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Read: April 2024

The Day Tripper: A Novel

by James Goodhand

Today, I began reading “The Day Tripper: A Novel” by James Goodhand. The story centers around Alex Dean, who can travel through time but, unfortunately, always ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. This book is a perfect read for a rainy April day. The story moves quickly in just the first few pages, with time flying by faster than it does for Alex.

It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of a fantastic woman named Holly, and all the time ahead of him. That is, until a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered, and almost drowning in the Thames.

The next day, he wakes to find himself in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, in grimy clothes Alex doesn’t recognize, with no idea how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s much older and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it’s 2010—fifteen years since the fight.

After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river.

But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What about Cambridge and Holly? In this page-turning adventure, Alex must navigate the years to learn that small actions have an untold impact. And that might be all he needs to save the people he loves and, equally importantly, himself.

Read: October 2022

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The Book of Goose: A Novel

by Yiyun Li

The Book of Goose: A Novel by Yiyun Li; is a gripping, heartbreaking new novel about female friendship, art, and memory by the award-winning author of Where Reasons End. The Book of Goose: A Novel is a story of disturbing intimacy, obsession, exploitation, and strength of will. I highly recommend this book as it was not only a page-turner but a novel that helped me on my grief journey.

The novel focuses on many issues that interest me and intrigue me during my grief journey. Jan was anxious that she was not as successful in her work or personal life. I always reassured her not to be concerned.

After Jan died, I had similar feelings. Over time, I have heard words of wisdom and regained my self-confidence.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised–the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story.

As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves–until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school to the quiet Pennsylvania home where Agnès can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a haunting story of friendship, art, exploitation, and memory by the celebrated author Yiyun Li.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: December 2021

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Followers

by Megan Angelo

Followers by Megan Angelo is one of NPR’s Books We Love from 2020. Goodreads describes this as an electrifying story of two ambitious friends, the dark choices they make, and the stunning moment that changes the world as we know it forever.

Followers is a novel, but it could easily be read as history with all that has occurred with technology and social media. With the increased discussion of the Metaverse, how close are we to a significant spill of personal information? With the focus on followers defining our culture, how close are we to being manipulated by social media?

As a wannabe blogger, I am impressed by a handful of likes on social media and two comments on my posts. Although I can understand the temptation of Orla and Floss to manipulate the system for their benefit, it is something I know I would not do even if I had the skills.

The spill of personal information is described in a very plausible way. It is not just credit card data but private conversations, photos, and secrets that are spilled and alter the world as we know it. Is this possible? Hopefully not, but without adequate privacy regulations, we may all wake up one day to know that our most private secrets become known by everyone.

Marlow, the daughter of two mothers, along with Orla, provides an option of how we might all leave with less reliance on blue screens. As a secessionist nation in NJ, Atlantis was an interesting alternate reality.

Goodreads provides this overview if you are not convinced to read this book.

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss ― a striving wannabe A-lister ― who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. So what if Orla and Floss’s methods are a little shady and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can’t be wrong.

Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity ― twelve million loyal followers ― Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is based on a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.

Followers traces the paths of Orla, Floss and Marlow as they wind through time toward each other, and toward a cataclysmic event that sends America into lasting upheaval. At turns wry and tender, bleak and hopeful, this darkly funny story reminds us that even if we obsess over famous people we’ll never meet, what we crave is genuine human connection.

I recommend Followers as not only a good read but an allegory of our technology-dominated culture.

Read: April 2022

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Lila: A Novel

by Marilynne Robinson

Lila: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson is an unusual but believable love story. Although different than how I met Jan, this novel is about love and romance that, on the surface, should never have happened. Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church – the only available shelter from the rain- ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security.

Lila is the third novel in the Gilead series. Previously I read Home, the second in the series, and Jack, the fourth. I highly recommend all three books.

Hopefully, one day I will read the Gilead and complete the series.

The Goodreads summary of the book provides an excellent overview.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.

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Read: August 2022

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At the Villa Rose

by Major Alfred Edward Woodley Mason

At the Villa Rose by Major Alfred Edward Woodley Mason, initially published in 1910, is a mystery novel in which Major Mason introduced his French detective, Inspector Hanaud, who was an early template for Agatha Christie’s famous Hercule Poirot. Missing jewels, high adventure some one hundred and fifty kilometers from Geneva, a casino, and blind love are all factors in a complex case for Hanaud, which ultimately involves a gang of frightened murderers. If you enjoy deductive mysteries like me, I highly recommend At the Villa Rose.

The Goodreads summary,

In Aix les Bains during the early 20th century, Celia Harland, a beautiful (of course) young English girl down on her luck, is befriended by a wealthy widow, Madame Dauvray, an addict of “spiritualism,” and stages seances for her benefactrix, while knowing full well that the supposed manifestations from the spirit world are entirely bogus. This set-up supplies the opportunity for a criminal gang master-minded by Madame Dauvray’s maid, with their eyes on the widow’s jewelry collection, to engineer an introduction for one of their numbers, Adele Tacé (“Rossignol”), whose taunts of disbelief goad the old lady into allowing a seance to be held which, unsuspected by either Celia or her patron, will be the cover for murder and robbery.

The crux of the plot is that as a medium, Celia will be made their innocent victim, on whom suspicion is to be planted.

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Read: October 2023

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The Unsettled: A Novel

by Ayana Mathis

I highly recommend reading “The Unsettled: A Novel” by Ayana Mathis. It’s a brilliant, explosive, and vitally crucial new work from one of America’s most fiercely talented storytellers. The story follows Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arriving at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia in 1985. From the outset, Ava is already thinking of a way to escape.

She is disgusted by the shelter’s squalid conditions, including a room infested with cockroaches, barely edible food, and an untrustworthy night security guard. She is resolute in her mission to rescue her son from the shelter’s dangers and humiliations and free herself from the complex past that led them there.

Ava and her mother, Dutchess, have been estranged for many years since Ava left her Alabama home as a young woman. Despite the miles between them, mother and daughter are still deeply connected. However, Ava finds it hard to forgive her mother for her sharp tongue, intractability, and bouts of despair that led to neglect and hunger during her childhood.

Ava wants to be a better mother to her son, Toussaint. However, when Toussaint’s father, Cass, suddenly reappears, Ava is drawn to his charisma and radical vision to dismantle systems of racial injustice and establish a new communal living.

Meanwhile, in Alabama, Dutchess is facing a difficult challenge. She is struggling to prevent the sale of Bonaparte to white developers, who are rapidly encroaching on the land. Bonaparte has been a beacon of Black freedom and self-determination, and it is now in the hands of its last five Black residents – families who have lived there for generations. Dutchess is fighting to preserve the venerable history of Bonaparte and the land, which she has worked hard to keep as Ava’s inheritance.

As Ava approaches Cass, Toussaint begins to sense danger around him. He worries about his mother’s erratic behavior and his father’s intense and volatile nature. Toussaint dreams of returning to Bonaparte and Dutchess, where he was born and raised. He hopes to find his way back there soon.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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