Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

and the group found it to be an interesting police procedural set in Sweden, with protagonist Kurt Wallander driving hard and sacrificing his personal life to solve serial murders. Rated 8.7


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Rated 9 out of ten by the group, this book tells the interesting anecdotes involved in the progress of scientific thought. Bryson gives a tremendous amount of factual data about the universe and how our knowledge and ideas about it have changed with time. He also exposes the quirky personalities of scientists who made breakthroughs.

Prairie Nocturne by Ivan Doig

Set in the early twentieth century in Montana, Prairie Nocturne tells the story of Susan Duff, a voice teacher, her African American singing cowboy protégé and the complexities of their relationship, complicated by the fact that Susan’s ex-lover is the one who urges her to work with the cowboy. Rated 8.5

The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Father Lorenzo Quart is sent by the Vatican to investigate the scheduled destruction of a church in Seville which has a diverse band of supporters who are trying to save it. Rated 7 by the group.

Love by Toni Morrison

No question about it, Morrison is not an easy read, but she tells the story of Bill Cosey who owns a resort and the many women in his life who love him and whom he loves, some more appropriately than others. Rated 8

The Time-Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger

The time-traveler, otherwise a pretty normal guy, has a genetic defect which causes him to materialize in other times for a few hours. He meets his wife when she is a child and knows he will marry her because he travels forward in time as well. How he manages to cope with these adventures and how they affect his wife makes for interesting reading. Rated 8.5

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

Set in a town like Davis, The Jane Austen Book Club is a group of five women and one man who come together to read the works of Jane Austen over the course of a year. The story follows their readings and also their lives, loves, marital problems and relationships. Rated 8.3

The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney
 
Gaffney tells the story of a group of women who are each other’s chief support group through the various crises that come along, ranging from infertility to loving a married man, to terminal cancer. They are well drawn characters and become people you’d like to know. Rated 8.7

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

This book’s narrator is a teenage boy with Asperger’s syndrome. He goes to a special school and has a mind for math if he can just cope with the rest of life. Unfortunately he finds a neighbor’s dog which has been killed and determines he will find the killer. This quest forces him to travel on his own and do things he is ordinarily too fearful to try, making for a fascinating tale. Rated 8.7

October Suite by Maxine Clair

October Brown is an African American woman who teaches school in the days when teachers could not be married. She has a baby, though, and has to give him up to her childless, married sister to raise. This and other secrets about her family’s past keep her from having the life she wants, at least for a while. Rated 9

Eventide by Kent Haruf

This is a sequel to Plainsong, featuring the rancher bachelor brothers, the young pregnant women they took in, who now reappears as a visitor with her baby, and a social worker who brings in other stories of troubled families. The pace seems slow but lots happens in this Midwestern title. Rated 8.5


Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

Kurt Wallander solves some serial murders in Sweden. Wallander is a dedicated and appealing character as a police homicide detective. This series is worth starting at the beginning if you are a fan of police procedurals. Rated 8.7


Rostnikov's Vacation by Stuart Kaminsky

This is another of a series of books about a police sleuth, this time a Russian, who can't even stop solving crimes when he is on vacation. Mondo amounts of political intrigue. Rated 7.5


Bethlehem Road by Batya Gur

A mystery that takes place in Jerusalem when the body of a young woman is found in the attic of a recently sold building. Police Inspector Michael Ohayon tackles his fifth crime of the series. Rated 7.5


When Red is Black or Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

Readers of both books agreed that the story was interesting as detective Chen worked his way through the murders, but the historical and fairly current views of life in China were even more fascinating. Lots of cultural information. Rated 8