A Secret Gift by Ted Gup

In 1933 a man by the name of Mr. B. Virdot placed an ad in a Canton, Ohio newspaper offering $10 to persons who would write to him and explain their dire circumstances and how they had bee affected by the Great Depression. A Secret Gift is a compilation of the letters that were found by his grandson. Gup had not known this about his grandfather and as he recalls many memories of his family throughout the book, the reader is moved by the compassion of B. Virdot (a fictitious name composed of the letters of his children) and Samuel Stone, his real name. 

For readers who only have a book knowledge of the depression, this book hits at the heart of the desperate times so many people faced as they were without work and without the resources to even put food on the table. Some of the letters were so heart-wrenching that one could not help but shed a tear. Stone was comfortable during those times and his compassion for his fellow human beings was a gesture that showed his empathy and generosity. 

Gup also intersperses his family history into the book and it is a compelling story of an immigrant and his families struggle being Jewish a prejudicial society. Samuel J. Stone was born to the immigrant Jacob Finklestein in Pittsburgh. As Gup tries to put the pieces of Stone's life together, the narrative often references the family in Pittsburgh, Ohio, and Florida where Stone died. Why did Stone change his name, falsify his birth certificate and passport, and move around to so many places in the United States. It is a fascinating story that only at the end of his family history journey does Gup discover so many answers. 

In addition to the sad and tragic letters, many printed in their entirety,  what stood out to me was the incredible research Gup did in tracking down the descendants of the letter writers. He acknowledged the genealogy departments of libraries, newspaper archives, and vital records repositories. It was with such persisitance that he was able to locate family members who were able to shed light on their family's' history throughout and after the depression. That was no easy task, but the result was a beautiful book full of inspiration and hope despite the tragedy and sadness that initiated it all. 

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

I was drawn to the latest entry in Brown's Robert Langdon series because of its setting in Prague. Prague is one of my favorite cities and Langdon explores so many of the high points of the city this thriller. 

As much a leading character as Langdon is one of his previous associates, Katherine Solomon. She is a noetic scientist and is in Prague to deliver a lecture about human consciousness and the exploration of neuroscience. She and Langdon have taken their relationship to the next level as they have confessed their love for each other. 

Katherine is about to have her scientific investigaions about the mind, cognitive functions, the realities of life and death, and neurochemistry published in a new book. However, it seems as though she struck a raw nerve with the CIA and highly secretive arms of the United States intelligence community. They all want her manuscript destroyed and in the process of trying to do this Langdon and Solomon's lives are also in danger. They have discovered a highly secretive lab that has been running experiments on the brains of epileptic patients. One of these patients is Sasha Vesna, whom Dr. Brigita Gessner has brought out of Russia for her experiments. 

The morning after her lecture, Langdon sets out for his morning swim and on the way back to the hotel encounters a strange figure on Charles Bridge -the Golěm of Prague. He has seen this figure before in his dream and rushes back to the hotel only to find Katherine gone. He suspects a bomb in the hotel, pulls the fire alarm, and jumps into the Vltava River. The Prague police become involved and he must explain him self to members of the Czech office for Foreign Relations. The U.S. Embassy gets involved with Ambassador Heide Nagel and her staff. 

Meanwhile, back in NYC, Penguin Random House editor, has been kidnapped and realizes that Katherine's manuscript has been deleted from the servers. He tries to escape to be able to recover the missing pages and warn Langdon and Solomon of the dangers. 

The mysterious Golěm, Sasha Vesna's safety,  the Threshold underground lab, and the interest in Solomon's book provide the mystery and peril in the novel. What consumes a lot of the 671 pages, however, are the scientific theories and discussion of the neuroscience, the dangers of technology and artificial intelligence, and the nature of human consciousness.  Those discussions bogged down the novel for me, and I did skip many of the extended conversations to get to the culmination of the actual plot line.

The descriptions of so many of Prague's beautiful areas were a plus and enhanced by the map that was provided on the end papers. It brought back memories of St. Vitus Cathedral when Langdon took the pulpit to explain to Katherine what he had known all along. 

St. Vitus Cathedral

Pulpit at St. Vitus Cathedral

 

 
 

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

It is rare that I stay up reading past 1:00 a.m. to finish a book, but that was the case with The Guest List. In the spirit of an Agatha Christie mystery, I just had to find out the ending and resolution. 

Set on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, The Folly, a restored 15th century building is the site of the wedding of two prominent stars, Will, who has a Survival television show, and Jules, the publisher of a fashion magazine. The only access to the island is by boat. Their friends and relatives are gathering to celebrate the occasion and they provide the narrative. As in many Christie novels, it is a closed group of people who could possibly mastermind a murder. The island with its steep cliffs, haunting cemetery and cave is a character in itself. 

The novel begins the night of the wedding with the discovery of a blood-stained body. No clue is given as to who it is or who has committed the crime. The chapters are then flashbacks to the day before, the day of the wedding, and the wedding itself. Each player has his or her own perspective on the events and the background story. Jules finds a note, written anonymously,  that warns her not to marry Will because he is a cheat and liar. Olivia is the half sister,  Charlie is Jules' oldest friend, Hannah, Charlie's wife, is the Plus One, Johnno is Will's friend from boarding school and his best man and Aoife, the wedding planner. Each have his or her own secrets that all form part of the intriguing puzzle as to the victim and the murderer.

For the most part, this is the wedding from hell with copious amounts of alcohol and even some weed and cocaine. The groomsmen exhibit traits and actions that could really be characteristic of young boys despite them being in their thirties. There are tales of criminal acts at boarding school and horrible bullying at Will's stag party. It is also a story of addiction including self-harm, and alcoholism. Much of what motivates the characters is their familial relationships and the harm that has come to them.

Each player is developed by Foly and remains true to her depiction of them. The reader feels some degree of empathy, especially toward Hannah and Olivia,  but has a difficult time really liking many of the others. They seem to be self-serving, status-seeking, or even a bit vile. 

It was a suspenseful book that left the reader hurrying to get to the final chapters to have the criminal act revealed. Foley plants her clues with skill and after reflecting on all of them, the reader has clear understanding ast why and how the murder was committed, and wondering why no one had done it before. 

An Inside Job by Daniel Silva

An Inside Job is Daniel Silva's 25th novel in the Gabriel Allon series, which is a series that I absolutely love. Allon is a retired head of the  Israeli intelligence agency and is now working full time as an art restorer in Venice at the Tiepolo Restoration Company. He lives with his wife Chiara, owner of the Tiepola and their twins, Irene and Raphael. 

Despite retiring from the espionage business, he still finds himself in the midst of international crimes and misdemeanors! On his way home from his restoring of a Titian in a church in Venice, he sees a corpse floating in one of the canals. His investigative prowess aids in his learning that she was an art restoration specialist whose most recent place of employment was the Vatican Museum. The painting on which she had been working covered another painting that she believed had been painted by Leonardo DaVinci. Because Allon was close to the Pope, he called in those connections and flew to Rome only to find out that the painting in question had been stolen from the Vatican's collection. 

The crux of the novel is to find out who has stolen the painting, the theft of which has got to be an inside job. Allon relies on several of his compatriots to solve the crime, which goes deeper than the theft itself. Those implicated include members of the Camorra, a man impesonating a priest who has a close relationship to the Pope, and even a Cardinal. Using his skills as an expert restorer, Allon paints a new copy of the DaVinci and masterminds a heist of it to uncover the real culprits. In doing so, he calls on his associates from past novels, including Ingrid Johansen, a master computer hacker and thief, Martin Landesmann, and Veronica Marchese, director of the Tuscan Museum and a very close friend of the Pope. Also reappearing in the novel are Sarah Bancroft and Julian Isherwood who manage and own a London art gallery and Sarah's husband Christopher Keller, a former FBI operative. 

This latest novel in the Allon series was a super enjoyable read - as much a travelogue as a mystery or espionage narrative. The plot was crafted well and the characters, all 42 of them, had a critical role in the crime or its resolution. And now will wait until July for the next installment.
 

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

Of the nonfiction titles that we considered for our book club, Everything is Tuberculosis sounded the most intriguing and it was written by a well-known author, who also happens to be one of my favorites. This is an interesting and, at time, a somewhat infuriating discussion of the deadliest disease to affect humankind. 

Although Green is most notable for his young adult award winning books, he has become an advocate of global health initiatives. In August of 2019 as a member of the Partners in Health. He traveled to Sierra Leone wher he met Henry Reider, a teenager, who has battled tuberculosis  through peaks and valleys of treatment. It is through Henry that Green relates the importance of fighting this disease. 

The title refers to how health and disease are implicated in so much of our culture. He ties Pasadena, California, Stetson hats, Adirondack chairs, and the start of World War I to the disease. Henry's story began when he was six and showed signs of weakness, experienced weight loss and night sweats- all signs that pointed to tuberculosis. But the initial tests came back negative and accordingly, he wasn't treated. This happens so much of the time and is a reason that the disease spreads so virulently, even though it is a bacteria. Once the diagnosis was made, the treatment was started, the regimen is brutal, especially in a very poor, country. The mixture of drugs need to be taken on a very regulated schedule and on a full stomach. With so many in 3rd world countries not having sufficient food, the drugs are ineffective. 

Green includes many statistics to show how tuberculosis is spread, goes undetected, and is prone to drug resistance. After years of treatment, when nearly on his death bed, Henry got lucky and has survived and is now an advocate for treatment of the disease with his own YouTube channel. 

The message that Green impresses on the reader is that the challenge of global health is "the cure is where the disease is not, and the disease is where the cure is not.” If tuberculosis affected the rich, a detection and a cure would be on the horizon. Pharmaceutical companies have inflated the cost of medication, to make it nearly impossible for those in poverty areas to afford it. The World Health Organization has been involved in securing money for some of those areas, but it is not enough. USAID also worked on providing medication, but that aid was pulled when the agency was terminated. Green calls the world to action in eliminating not only the disease but the stigma of it.

An excellent and thought-provoking read.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Set on a fictional sub-Antarctica island, Wild Dark Shore is novel of many themes. It centers around the Salt family who are there to oversee the vast vault of seeds that are to be protected for the sustenance of life on earth. Each chapter of the book is narrated by one of the family members - Dominic the father, Fen, the 18 year old daughter, Raf, the 17 yearol old son and Orly, the youngest son who is 9 years old. The family moved to Shearwater Island shortly after Orly's birth and the death of Claire, wife and mother.

The wildlife on the island and stark character of the topography are secondary characters as McConaghy depicts the interaction with the family. One evening in the midst of an horrendous storm as boat is shipwrecked on the island and the only survivor is a woman, Rowan. Her husband, Hank, was one of the men assigned to the island to protect the seeds and do research. She hadn't heard from him and was there to try to ascertain his whereabouts. The seed vault was being closed and all the men who  had been assigned to it had been sent home and that is what the Salt family has indicated to Rowan. 

She becomes an integral part of the family as they took care of her tattered body and nursed her back to health. The reader knows that there will be more to the story, but McConaghy develops it slowly. Fen's behavior of wanting to be alone, Raf's study of the whales, and Orly's fascination with the seeds reflect times in each of their pasts. When Rowan discovers Hank's passport and papers, the plot thickens and she is determined to discover exactly what happened to him. 

The resolution of the plot comes quickly in the last few chapters. The revelation of the Hank's situation and his relationship to the Salt family is too say the least, disturbing.Wild Dark Shore combines so many themes in one novel - grief, resilience, love and trust, the impact of climate change and the appreciation of wild life. For the reader, the ending encapsulates both despair and hope. It is up to that reader to decide which it really is. 

The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy

The Wilderness was not a book for the faint of heart or for those whose minds work in a linear fashion. Following the friendships of four women with distinct personalities through two and a half decades of their lives, the novel is craftily and creatively written. Flournoy is a master of that style and at times leaves the reader scratching his/her head. 

The first friend to whom we are introduced is Desiree, who is accompanying her grandfather to Switzerland because he has made plans to end his life in a dignified way. They spend a couple of days in Paris before the journey to Switzerland giving him a chance to live out some dreams before his death. Desiree has a sister, Danielle, who had been kept in the dark about those plans and as a physician was not pleased at all. 

The other friends are Nakia, who has climbed the ranks to become a chef with her own restaurant, January, who spends a good deal of her life trying to find some direcion and who becomes a graphic designer with a financial backgroud. Finally, there is Monique, a librarian who has turned blogger and who preaches against book banning. There are also myriad characters who come in and out of their lives.

The book's setting goes back and forth between New York and Los Angelos and the time periods span 2002 through 2027, an interesting look into the now not too distant future. The women support each other through life-changing highs and lows, and confront the changing world sometimes successfully and other times not. Flournoy does not hide her contempt for those who are not sympathetic to the conditions in American cities, medical care, or attitude toward the LGBTQ+ community or those whose skin color is black or brown.  

 Although those themes play out through the book, the theme of friendship is the paramount one Florunoy expounds upon. The women rally around through the birth of children, award ceremonies and marital relationships. The ending is totally unexpected as Flournoy moves her novel to 2027. It was worth re-reading to understand its compelling action. 

 It was interesting to hear Angela Flournoy on 23 March 2026 when she spoke to the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures audience. Her explanation of how her brain works and how she can write a book with so many shifts in time and place, was enlightening. It does baffle one whose mind travels along a more linear route. 

Angela Flournoy

 

Angela Flournoy autographing my book

 

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

Set in 1963, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, is one of those books that almost requires you to have some knowledge of time, place, mores, and cultural recognition. The four main characters, who live in the affluent community of Concordia, Maryland, are brought together as they form a book group. 

Bitsy is a 23 year old married to an older man who considers himself to be a very superior veterinarian. Charlotte is from a wealthy family and married to Howard, whom her father has selected as his son-in-law when Charlotte gets pregnant out of wedlock. Viv is a nurse with six children, married to Tony, a Pentagon official. Near the beginning of the book she discovers that she is pregnant with her 7th child. Finally, Margaret (Maggie) Ryan is really the main character of the book. Her husband, Walt, appears at first to be the patriarchal husband of the 1960's, but eventually has an epiphany after his father's death. 

Maggie's first pick for the book club is The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and the club becomes known as The Bettys. Their lives become interwoven and their support for their female friends is such a powerful part of the book. They see each other through life events like pregnancies, husband's affairs, addictive behavior, and problem children. All of this is set against the background of how women were viewed in the 1960's and their nascent struggle to assert themselves as equal partners in a marriage and in society. 

Bostwick has researched the time period and has included so many popular books, foods, music, and current events. For a married woman not to be able to get birth control pills without the signature of her husband, for a high school girl spurned because she wants to play the trombone, and for a woman who knows as much about horses as her husband to be dismissed are examples of the culture of the early 60s. It is hard to think about how it was, but also frightening to realize that woman could be relegated to that place in society again. 

The reaction at our book group was mixed. Some liked it, some were ok with it and a couple didn't like it at all. That is the beauty of book clubs. I was on the liked it side and would consider it a good read, if only for reminiscing about the time. 
 

Evensong by Stewart O'Nan

 In Evensong, the reader is introduced to the Humpty Dumpty Club, a group of Pittsburgh women who get together socially and also help members of the community by running errands, visiting when ill, and helping with chores. The focus of the novel is on a few of those women, including Emily Maxwell, who figured prominently in Wish You were Here and Emily Alone. 

Joan, one of the instrumental leaders of the group, falls down the stairs and is not discovered until the next morning. The members of the HD are thrust into the job of finding someone who can take her place as she recovers for the broken leg and arm, hospitalization and rehabilitation. In addition, someone needs to temporarily adopt Oscar, her cat and deal with Darcy, her out of town daughter. 

Other members of the group include Kitzi, who assumes the role of leader, Emily Maxwell, Susie, who for lack of companionship, starts dating and gets involved in a relationship, Arlene, Emily's sister-in-law, who is starting to show signs of dementia or Alzheimer's Disease and Jean, married to Gene, who is a hoarder with oodles of cats. Again, as in his other books, O'Nan is a master of character development. The reader knows these characters in and out and can sympathize with them on how they are approaching old age.  

The book creates a quiet arena for reading. It is serious, but witty, especially the scenes with the pets. It feels good to read it and get a glimpse of the goodness of people, their kind acts, and their strong motivation of living each day to the fullest, even when it is hard. The scenes around Pittsburgh are familiar, their concert attendance, and church activities. Especially of interest was the description of Calvary Methodist Church where the Allegheny City Society holds its meetings:

Calvary United Methodist on the North Side hosted their annual Messiah Sing-along, a Christmas treat Emily and Arlene never missed. Though the other Calvary’s choir wasn’t the juggernaut Viv’s bunch was—the paid soloists were graduate students, the organist a guest—the church boasted exquisite Tiffany windows gifted by an otherwise forgotten robber baron. The concert started at four, doors opening an hour early so music lovers could enjoy the late-afternoon sun flooding the sanctuary with color. (p. 219)

I am in awe of O'Nan's writing and will strive to read as many more of his books as I can fit into my reading time. 

 

 

Emily Alone by Stewart O'Nan

 Taking place seven years after Wish You Were Here, O'Nan continues the story of Emily Maxwell. It is such a pleasure to read his narratives that are so character driven. Throughout Emily Alone, vignettes of her life come together to give the reader more insight into this woman, her world, her moods, and all that motivates her in life. 

 Back in Pittsburgh, she and her sister-in-law, Arlene, meet at Eat 'n Park every Tuesday. As the novel begins, Arlene suffers an "incident" and is take to hospital. Emily jumps right in to tend to her needs there and at home, feeding her fish and taking care of her car. The reader glimpses all that goes on in her mind as she goes about picking up the slack. 

When she prepares for her children's visit, she decides to hire a cleaning lady. But before she come she need to ready the house. How many of us do the same thing? Her relationship with her children, Kenneth and Maggie are a central part of the book. She is frustrated by the condescension of Kenneth and the life decisions that Maggie makes. The grandchildren have grown up and have developed individual personalities. 

When Emily's car is totaled by an unfortunate accident, she, reluctantly, shops for a new car. When she buys a blue Subaru, she worries that it might be too flashy! Trips to the Philpps m the Aviary and Mt. Washington are some of her favorite adventures. Some of the most poignant pages in the novel are those describing her cleaning out the basement. She reflects on all the memories that the items she is donating to the church auction bring back. Many are related to Henry, her late husband. Anyone who has ever had to clean out spaces, understands how hard it is to give up those special items. It is noble of her to start this process so that her children won't be burdened with it. 

She confronts her own mortality by learning of the death of close friends and attending their funerals. How true those thoughts are for those in their 70s like Emily. The novel is just the right amount of introspection and humor. O'Nan knows the balance. His style makes the books unforgettable and "unputdownable." On now to Evensong.