The Passing Storm by Christine Nolfi is a gripping, openhearted novel about family, reconciliation, and bringing closure to the secrets of the past. From the first chapter, it was a pageturner and a book that engaged me when I needed to focus on life’s challenges. I was looking for something different from my most recent books.

I very much enjoyed this novel. It is focused on losses, including one parent and a daughter. I had not anticipated that but found that Ms. Nolfi handled that in an empathic way that did not trigger my grief but helped me understand my grief. The primary characters Rae, Quinn, Connor, and Griffin are brought to life by the writer. It left me wanting to know what happens to them now that they have survived the early stages of grief.

The Goodreads summary provides a good overview.

Early into the turbulent decade of her thirties, Rae Langdon struggles to work through grief she never anticipated. With her father, Connor, she tends to their Ohio farm, a forty-acre spread that has enjoyed better days. As memories sweep through her, some too precious to bear, Rae gives shelter from a brutal winter to a teenager named Quinn Galecki.

His parents have thrown out Quinn, a couple too troubled to help steer the misunderstood boy through his losses. Now Quinn has found a temporary home with the Langdons—and an unexpected kinship because Rae, Quinn, and Connor share a past and understand one another’s pain. But its depths—and all its revelations and secrets—have yet to come to light. To finally move forward, Rae must confront them and fight for Quinn, whose parents have other plans for their son.

There might be hope for a new season with forgiveness, love, and the spring thaw—a second chance Rae believed in her heart was gone forever.

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Today, I started reading Hisham Matar’s “My Friends: A Novel.” It is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction and the winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. This novel explores themes of friendship, family, and the harsh realities of exile. Hisham Matar is also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Return.” The pages on my Kindle App on my iPad fly like autumn’s falling leaves.

One evening, a young boy named Khaled, growing up in Benghazi, hears a captivating short story read aloud on the radio. The story, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, leaves an indelible mark on Khaled, igniting a lifelong fascination with the power of words and the enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa. This transformative experience sets Khaled on a journey that will lead him far from home to the University of Edinburgh to pursue a life of the mind.

In a new and unfamiliar environment, Khaled finds himself far from his familiar life in Libya. His resilience is tested when he attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London. The event turns into a tragedy, leaving Khaled injured and unable to leave Britain. Despite the danger posed by monitored phone lines, his determination to communicate his situation to his parents is a testament to his strength.

When Khaled has a chance encounter with Hosam Zowa, the author of a life-changing short story, at a hotel, Khaled begins the most profound friendship of his life. This friendship sustains him and eventually compels him, as the Arab Spring unfolds, to confront complex tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his sense of self concerning those closest to him.

A profound exploration of friendship and family and how time can test and fray these bonds, ‘My Friends‘ is a work of literature that resonates with its readers. Hisham Matar’s novel is not just a story but an achingly beautiful reflection on life and relationships crafted by an author at the peak of his powers.

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Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel is the first book in a three-part series on Thomas Cromwell. I am an amateur historian, and one of the characters I have always wanted to know more about was Cromwell. Although I might have achieved that by reading actual history textbooks, this three-part series seemed like the perfect next book for me to read. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.

At least this time, I am reading book one first instead of last. I highly recommend this book.

The Goodreads overview provides more details.

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Civil war could destroy the country if the king died without a male heir.

Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.

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Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman is a book I encouraged friends to read before I finished reading it. I highly recommend this page-turner novel, which is punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved books. Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a must-read coming-of-age story of Razia Mirza, a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.

Razia Mirza, the protagonist, leaps off the page or screen. Bushra Rehman describes Corona with prose that is vibrant and clear-eyed. When I lived in Brooklyn, I had, on a few occasions, meetings in Corona a decade before the novel’s setting. Reading the book made me remember that time and place and understand intuitively the world that Razia was struggling to reconcile.

Razia’s choice between her heart and her family is one I will not reveal. However, the novel defines the conflicts between the Pakistani-American community and the love that Razia and Anglea experience in clear prose, and the reader can easily accept various resolutions.

The choice that Rasia makes left me desiring to know what happens next. I have added Bushra Rehman to my favorite authors and plan to read more of her novels.

I had this novel on my list for the last month but could not get to it until now. I wish I had read it sooner. It is the eighth book I have read in 2023.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. Razia’s heart is broken when a family rift drives the girls apart. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city.

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When an Aunty discovers their relationship in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her future.

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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Today, I started reading “Chain Gang All Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The story revolves around Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, the main characters of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, a highly controversial and top-rated program in America’s private prison industry. The program is called Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE), where prisoners compete for the ultimate prize- their freedom. It’s similar to the return of the gladiators but in a modern-day setting.

The story is set in a prison called CAPE, where inmates are forced to participate in death matches as a part of a chain-gang. These matches are held in front of cheering crowds, while the prison authorities claim it to be a righteous act. Among the participants, Thurwar and Staxxx are the most popular as they are also lovers. Thurwar is just a few matches away from her freedom, which she carries with a heavy heart and lethal hammer. Thurwar contemplates how she can help her fellow inmates preserve their humanity despite being forced into these brutal games. However, the owners of CAPE are determined to safeguard their status quo, and they will go to extreme lengths to stop anyone who challenges them. Thurwar’s attempts to resist the system have devastating consequences.

Chain-Gang All-Stars” is a powerful book that sheds light on the American prison system’s problematic alliance with systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration. It critically examines the situation from various perspectives, from the Links in the field to the protestors, the CAPE employees, and beyond. The book offers a clear-eyed reckoning of what freedom really means in America. It is a noteworthy contribution from a “new and necessary American voice,” as described by Tommy Orange in The New York Times Book Review.

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

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Today, I began reading “All the Water in the World” by Eiren Caffall. Like Station Eleven, this novel is a literary thriller set partly in New York’s American Museum of Natural History in a flooded future. In the spirit of “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and “Parable of the Sower,” this adventurous journey offers hope that the most important things—love, work, community, and knowledge—will endure.

“All the Water in the World” is narrated by a girl who profoundly appreciates water. In the years following the melting of the glaciers, Nonie, along with her older sister, parents, and their researcher friends, remains in a nearly deserted New York City. They have established a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History with a strict rule: they may only take from the exhibits in cases of dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park while also working to preserve the collections of human history and science.

When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape northward along the Hudson River. They carry a book containing records of the lost collections. As they race down the swollen river for safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in various, sometimes frightening, ways to the new reality. Despite the challenges, they are determined to create a new world that honors everything they have saved.

Inspired by the stories of curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections during wartime, “All the Water in the World” mediates what we strive to preserve from collapse and an adventure filled with danger, storms, and a fight for survival.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!