Book Ideas for 2018

Looking for meaningful, thought-provoking, entertaining, and/or enlightening books for 2018? Wish to read a variety of books to meet a 2018 reading challenge? Read on for some delectable choices in fiction.

Chicago: A Novel by Brian Doyle fits the bill for being entertaining and a bit quirky. It is set in Chicago, no surprise there! The narrator is a recent college grad who has landed a job in Chicago. He rents an apartment in a building on the north side of the city on the lake. Over the course of his residency, the narrator meets and gets to know his fellow residents including a complex and capable dog named Edward. The apartment building is somewhat like an English village with its own cast of idiosyncratic characters. The city of Chicago is also a character in the story.

Jennifer Latham’s Dreamland Burning provides a look into today’s Tulsa as well as a glimpse into the past during the 1921 Race Riot that portrays the terrible violence against black Tulsans. The story brings old prejudices to light and exposes injustices.

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, another novel, like Dreamland Burning, is based on real events portrays the lawsuit brought against George Westinghouse by Thomas Edison. The question is who invented the light bulb and who will reap rewards from that invention? Lawyer Paul Crayath, newly graduated from Columbia Law School, acts as Westinghouse’s counsel. Westinghouse seems doomed to defeat since Edison has resources Westinghouse is lacking: private spies, newspaper support, and backing of J.P. Morgan. Other famous people figure in the story as well: Nikola Tesla, the eccentric, brilliant inventor, and Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer.

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane depicts two families, one black and one white, in the era of pre-WWI. Set in Boston in 1918, the story also includes a nod to Tulsa’s Black Wall Street in its heyday at the time. Babe Ruth also appears in the story. Lehane includes the birth of the NAACP as part of the story.

John Grisham’s The Whistler provides another page-turner. What occurs when judges, whom we expect to be wise and impartial, turn corrupt? While most cases of judicial complaints stem from incompetence rather than corruption, Lacy Stoltz, an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, does encounter such a case of corruption. Stoltz knows this case could be dangerous.

The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff gives readers a glimpse into a German circus during WWII. The story features Noa whose family has disowned her following the birth of a baby out of wedlock. She is not even allowed to keep the baby. She works in a train station as a janitor and has a small room in the station where she lives. In freezing weather, Noa discovers a train car full of Jewish infants. In an instant, Noa has grabbed one of the babies and flees from the station. She has no idea where she can go or how she can care for herself, let alone an infant. Stumbling into the cold night, Noa does find help in a German circus. She trains to become an acrobat and finds comfort in the other members of the circus. The story is full of surprises as well as the terror incurred each time the circus is inspected by Nazi officers.

Readers who want a truly quirky novel should look no further than Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson. Can a child psychologist’s study of a “perfect little world” work? What will happen if children are raised communally, not knowing who their parents are until the children are five years old?

Readers who like bio-fiction will find historical facts woven into a fictional version of Ida Chagall’s life in The Bridal Chair by Gloria Goldreich. Marc Chagall, the artist, is Ida’s father. She grows up in luxury, pampered by her parents. When the Chagalls flee Russia for France, they think they will be safe forever, but they do not count on WWII and the Nazi invasion into France.

Many novelists like to take historical facts and use them in their own fashion to create a story. The Gargoyle Hunters by John Freeman Gill does just that by telling the story of a father and his thirteen-year-old son who steal gargoyles off buildings in NYC. The father’s goal is to save these gargoyles because they are in danger of being destroyed through urban renewal.

Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde tells the story of two brothers whose father entrusts them with a stranger, August Shroeder, a school teacher, for a trip to Yellowstone. August plans to take his son’s ashes to Yellowstone where he will leave them. The boys’ father will repair August’s RV in exchange for August’s taking the two youngsters on the trip. The father is scheduled to spent the summer in jail, so he thinks entrusting the boys to August’s care will keep the boys out of foster care. August and the boys forge a life-long friendship, creating a touching and warm story.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Perfectly Fine by Gail Honeyman is a jewel of a novel. Eleanor works in an office and expects to slip through life not calling attention to herself. Having to ask for help from the office IT personnel entangles Eleanor in a web of unexpected and not always wanted adventures, but adventures that take her out of her shell and into the real world. The story is well worth reading.