Once More We Saw Stars

by Jayson Greene

Two-year-old Greta Greene was sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when a brick crumbled from a windowsill overhead, striking her unconscious. She is immediately rushed to the hospital. Once More...

The Limits of the World

by Jennifer Acker

Reviewed by Linda:Jennifer Acker of Amherst College is editor of the school's literary magazine The Common and organizer of LitFest, which brings distinguished writers to campus each spring. This elegantly written and thought-provoking no...

A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

A family caught between two cultures yields a resonant story of faith, tradition, identity, and belonging.

Circe

by Madeline Miller

Reviewed by Linda:Circe, the sorceress of ancient Greek mythology, appeared in tales about the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, and Odysseus, but at last she is at the center of her own tale. This spellbinding novel will keep readers rapt ...

The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers

by Bridgett M. Davis

Reviewed by Linda:As some of you know, I love to read accounts of inspiring mothers. This book was an outstanding example of this genre. Fannie Davis ran a Numbers racket in the city of Detroit for decades. The granddaughter of slaves,...

How Hard Can It Be?

by Allison Pearson 

Reviewed by Linda:Sisters, if you are in the "Sandwich Generation" and need a hearty laugh, check out this hilarious and very smart novel about a London woman with two beloved children who have become teenage monsters...

Educated: A Memoir

by Tara Westover

Reviewed by Linda:

The author of this remarkable book was raised by survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, where she and her six siblings prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling food. Born at home, Tara had no birth certificate; n...

Vanessa and Her Sister

by Priya Parmar

Reviewed by Linda:

I was mesmerized by this novel about the Bloomsbury Group, which is told from the perspective of the artist Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf. In 1905 in the London neighborhood of Bloomsbury, Vanessa and her three si...

Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders

by Julianna Baggott

Reviewed by Linda:

Congratulations to Julianna Baggott of Amherst on her latest bestselling novel. Named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and widely praised by reviewers, the novel introduces us to three generations of women, fr...

Alice in Bed

by Judith Hooper

Reviewed by Linda:

In Amherst author Judith Hooper’s fascinating work of historical fiction it wasn’t hysteria that kept the brilliant Alice James trapped in bed. Sister to the famous writer Henry and psychologist William, she suffered as m...

Between the World and Me

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Reviewed by Linda:

The latest winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, Between the World and Me takes the form of a father's passionate letter to his son about racism in America. Although a short book, the devastating knowledge ...

One Plus One

by Jojo Moyes

Reviewed by Janet:

Jess is a single mother, working two jobs to try to keep her family together. Nicky is a Goth 15 year old, being bullied by neighborhood toughs. Tanzie is a 10 year old math prodigy who's been offered a spot in a swanky scho...

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

by Michelle Alexander

Reviewed by Linda:

A devastating analysis of how we have come to have the majority of young black men in our major American cities locked behind bars or labeled felons for life for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by...

The Invention of Wings

by Sue Monk Kidd

Reviewed by Janet:

Sarah Grimké is not like other girls her age in 1803 Charleston, South Carolina. So when she is given her own personal slave girl, Hetty, for her 11th birthday, the institution of slavery becomes even more personal. Here ...

All I Know and Love

by Judith Frank

For years, Matthew Greene and Daniel Rosen have enjoyed a quiet domestic life together in Northampton, Massachusetts. Opposites in many ways, they have grown together and made their relationship work. But when they learn that Daniel's twin ...

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

by Elizabeth Kolbert

Reviewed by Linda:

A New Yorker staff writer, Elizabeth Kolbert knows how to grab and hold our attention in this account of evolution as it is being altered by humankind. Throughout earth's history there have been five major mass extinc...

The Fault in Our Stars

by John Green

Reviewed by Linda:

OK, I admit it. This book was a triple-hanky read for me. A young-adult novel that was just made into a film, the book introduces us to three teens living their fullest lives despite cancer diagnoses. Heart-breaking but not ...

Dear Committee Members

by Julie Schumacher

Reviewed by Janet:

A fun look at academia – told entirely through letters – from a member of the English Department at a small Midwestern college. His own writing career on the rocks, his personal life in tatters, and the campus building...

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Reviewed by Janet:

Marie-Laure is a blind girl in Paris, whose father is the master locksmith at the Museum of Natural History. As the German invasion and occupation approaches, they flee to a great-uncle in St. Malo. Werner Pfennig lives i...