Kate Quinn, THE ALICE NETWORK

Enjoyed this historical novel that shifts between WWI and WWII. The WWI plotline is, as other readers note, the more compelling, with a woman spy in fear for her life, whereas the WWII heroine Charlie doesn't face the same sort of threat; but I felt the two-voice structure worked for me ... although I felt it was a bit curious that Charlie was done in first-person and Eve in third. But overall, this was a very readable page turner with lots of good historical detail worked in, and without info-dumps. I know that's hard to do! Would recommend for historical fiction lovers, especially those who liked CODE NAME VERITY and THE FORTUNATE ONES.

Souad Mekhennet, I WAS TOLD TO COME ALONE: MY JOURNEY BEHIND THE LINES OF JIHAD

A memoir that reads like a thriller; I think this is an important book for anyone trying to make sense of the cycles of violence and hatred in the world (particularly in the Middle East/Europe/the US). The author, born and raised in Germany, and a free-lance reporter for Der Spiegel, the Washington Post, and the NY Times, is a Muslim, with one parent Shia and one Sunni, and she speaks four languages. Partly because of this both/and background, she is able to build rapport with people from many cultures and backgrounds--including those Muslims who have been radicalized. She speaks her own truth--she's the daughter of a Turk and a Moroccan, both of whom went to Germany to work at menial jobs; she acknowledges her own frustration and hurt and anger at the prejudices she faced there, as well as explaining how the models her parents provided enabled her to transcend them. But she also gives a voice to many people who are still angry and hurting. At age 25, in the wake of 9/11, she started going in to war zones to find the answer to a question someone asked her: "Why do they hate us so much?" The answer, which she spins out in a series of well-written and suspenseful chapters, is complex and nuanced, but seems often to have to do with people feeling like they don't belong--in their families, in their communities, in their chosen countries. Brene Brown's most recent book is about how powerful our need is to feel we belong, and this book reads like a companion piece--and a warning about what happens when people are made to feel like outcasts and "other." My favorite line: "The world is not facing a clash of civilizations or cultures, but a clash between those who want to build bridges and those who would rather see the world in polarities, who are working hard to spread hatred and divide us."

Lisa Wingate, BEFORE WE WERE YOURS

A novel about a true historical crime, beginning in Memphis 1939 with a woman who stole children and sold them to wealthy families, under the guise of "helping orphans." Like quite a few good historical novels, this is a "split" novel, told from two different perspectives and from two time periods. Two different women, one who has been ripped from her family that lived, poor, on a riverboat; and one who has been brought up wealthy and whose life is deeply intertwined, both personally and professionally, with hers. Some lovely writing in here, and a compelling, painful story.

Emma Donoghue, THE WONDER

I found the premise of this book intriguing: an historical novel, set in back-of-beyond 1860s-ish Ireland, about a young girl who is, ostensibly, living on nothing but air and thus is possibly a miracle or a saint. Told from the perspective of a practical and somewhat jaded nurse named Lib (who served in Crimea under Nightingale), it suggests the various ways a child can be put to use--by a religion, by her family, by the townspeople--for their benefit, and to conceal their own selfishness, greed, and failures of character. At the bottom of the "miracle" is a sordid but not unexpected event; it is revealed at the end, giving the book the structure of a mystery. My one difficulty is that Lib seems slow to gather the clues; when she sees the picture of the brother "Pat" for example, her parents say he has "gone over, God bless him," I immediately assumed he had died; but Lib thinks, "Oh, he went to the colonies." Perhaps this might be indicative of a tendency of her character, but she gathers other, similar clues readily enough; so it just seemed odd. Still, I liked the book; a two-day read.

Chris Bohjalian, THE GUEST ROOM

This is certainly a disturbing book. The premise: a wealthy man, husband/father of a daughter, in Bronxville, NYC (a bedroom community for Manhattan; much of the action takes place very close to where I used to live) agrees to throw his younger brother a bachelor party, including two strippers. Except they're sex slaves, and one kills the two Russian handlers who are there at the party. Told in alternating chapters, third-person POV Richard and first-person Alexandria (one of the women), it's a compelling social comment about the white slave trade and how its violence can intrude so quickly (because it's just not that far away, even in Bronxville). The plot moves quickly from point to point. My difficulty was that there was not much (if any) character development arc; people remained largely unchanged, with the exception, perhaps, of his daughter who has her eyes opened to a horrible reality of our world.

Amor Towles, RULES OF CIVILITY

I adored this book, stayed up until all hours, two nights in a row, reading it, and would put it in my top 5 for the year. Narrated in the first person by Katey Kontent, the daughter of Russian immigrants, reflecting back on her time in 1938 New York City, when she had one foot in the world of the absurdly wealthy and the other in the world of working-class girls with brains. How can you not love a book that has this on its first page: "In the 1950s, America had picked up the globe by the heels and shaken the change from its pockets. Europe had become a poor cousin--all crests and no tablesettings. ... True, the Communists were out there, somewhere, but with Joe McCarthy in the grave and no one on the Moon, for the time being the Russians just skulked across the pages of spy novels." It has references to Prufrock, Great Expectations, A Room with a View (among others ... but really, three of my favorite works of English literature EVER). Clever, evocative, beautifully written. I've already ordered his next, A Gentleman in Moscow.

Tracy Kidder, MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS: THE QUEST OF DR. PAUL FARMER, A MAN WHO WOULD CURE THE WORLD

I found this book both compelling and eye-opening. I knew nothing of Paul Farmer (M.D., Harvard), contagious diseases specialist; nor about the politics and misguided US intervention in Haiti, where he began his work in one of the poorest areas; nor about the politics of medicine and pharmaceuticals and the WHO and UN; nor about how diseases evolve resistance to first-line antibiotics. Tracy Kidder (the author) writes himself into the book as a "ordinary person" asking questions that "ordinary people" would ask, particularly along the lines of, With so much poverty and disease, and so much working against you, how do you keep on? Farmer emerges as something between a brilliant renegade and a humble saint; I found myself admiring his perseverance and sheer capacity for work. (There is a long catalog of his publications at the end.) My gripes are small: sometimes the reported dialogs between Kidder and Farmer feel circuitous and just puzzling, even after a couple of rereadings; and sometimes the episodes seem a bit too "pat." But all in all, an important and informative book.