Fifty Seven Fridays

 A little more personal and closer to home, Fifty Seven Fridays, by Myra Sack is the story of a family who have a beautiful baby who is born with Tay-Sachs disease.   This is the personal story of how Myra and Matt live through the three years of life with beautiful, Havi.  When Havi  was not meeting the markers that most children meet at certain ages, Myra and Matt start looking for answers.  Havi is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs and their journey begins.  They have fifty seven Shabbats with her before she dies.  Each week they celebrate Shabbat with family and friends like it would be Havi’s birthday.  This idea and the journal they keep are the ways they decide to live the short time they have with Havi in a big way.  This is the story of that experience.

Saving Abigail; The True Story of the Abduction and Rescue of a Three Year Old Hostage

 Saving Abigail The True Story of the Abduction and Rescue of a Three Year Old Hostage.  This book is written by Liz Hirsh Naftali, the great aunt of three year old Abigail Mor Edan.

Abigail got world recognition when her parents were killed and she was kdinapped by the Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.  Naftali, who lives between Israel and the United States, tells the story from her perspective. She was in Israel visiting on October 7th.  Her daughter lives in Jaffa with her young family.  Naftali and her ex-husband lived in Israel during the 1990 and 2000’s raising five children.  She has extended family in Israel who were all living in Kfar Aza on October 7th.

Naftali has friends in high places in WDC and was able to get access to speak to many Washington insiders and also get seen and to the microphone and speak to many who had the eaer of the law makers working to free the ohstages after October 7th.

It is an interesting account of how the process to free the hostages and what happened on October 7th

A Reason to See You Again

 Jami Attenberg is a prolific author with many books in her list .  I have read some of them and this is the latest one I am adding to my shelf, A Reason to Se You Again.

I will say it was a very interesting book, and would make a great discussion for a book group.  I am sure though there will be as many different opinions of the book as there are participants. 

I found the book a little confusing at points.  though it is told in alternating chapters mostly from the viewpoint of the two sisters and their mother, there are a few times when I could not tel who was speaking in first person in a chapter and one time it was from a totally different character's perspective with out any introductory explanation.  That threw me off course for quite a few pages before understanding who was speaking.

This is the story of a very dysfunctional family and how as the years pass develop and twist and turn.  The father is a Holocaust survivor with a secret.  The mother is frustrated that her life as not turned out as she had envisioned.  Stuck in a confusing marriage with two daughters, she is not a pleasant person.  The husband dies young leaving the three women  untethered.  The girls leave home as soon as they can.  Each daughter and the mother to figure out their place in the resulting relationship and the larger world.

Following the three characters as they finish school, get jobs and try to create marriages and relationships with others.  They are all burdened by their past and all challenged by their own inadequacies .

A little tedious and difficult to watch as these characters try to negotiate their personal lives and interactions.

Every Tom Dick and Harry

 Elinor Lipman is one of the funniest and best authors .. I would recommend all of her books.  Every Tom Dick and Harry is her newest novel. 

Every Tom, Dick or Harry is an idiom that means a set of nobodies, persons of no note.  So in this book names are kept hidden of the many men woh frequent the local house of ill repute.

Yes you read that correctly.  When Emma Lewis takes over her parents business as estate sale agents she gets more than she planned on.  Her first big sale is going to a large house in an upscale neighborhood of their small town. When she goes to look at the house and its contents she learns that it is not the usual home or homeowners.  Though the house looks like a bed and breakfast on the outside, when you take the "stairs to heaven" you come to the third floor where gentlemen were paying for sex.  

The homeowners are not embarrassed or apologetic. They ran a legitimate business.  Now Emma has to decide if she is comfortable selling the contents of the house and advertising the sale.

A girl's got to make a living ..so she goes forward.  There are all kinds or twists and turns and of course love comes into play also in this entertaining plot.

I Made it Out of Clay

 If you like romantic comedy this is the perfect Chanukah holiday book to add to your list.

I Made it Out of Clay is written by Beth Kander and includes all the perfect holiday details to make this a Chanukah special.    Meet Eve who is about to turn 40 on the second night of Chanukah this year.  But even more distressing is that her younger sister is getting married on the first night of Chanukah.

Eve is still single and has had a very bad year.  That fact is stated multiple times throughout the book.  She is still upset about the loss of her father a year ago. She keeps her phone turned off and misses many text messages and phone calls.  She feels slighted by her family and upset that she and her mother do not have a closer relationship.  She and her sister are not close. 

She works for an advertising agency and her best friends are Sasha and Brian.  But Sasha is just coming out of a serious relationship that took her away from her friends for quite awhile.

Riding the train in Chicago se runs into some anti-semitism and she also has memories of her Bubbe telling her about the Holocaust.  So much trauma.

But at the top of the list this week is the upcoming wedding and she needs a plus one !  Also the company she works for is going to have layoffs.. and no one knows who is on the chopping block.

She comes home one night and asks the cute guy across the hall to be her plus one..but he is busy.

So when she is down in the laundry room late one night, she spots some leftover clay and builds a golem. He is there to take care of her and protect her from all evil. He rides the subway with her and makes her feel safe. He is her plus one for the wedding.  

Of course things go wrong and as it all falls apart it all falls into place and there is a perfect ending.

This was a light entertaining story.  There are of course so many unbelievable parts and I guess if you are going to date a golem, I should not be uncomfortable with a sex scene with the golem, but that was the part I thought was the least well written.  

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

 Stuart Turton brings the reader a clever twist in The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

This is a complicated and multi leveled plot.  We meet Aiden Bishop as he wakes up in a forest and starts running after Anna.  Though he seems to be lost, someone hands him a compass and points him the direction of manor house. When he arrives he is quite confused and has to learn again who he is and why he is there. 

It turns out that Aiden is caught in a repeating loop that has him repeating the same day over and over until he can find out the answer.  The Plague Doctor visits him and explains what is happening.  He is at a special prison called Blackheath.  He has eight chances to find out who kills Evelyn Hardcastle before he can be released.

Each day he inhabits a new host, or guest at the castle and each night there is a party at which Evelyn will die at 11 pm.  As Aiden inhabits each person's body, he sees the experience from different perspective. Each time he finds out more and more detail that will help him discover the killer.  He is also now trying to also help Anna escape and to prevent the actual murder of Evelyn.  

Each of the guests bodies Aiden inhabits are very different giving him very different experiences, Aiden becomes good at making slight changes to the day each time to alter the outcome.  Even though the book refers to eight days, we are really getting clues though out the novel, if you can piece them together as you go.

Catch 22

 Joseph Heller never won an award for hihs book, Catch 22, but since its publication it has become a classic.  It is one of the most popular books of our time.  Even his made up "catch 22" has become part of our lexicon.  

Ok so I will honestly admit ..I did not enjoy the book.  I reread it now as an adult for a book discussion and it was hard to plow through.  After getting the general idea of the writing style and seeing the important references to catch 22 an "minor minor" some of the rest of the book was hard to read.  Especially the scenes of fighting, sex assault and other negative behaviors.

I will say that it is incredibly written.  The detail, the in-depth character development, the absurdity.  It is amazing that someone could think that way and write such a wild story with so many quirky ideas.

I was the person who picked the book for the discussion group, as a banned book.  I was a little worried that I would get some pushback when we met, but interestingly most of the group was glad I had suggested it.  Some even really enjoyed it.  Some were as lost as I was and watched the movie or listened to the audio book..