Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay, 2013

Takes place in Boston.  Story of musicians attending & teaching at well known conservatory.  Reminds me of when I lived near New England Conservatory & Berkeley school of music.  Seeing musicians walking around with their instruments.

Fitting book after reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, which piqued my interest in the piano and violin.

Well written, good characters with music & Boston playing central characters as well.  Remy is a student with unruly hair & talent for the violin.

Nicholas Elko is a protege composer who is accustomed to being worshiped & receives accolades without trying & therefore, not appreciative of them.  He is clueless in a way that only someone whom things come easily to is.

Nicholas' young wife Hazel follows him throughout Europe for prestigious appointments, raising their daughter Jessie.

Yoni is a music teacher who strives for recognition, but his talents only take him so far.  Each year, he has a new, thin student girlfriend.

The novel spans over 3 decades and is engaging and touching.  The touches of loneliness, frustrations, yearning & inspiration throughout the novel were surprising and engaging.

Would definitely read another book by Kalotay.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua, 2011

...is really funny!  Tongue in cheek memoir written by one (high achieving Yale Law professor) Chinese-American's take on raising her two daughters, Sophia & Lulu.

She sets high standards, not buying into the 'Western' way of parenting that every child deserves a ribbon & should explore their every heart's desire since they are special snow flakes.

The book & Chua got a lot of backlash, but I imagine it's from people who only read the blurb that talks about how Chua did not allow her daughters to go on sleepovers (true because her daughter came home crabby & exhausted after attending one) & forced her daughter in the snow without a jacket for refusing to practice her violin (she did this for a minute before accepting defeat & admitting it was a bluff). 

Similar to Lean In, if people had actually read the book, they would have understood the message.  For some reason, books about motherhood result in visceral & passionate reactions just from the jacket summaries.

Chua was very strict with her daughters & made them practice their respective instruments for hours each day, even on vacation.  Her children loved their instruments though, which provided feelings of accomplishment & confidence when performing, including a performance at Carnegie Hall & international music festival.

She also makes the point that it is hard work to be a 'Tiger Mom'  - the hours driving her children to & from lessons, the notes she takes to help them improve, being 'hated' for her strictness & the opportunities she makes for them to excel.  I realized at this point, I am too lazy to be a Tiger Mom.

Her method 'worked' with her two daughters attending Harvard & speaking of their love for their family & happy upbringing.

One of the funnier moments is when Chua realizes her pet dog is not picking up on basic tricks like catch & fetch.  She finally realizes that he has trouble with his eyesight & rushes him to the vet, who declares that his eyesight is perfectly fine...he is just not the brightest, over-achieving dog Chua was expecting.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, 2016

Beautifully written book about the brutality of slavery.  Cora escapes the Randall cotton plantation & the brutality of Terrence Randall, risking her life.

Through the help of safe houses provided by the Underground Railroad, Cora & Caesar travel up North where there are free blacks.  She is not able to escape the brutality, whether she escapes North or West.

It is shockingly appalling and sad the public displays of torture inflicted on slaves & blacks in general.  The violence extended to any whites who assisted escaped slaves.

Slave catcher was a profession.

The book depicts an actual underground railroad, which I never knew existed, but after researching realized that it did not exist but a metaphor for what did happen in the 1850s.

This novel piqued my interest while highlighting my ignorance of our country's history and what happened during such a barbaric time.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, 2017

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, 2017

A bit slow going in the beginning with the introduction of so many characters, but really picked up and then couldn't stop reading until I finished. 

Takes place in Shaker Heights, OH where a typical mid western couple (met in college, married & moved back to the wife's home town) for the mother Elena Richardson to raise four children: Lexie, Trip, Moody & Izzy.

Diversity present in that Lexie has an African-American boyfriend & Mia Warren, a tenant of Richardson's, works in a Chinese restaurants & befriends the staff. 

I appreciated the attorney Ed Lim's character, with him having grown up in the 'white' world of the midwest & representing Bebe in the custody battle against Elena's childhood friend, Linda McCollough.

Ng captures sibling rivalries, adult friendships, a mother not able to stop herself & the microcosm that is the midwest.  She also captures the broken working class families of the East coast when a daughter will sacrifice anything for her art.

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman, 2017

Such an original book & enjoyable book.  Funny, touching & warm.  Eleanor Oliphant is literally & figuratively a character.

She accidentally & reluctantly develops a friendship with a co-worker who brings her out of her routine and obsession with a local musician.

Filled with wry observations about what are considered 'normal' behaviors, Eleanor's point of view is truly unique.

Read this during my Italian vacation & was as much a treat as all the delicious pasta, charcuterie & fresh vegetables I feasted on.

Fall

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, 2003
An odyssey through India.  Semi-autobiographic story of Roberts, an Australian who breaks out of prison & feels to Mumbai.  He talks about the people, how they are full of smiles and warmth, love of dancing and celebration.  Generous, good-hearted people.

The narrator goes by Lindsay, the name on the stolen passport, which is shortened to Lin in India.  Lin embraces the friendship of hustler-guide Prabakar and is invited to Prabakar's home village hours from Mumbai where he learns Marathi, the local language foreigners rarely learn.

Part of Lin's adventures include living in the infamous Mumbai slums, spending time in prison, joining the Abdel Khader Khan Mafia, pursuing the love of American Karla Saaranen & embarking on a mission to deliver arms to Afghanistan.

Written while Roberts was serving time in prison, the story includes many insights on human characteristics and philosophical discussions, which to be honest, I found a bit tedious.  Regardless, the novel is magnificent.

Fully Alive: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live Your Mission in Business And Life by Tyler Gage, 2017
Fascinating story of how a young college student Tyler Gage wanted to bring guayusa tea to the western world.  A staple of Amazonian tribes, guayusa is a natural caffeinated tea with a pleasing taste.

After graduating college, Gage and fellow Brown student Dan MacCombie move to Ecuador to start working on manufacturing guayusa to eventually use in energy drinks, a $3.2B marketing in 2008.  The work these two do to start up the business in Ecaudor is incredible, not counting the work that must be done in the States to produce the end product.

A good general business primer, Gage discusses the need to listen to experts, swallow your pride, continuously prune & weed your team, focus on customers & know your numbers.

Although Gage was almost fired by Runa's Board of Directors, he did manage to stay on and make the transition from starting a company to the very different job of managing an established company.  Factoring in providing a livelihood of the Amazonian Kichwa tribe of Ecaudor, Runa is a pretty amazing story.

Fully Alive provides insight into the spiritual rituals of the Amazonian tribes, balancing the focus on profits and revenue with mindfulness and social responsibility.

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta, 2017
I often find male authors lacking in capturing a woman's voice, and Tom Perrotta is no exception.  Although Mrs. Fletcher was very readable, I did not buy into the choices Eve Fletcher made.  A single mom whose only son Brendan has started college, Eve is left with an empty house.

She takes a class on gender, taught by transgender teacher Margo Fairchild.  She agrees to meet her employee Amanda for a drink outside of work.  None of these decisions seem odd, but the habit Eve embarks on & the wild night that ensues after having her classmates, including her son's high school classmate Julian, over for drinks do not ring true to me.

While Eve adjusts to her empty house, Brendan is also having difficulties adjusting to college life.  In high school, Brendan was the popular, cocky, superficial lacrosse player.  In college, Brendan's jock behavior is no longer acceptable and while his roommate Zach outgrows the behavior, Brendan struggles to do so.

Three Sisters, Three Queens by Phillippa Gregory, 2016

Yet another 16th Century royal page-turner, Three Sisters is told from the viewpoint of Margaret Tudor, Henvy VIII's older sister.  Filled with political maneuverings, wars and constant plotting for the gain of power, the Tudors were not a boring family.

Betrothed to James II, King of Scotland, Margaret's union establishes peace along the English-Scottish border.  At the Tudor court, Katharine of Aragon lives in penury as the widow of Arthur.  Her father refuses to support her until Arthur's father, Henry VII pays her dowry.

With Henry VII's death, Margaret's brother Henry VIII becomes the King of England and marries Katharine of Aragon, making her Queen.  Katharine is restored to her proper place in the royal court & the two queens now focus on producing an heir for their respective thrones.

During Henry's reign, he attacks France, who has a treaty with Scotland, thus going to war with Scotland.  During Henry's siege of France, James II sees an opportunity to claim English lands given the lack of men remaining in England.

With Katharine Queen Regent during Henry's absence, she leads a decisive and brutal victory over James and his men.  She even orders the head of James, her brother-in-law, leaving Margaret a widow.

Margaret is seduced by a Scottish lord, Archibald Douglas, and marries him without approval from the Scottish lords.  Margaret writes to her brother & Katharine to send men and reinforcements, but none are provided. 

With no defense against the Scottish lords who turn on her, she is forced to flee to England.  She returns to Scotland to be with her son, but she and her son remain siege under the Douglas clan.  The Scottish lords who do rise to defend her are slaughtered by the Douglas clan.

Henry's and Margaret's younger sister is a renowned beauty betrothed to Charles of Castille, the grandson of Louis XII, King of France.  Before Charles becomes of age, his grandfather becomes a window and sends his men to the Scottish court to discuss a possible union between Scotland and France.

As Margaret considers the proposal and the powers he would have, she discovers that her brother Henry has been making arrangements and betroths Mary to the much older Louis XII to unite England and France.

With Mary's marriage, she becomes Queen of France.  The three sisters had all successfully ascended the throne, a remarkable political feat.