of immigrant parents coming to terms with the adults their children have become.  On one hand it is the familiar tale of how first generation children clash with the expectations of their immigrant parents.  But those tales have been told using experiences and family relations familiar to someone from American culture.  In this story, I was immersed in the life of a Muslim family.  The author teaches us the day to day lives of this family: what they eat, how they greet one another, what they wear, what they believe.  Not by telling us but by showing the intimate details of their daily lives as they have their children, take them to school, teach them about their faith and, like all parents everywhere, adjust to the adults they become.  I came away feeling like I had lived in their world and had my eyes opened and my preconceived ideas eliminated.

In addition to the story, the writing is lyrical.  It's the first time I've enjoyed a story where the author goes back and forth between characters.  The story is told from each person's viewpoint but in a subtle way that moves the story forward while still going back and forth in time, sharing different perspectives of each character.  More importantly, we see a family, loving one another, clashing with each other and coming together.   Definitely in my top five for 2024.

Published: 2018  Read: October 2024  Genre: Fiction

A Quiet Life - Ethan Joella

 

Three people experience personal loss that deal them life-changing blows.  Their grief, sorrow and pain is exquisitely portrayed in this moving reflection on living with loss.  A woman's soon to be ex-husband disappears with their daughter; an older man's wife dies of cancer and a a young woman's father is murdered in a convenience store.  Their stories are intertwined and the power of kindness, caring and loving unfolds as they struggle to live on.  Highly recommended.

Published:  2022   Read: July 2024  Genre: Fiction

The Book of Brad - Monica Elizabeth Bauer

Sub-title: A comic novel about finding family

This book was a happy serendipity!  I attended the Tucson Festival of the Book and saw this book at one of the stalls.  My brother is a "Brad" and I wanted a picture of the cover.  To my delight, the author, Monica, shared that she was an adoptee who had found out she had over 50% Jewish heritage.  She had met her biological family and embraced her new found relatives.  Monica is a playwright and chose to write a book about her discovery.  But this is a different genetic genealogy story!  

Monica created a rabbi named Brad.  He's a very progressive rabbi to the Hollywood stars whose written a bestseller "The Book of Brad" to share his philosophy.  We're introduced to him just before his untimely demise while at the same time meeting his previously unknown biological daughter.  The book shares chapters from Brad's book as his daughter attempts to connect with her newly found biological family, thanks to her DNA test.  

At its heart, it's a story of the family we know, the family we find, and the family we chose. However, it's a first on the topic of DNA discoveries that tells the story in a snarky, tongue-in-cheek style that had me laughing out loud.  It was a treat to find a familiar topic with a refreshingly new twist!

You can get your own copy here: The Book of Brad: A comic novel about finding family

Published: 2023  Read: March 2024 Genre: Fiction

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Shiguro

 

A good friend recommended this book as a thinking piece.  I was enthralled from the first paragraph.  

An AF (Artificial Friend) named Klara waits in the front display window of the store where parents in the future come to buy their children a companion. Klara joins Jessie's family, a frail girl who lives with her working mother and a housekeeper, her parents having divorced after the death of her sister.  Klara's role is to observe Jessie and anticipate her needs.  In doing so, Klara learns how humans love one another - or don't.  Klara tells the story in her naive, curious voice, and I was challenged to figure out some odd names she gave to objects she saw being used by the family.  The story evolves as Jessie grows weaker and older.  Klara observes without judgment, accepting the changes in their lives, having served her purpose.  

I thought the end was unsatisfying, much like life can be unresolved and yet continues.  An interesting read that I'll be pondering for awhile.

Quotes:

"We're both of us sentimental.  We can't help it.  Our generation still carries the old feelings.  A part of us refuses to let go.  The part that wants to keep believing there's something unreachable inside each of us.  Something that's unique and won't transfer."

"...science has now proved beyond doubt there's nothing so unique...That people have been living with one another all this time, centuries, loving and hating each other, and all on a mistaken premise.  A kind of superstition we kept going while we didn't know better."

Published: 2021  Read: June 2023  Genre: Fiction

Lucy by the Sea - Elizabeth Strout

Looking at YouTube videos of the best books of 2022 from various reviewers, I found this one mentioned as one of the post pandemic themed reads.  I'd read the author's Olive Kitteridge  back in 2008 and enjoyed it.  Her books connect her characters across the stories, Olive playing a minor role in this one.

Lucy, her main character was not someone I liked very much.  She's 60ish and recently widowed from her second husband.  She's an insipid worrier that I thought might be experiencing the beginnings of dementia. The story is told from her point of view, where her first husband, a scientist, insists she and their daughters leave New York as the pandemic hits, taking off for Maine, hence the title.  

It's a painfully reminiscent chronicling of our lives during Covid-19 and there are recognizable reactions to our real life experiences during its scourge.  Her reflective, passive acceptance of what has happened in her life and what happens during their time in isolation is in contrast to the reactions of those surrounding her. 

In the end I found the story soothing and comforting, a looking back on what some have survived. I appreciated the story's handling of our fears and doubts and the changes it as wrought on our ourselves, our families and our lives.

Quotes:

"I had often thought before: that there had been a last time--when they were little--that I had picked up the girls.  This had broken my heart, to realize that you never know the last time you pick up a child."

"My mother, because she was my mother, had great gravity in my young life.  In my whole life.  I did not know who she was, and I did not like who she had been.  But she was my mother, and so some part of me had continued to believe things she had said."

"Because I would never have had an affair, I thought William would not either.  I had been thinking like myself."

Published: 2000  Read: Jan 2023 Genre: Fiction 

A Broken Tree - Stephen F Anderson

 Sub-title: How DNA exposed a family's secrets

This is the story of the type of unexpected results that can be found with DNA testing.  The author, a long-time employee of FamilySearch, the genealogy powerhouse, suspected that he and his siblings were not all of the same parents, and DNA testing proved his suspicions.  I was struck by his seeming lack of knowledge of DNA testing for someone who worked in the genealogy industry.  He began testing of YDNA and proceeded cautiously as the years went on, being mindful of the feelings of his parents and siblings.  A mindful example of the issues that arise with DNA testing.

Published: 2019   Read: June 2022  Genre: Memoir

Ancestor Trouble - Maud Newton

 Sub-title: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation
This was a fascinating read!  The author weaves stories of her lives into the history of genealogy and her family.  It's a rolling journey connecting epigenetics, genograms, forced sterilization, neuroscience, DNA, kinship and even spiritual practices that reflect our family ties over the generations.   

Quotes:

p. 50 "As of 2019, 23andMe's data set for sub-Saharan African ancestry relies on only 1,980 reference individuals...1,634 Central and South Asian...Europeans..6,328."

p. 51 "...African Ancestry, a Black-owned site with more than 30,000 Indigenous African DNA samples."

[Note: invalid comparison I noted to author and she replied she would review and correct]

p. 66 "...any genomic predictions that were removed from the outward-facing, customer perspective are still available to 23andMe - and its investors."

p.67 "Daniela Hernandez...Splinter..Ancestry has been collecting ancestral data about its users for decades."

p. 68 "empathy gene...has never been incorporated into 23andMe's own results (GG at Rs53576)"

p.143 "[Craig] Venter conceded in his 2007 memoir, A Life Decoded, Genes are not the whole story."

p.185 "Emotional recurrences in families...I often think family patterns are the primary existential conundrum we all have incommon, apart from death and basic needs like food and shelter.."

p. 187 "Touched by Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison...the particular type of family tree that populates Jamison's book is called a genogram (or sometimes a genosociogram).  These graphs can be useful for mapping traits through families but are similar to those used for pedigrees generated by the Eugenic Record Office...in 1910."

p. 234 "...so many of us spend our lives struggling with or against our ancestors' dreams without knowing precisely how or why."

Published: 2022  Read: May 2022  Genre: Memoir

The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal

 Sub-title: A Hidden Inheritance

This was a dreamy, meandering book for my first read of the New Year.  The author is a descendant of the Ephrussi Family, a very wealthy banking dynasty that originated in Russia in the mid-1800s and expanded across Paris, Vienna and Britain.  The business was taken over in Austria by the Nazis and the family scattered across the globe. Throughout that timeframe, one of the author's great-uncles collected Japanese netsukes, small, intricate carvings that served as buttons to secure a man's kimono.  Edmund traces the path of these treasures he eventually inherits and along the way unveils the family history.

I loved how he used letters, official records, family stories and reminiscences to weave together the art and family.  I read the version with pictures of the netsukes and family photos that made what would have been a historical accounting into a fascinating, melancholy tale of a time, a place and a family.

The author is a renowned ceramic pottery artist and his eye for art and craftsmanship carries over to his descriptions of the characters and their lives.  I found it a fascinating read.

Published: 2010  Read: January 2022  Genre: Memoir

Brooklyn - Colm Tobin

 A young Irish woman immigrates to America for a better life and evolves as a person as she struggles to understand her new environment and yearns for home.  I was intrigued and frustrated by this story at the same time.  Eilis is thoughtful and ponders her actions and those of others and too often choses non-action, non-response.  A coming of age in America story that eventually fell flat for me.

Published: 2009  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World - Laura Imai Messina

 I loved this story, though it was sad, it shows the evolution of grief from different perspectives and the ultimate ability of people to go on.  Yui, a young mother, loses her small daughter and mother during a tsunami.  She travels to the site to a phone booth where those who have lost someone talk to their relatives on the "wind phone" - unconnected but voices are carried on the wind.  She meets Takeshi who has lost his wife to illness and his daughter to silence.  They heal themselves and each other sharing their grief.  A touching, yet uplifting read.

Quotes:

p 36 - "Time may pass, but the memory of the people we've loved doesn't grow old."

p 65 - "There must be an expiration date on the soul like there is on the body."

p 75 - "Yui knew that the strongest kind of love is the kind that is taken for granted."

p 106 - "A famous citation from the American psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916-1988) reads: 'We need four hugs a day for survival.  We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. And we need twelve hugs a day for growth."

p 111 - ...the things you end up missing most about somebody when they're gone are their flaws: the most ridiculous annoying things."

p 158 - "Anyone who has experience great grief wonders at some point which is more difficult, learning or unlearning ...now she was sure it was the second."

p 223 - "As Yui opened the door onto the dense silence of her house, she concluded that memories were like objects...sooner or later, they always floated back to the surface."

p 260 [Yui on the radio] "You speak to people, but you don't know who's listening to you.  But you come into their home and make them happy anyway. 'I don't know about happy, but they certainly feel like they have some company.' 'Isn't that the same thing?'"

p 364 - "Ultimately, that was what he wished for everyone who came there--that each person would find a place where they could tend to their pain and heal their wounds.  That place would be different for each one of them."

Published: 2021  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

Kitchens of the Great Midwest - J. Ryan Stradal

This was a different style of telling the story of a person's life; Eva, a young woman with a once in a lifetime palette, is revealed through her relationships throughout her life, from her father Lars in her childhood, through her adopted parents, her cousin Braque, her mother Cindy and others.  It's a bit disorienting as each chapter introduces another character and the transitions are abrupt.  The theme is food and its importance in linking people through life.  A quirky read.

Quotes and Notes

p 30 - He was already thinking about the good and the bad and the deep human necessity of it all, and how anybody ever got anything done without family and how someone could give that up in the amount of time it takes to seal an envelope with the same saliva once used to seal a marriage.

Recipes - for peanut butter bars and french onion soup

 Published:  2015  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

Kiss Myself Goodbye - Ferdinand Mount

Sub-title: The Many Lives of Aunt Munca

My love of genealogy is really a love for a good story.  Family lends itself to telling stories and genealogy helps reveal those that might have been lost had I not sought them out.  In this story about his aunt, the author uses his considerable writing and research skills to charmingly peel back the curtain on the life of his flamboyant, daring, larger than life aunt.  

Munca was the name she insisted he call her, rather than Aunt something.  After Munca died, a cousin had encouraged him to search for the real story of his aunt's life.  What a life it was! What fascinated me was how he used the same records that we would collect as genealogist to track her path through the world.  He wove her residence, marriage, divorce and other finds into his quest to unravel the truth of the stories she had told him.  Mount was the editor of the Times Literary Supplement so he knows how to engage a reader.  

Another appeal of the book is that the writer is English - through and through.  He writes for those who known England and it was a challenge to immerse myself in the language, locations and lifestyle of the upper class British elite of the time. I chuckled at the term "Paternal Discrepancy" that genealogist term a non-parental event or NPE, which the author claims may account for no less than 3.7% of all births.

 A great read highly recommended, genealogist or not!

Quotes

"How fragile it all is, how brief anyone's hold on property, or money, or life itself."

"What you don't know can sting the heart worse than the worst thing you do know.  And go on stinging, because while knowledge brings some sort of ending, not knowing never ends."

"How seductive it is, this idea that you do not need parents to make you happy, or to make the best of yourself.  On the contrary, to be a heroine, it is better to be free of these nagging, fretting figures in charge of you, and to forge on through life unencumbered.  Far from orphanhood/adoption being any sort of handicap, it's actually a launch-pad."

Published: 2020  Read: October 2021  Genre: Biography