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  Published: First in America in 1989, this GB edition published in 2013  by Granta Genre: Fiction Themes: teenage friendships, family dynamics, new relationships, school My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ This is a novel about a family break up in America where Jack's father leaves home to begin a new relationship with a man.  Looking at this story line in 2021, that is not very remarkable, but back in 1989 when the book was written, it must have been quite startling for a lot of people.   Jack is an only child approaching his sixteenth birthday, and when his father first leaves home he assumes it is because his parents can no longer live together as they argue so much.  It is only after a few months of being away that Jack's father takes him out on a boat for the day and explains that the man he is living with is not just a room-mate but a new partner.  Up until this point Jack had coped well with his parents' break up, and even accepted his Mother's new par...

  Published: 2013, Vintage Genre: Fiction Themes: Zimbabwe, shanty towns, childhood, america My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ The author, NoViolet Bulawayo, was born in Zimbabwe a year after independence from British colonial rule, and when she was eighteen she moved to Michigan in the United States.  She has used her own experiences to create this extraordinary novel that begins with a group of children living in a shanty town in Africa and ends in urban America.. The opening paragraph of the book introduces us to six children who are called; Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho, Stina and Darling.  They are all living in the Shanty town of Paradise, after being driven from their rightful homes by men with bulldozers, and we follow their eventful lives through the eyes of ten year old Darling.  The children are often left to make their own amusement and they make up games they can all play together, or head over to the town of Budapest to steal guavas from white people's garden...

Published:  2016, Harper Collins Genre: Fiction Themes: Marriage, research into atomic warfare, ornithology, crows My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ The Atomic Weight of Love is a debut novel for Elizabeth J Church but it is so well crafted that you would imagine she had at least half a dozen previous novels already under her belt.  The blurb inside the cover reveals that she practiced law for over thirty years and has written extensively for legal and scientific journals, so that will explain her precision in choice of words and the careful structure of her writing. The book tells the story of Meridian Wallace, who studies ornithology at university, and develops a life-long interest in the behaviour of crows.  She is an outstanding student and is well on track to achieve her doctorate when she meets and marries a physics professor, Alden Whetstone, who is almost old enough to be her father.  Just as she is about to begin her post-graduate studies at Cornell University, Ald...

                                        Published: March 2020 Genre: Fiction Themes: New York, housing projects, community, human frailty My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ On the front cover it says that Barack Obama named this book as a favourite read for 2020, and it was also one of Oprah's book club top ten picks of the year, so it is hard to think of any endorsement better than that.   The writing bursts off the page right from the start, and James McBride brings us a good story about a multicultural New York community living in project blocks just opposite the Statue of Liberty.   The writing has a quick stride to it and characters are introduced as they gather around a flagpole at the base of the apartments.  The flagpole is a magnet for all the residents, and in the morning the older people from Five Ends Baptist church catch up with the latest gossip on one benc...

  Published: 2020, virago Genre: fiction Themes: crime, conscience, faith, relationships, racism My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ When I started writing the reviews on the Gilead quartet of novels I recommended that people read them in order otherwise it would be difficult to understand why people in the books behave as they do.  Now that I have finished Jack, I stand by that recommendation as I think you would really struggle with this one if you didn't know Jack's family background. The first books begin with the stories of two preachers in the fictional town of Gilead in Iowa.  The Reverend John Ames is a quiet contemplative man who was widowed as a young man, and in his old age takes a second wife, Lila, who is a lot younger than he is.  His close friend who preaches at a different church is The Reverend Boughton who has eight children and lives his life in accordance with the scriptures and spending his spare time debating theological points with Ames. All of Boughton...

  Published: 2014, virago Genre: fiction Themes: poverty, childhood, survival, faith, love, theology My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ So, this is the fourth of the novels in the Gilead quartet written by Marilynne Robinson.  The first two books, Gilead and Home, explore the lives of two elderly preachers from Gilead in Iowa and this one extends the story of the second wife of the Reverend John Ames.   There is a different tone in the writing of Lila as Marilynne Robinson shifts slightly from a philosophical style to something more fundamental and earthy.  Before she met and married Ames, Lila had lived a life of neglect and poverty, and had only survived childhood because she was stolen from where she was living.  There is no mention of parents at the start of her life, and as a 4 year old she was in a shared home for migrant workers where she was forced to spend most of her life under a table, unless she cried, when she was pushed outside onto the stoop....

  Published: 2008, virago Genre: fiction Themes:  family, faith, theology, love, old age, approach of death My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤❤ Home is the second in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead quartet of novels, and this time we see the family stories unfold from the perspective of the Reverend Boughton.  Boughton is a close friend of the Reverend John Ames whose story was told in the first book (see link below) and their lives have been interlinked since they were boys. This second book is slightly longer than the first, and not written as a memoir in letter form so this allows the narration to dig deeper into how events unfolded and examine the emotional impact on various members of the family.  As the story begins, Boughton is a widower in his old age and his daughter Glory has recently come home to help care for him after her own marriage failed.  All the other children have long since left home to set up their own homes, and all are leading productive lives ...