UNDONE by Laura Sumner Truax

UNDONE   by Laura Sumner Truax

If you are not fortunate enough to live near Chicago so you can hear her in person, then read this book.  Truax has a preaching gift which is clearly evident in UNDONE.  She tells her story, but also gives the reader the support for listening to their own story.  With Biblical underpinning, Truax writes of forgiveness, grace, honesty, trust and community.  You will hear Laura’s voice, but more importantly, you will hear God’s welcoming and reassuring voice.

UNDONE is eminently readable and can be read and appreciated quickly, but this is a book you will want to keep nearby to refer to often.  Laura lays bare her own life giving the reader the gift of looking honestly at their own life.  She writes of the freedom and opportunity being vulnerable to God affords.  Her illustrations show the hope that vulnerability opens to each person.

(Full disclosure: I am a member of Laura’s congregation and am blessed because of it.) 

THE ART FORGER by B A Shapiro

Self-fulfilling prophecy  run rampant

This book will have you thinking about ALL the times you (or others) are influenced by what you EXPECT  rather than what you actually see or hear or experience. 

Although Shapiro uses real artist’s names and works, the novel is only loosely – very loosely – based on an actual robbery.   Claire has been blackballed because of art work she has done that was attributed to another and hailed as a masterpiece. Now she is asked to copy (forge?) a masterpiece by Degas that is part of the well-known heist of artwork from the Gardner Museum.  I enjoyed learning the “art’ of forgery as much as I enjoyed the plot of the novel.  Claire is believable and likeable.  The work of the artist is written so that even artistic ignoramuses (like me) can understand the process. 

The plot is engrossing and keeps your attention even through the art process sections.  Book groups will have a field day with self-fulfilling prophecy, ethics in the work place, art appreciation, collecting objects (especially valuable ones from other cultures), family secrets, black balling, stolen art and over reaching police.  A visit to an art museum, especially one with several Degas works, would be a great introduction or wrap-up for this novel.  A corollary discussion might be our attitudes towards novels by “best-selling” authors.

LETTERS FROM SKYE by Jessica Brochmole

A lovely story told in the lost art of letter writing

This was a lovely story with interesting people telling of their hopes and dreams in letters.  A bit of a mystery is thrown into the mix in the last quarter.  Just as in actual letters sent to strangers the characters become known bit by bit as they write about themselves, their lives, their ideas and opinions.  In the same way, you will want to know more than is revealed. 

Book groups will find the ongoing discussion of education, choosing a career and choosing a life path a worthy topic for discussion. Other good discussion topics might be courage in attempting or reacting to new things, revealing your past to a child, choosing to serve in the military or not, reactions to loss and family secrets and, finally, how a person's attitudes and dreams change as time passes. A question to consider might be "how long would YOU wait at St. Mary's Cathedral?"

These letters are generally short and deal with only one topic at a time so the comparison to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is not really valid.   

INFERNO by Dan Brown

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INFERNO continues Brown’s tightly plotted, though rather incredulous, tales.  The intrepid Robert Langdon is in Florence suffering from a head wound and amnesia. His foil is the intelligent and beautiful Sienna.  Together they must save the world.

Brown’s characters are fairly wooden and never quite become knowable.  His digressions to tell us about the history or architecture of the places the unfolding plot takes Robert and Sienna are interesting and generally accurate.  It is not necessary to know anything about Dante’s Divine Comedy as we are told all that is needful to follow the plot. 

Those who enjoy a convoluted and constantly changing plot line will enjoy this romp through Florence, Venice and Istanbul chasing a flawed master mind out to destroy the world. 

THE CUCKOO'S CALLING by J K Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith

Rowling has written an engaging and tightly plotted mystery.  The characters are well delineated and clearly drawn.  I was especially impressed by how “true” the characters remained to themselves as the plot thickened (when I thought this was a debut novel). The situations with the paparazzi were interesting in retrospect as I wondered how much her own experience with the press and fans influenced her depiction of them.

We learn enough about Rowling’s damaged detective, Cormoran Strike, to like him and want to know more in succeeding installments of this obvious first in a series.  His backstory with military service, marriage/divorce and law enforcement “friends” offer opportunity for additional story/plot nuggets for the future. His Girl Friday, Robin Ellacott, is intelligent and a worthy foil to Strike, although the boyfriend/fiancé is unknowable and likely to quickly disappear from the scene.

I liked that both entirely likeable and entirely unlikeable characters played a part in the plotting. There are several clear candidates for the villain and plenty of red herrings along the way.  The ending is always in doubt until the final chapters.  It is testament to Rowling’s ability that Lula, who is already dead when she first appears in the tale, emerges in totality even without the benefit of including “back flashes” as the book proceeds.

I hope that Rowling continues writing mysteries with Cormoran and Robin in many future novels.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

It seems silly to go over the “plot” of this biography of Mrs. Lacks again, so I will just say that this non-fiction work details how Mrs. Lacks and her family were lied to, misled, ill informed, taken advantage of and used by the medical community after her cancerous cells were found to be able to multiply indefinitely.  Without compensating, or even acknowledging, the person from whom the cells were obtained, her cells were first given away, then sold, in order to advance medical knowledge.

The book is exceptionally well written, reading at times like a medical thriller.  But at others, it serves as an introduction to medical/scientific ethics and experimentation.  Skloot writes clearly enough so that even those who failed high school biology will get the gist of the medical experience of the Lacks family.  Author Skloot becomes a major player in the book when she engages Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, as  friend, mentor and ally.  The author’s involvement in the story and with the central players may become a topic for book groups to discuss.  How “disinterested” a writer can an author be when they are so intimately involved in their investigation that they become a part of the story.  Would the book have been a bestseller if Skloot was not a part of the story?  Could it even have been written?

Book groups will find the ethics of the various medical teams to be incredulous in the face of today’s laws concerning medical privacy.  Groups may want to investigate the case of John Moore, a “modern” lapse of medical ethics, mentioned briefly in the book.