ADDITIONAL BOOKS suggested by Dana Feldshuh Whyte, December 2016:

MHC FRIENDS: BOOKS SUGGESTED SEPTEMBER 2016

The following list of suggested reading was shared at a mini-reunion held in September 2016:

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (also Gretchen)
A Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman (repeat)
Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson (“I do live in Concord now!”)
The Quartet by Joseph Ellis
Anything by Louise Penny. (ditto several people!) Also any of Craig Johnson’s Longmire mysteries. They are set in Wyoming which may be a good part of the appeal…
Isabella the Warrior Queen, by Kirstin Downey (Kirstin Downey is the author of “The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins“)
Birds without Wings, by Louis de Bernierres
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keefe by Dawn Tripp
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Foreign Correspondent by HDS Greenway
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway (repeat)
Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon
Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend, etc.)
Deadwake, the Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (repeat)
When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalaniti
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Time & Tide (and other titles) by Edna O’Brien
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
(also by Towles: Rules of Civility)
The Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Nobody’s Fool, Elsewhere (+ other titles) by Richard Russo
Red Velvet (a play) by Lolita Chakrabarti
Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life by John Le Carre
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (repeat)
The Other Side of Silence (+ other titles) by Philip Kerr
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson
The Japanese Lover by Isabelle Allende

We all agreed that this was not the best year for exciting discoveries of books (new or old). And we did not get to movies or TV shows because we were all tired and went to bed!!!

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MHC FRIENDS: BOOKS SUGGESTED SEPTEMBER 2015.

The following list of suggested reading was shared at a mini-reunion held in September 2015.

Books by classmates:

Writing on Stone (2008) by Tina Marsden Gillis

The Last of the Good Girls ( 2013) by Maryann Sparklin Woodruff

Celebrate Advent: 25 Legends and Ornaments (2009)  and The Last  Ornament (2010) by Judy Rogers Vicary Swisher

Jody (2010) by Joanna Bradshaw

Theater:

Seven: a Documentary Play  (2007) by Carol Klein Mack (and others)

Recommended Mystery Writers:

Louise Penny, Dona Leon, PD James, David Ignatius, Allen Furst, Charles Todd

 Book Suggestions by an ongoing mini-reunion group:

Stalked: The Boy Who Said No by Paula Sheehy

My Brilliant Friend (and the rest of the Naples quartet) by Elena Ferranti

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted by Justin Martin

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

A Lucky Life by Tom Brokaw

Please Stop Helping Us by Jason L Riley

Zealot by Reza Aslan

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain (also  Paris Wife)

James Madison by Lynne Cheney

The Mockingbird Next Door: Life of Harper Lee by Marja Mills

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

Summer of 1927 by Bill Bryson

Between You and Me: Diary of a Comedy Queen by Mary Norris

The Children Act by Ian McEwan (also Gretchen Hall)

The Water’s Lovely and other books by Ruth Rendell

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Americana by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Heretic by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Tough Questions, Direct Answers by Dale Hanson Bourke

The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan

The Republic of Imagination by Azar Nafisi

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (also recommended by many others!!)

Let Me Be Frank with You and other books by Richard Ford

The Green Road by Anne Enright

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

Dead Wake [the Lusitania] by Erik Larson

Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall [no relation to Gretchen!]

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

And we never discussed films or TV favorites!
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And this from Jo Amanti Piltz (November 15, 2015):

I am presently reading Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by Maria Rosa Menocal. Not an easy read, but very well done and with many points of importance with regard to our uneasy modern world. Perhaps the most important observation she makes is that Allah means God, as in the singular God worshiped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The next most important observation is that all these religions are prone to both liberalism and fanaticism. Fanaticism is dangerous to both other religions and to their own religion. Sort of like mad dogs that chew off their own paws and tails.

Added 11-04-21