A year ago yesterday, on my birthday, I asked friends to suggest a book or two I might read to start the year on a positive note. People came through with an wealth of good reads. Well, I’ve had another birthday, and I’d love some more suggestions.
     My 2017 Goodreads Challenge has twelve hours to go. Last January 1st I told myself I could definitely read 52 books, figuring one a week would suit me fine. I made this commitment to read for compassion to prod myself away from watching the news and being so angry at the direction our president was leading the country. I am still angry, but I found that reading calmed me down and gave me some inner peace to release into the universe. Reading for
    By midnight tonight I will have almost doubled my reading challenge number-- from 52 books to 102. I’m debating whether to keep my 2018 challenge at 52, or settle on that nice round number of 100. I have until midnight to decide.
 
Favorites for 2017
• The Zoo Keepers Wife, by Diane Ackerman
• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir, by Sherman Alexie
• Bear Town, by Fredrick Backman
• A Wall in Jerusalem, by Mark Braverman
• Mr. Emerson’s Wife, by Amy Belding Brown
• Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier
• Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies
• A Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Life of the Last True Hermit, by Michael Finkel
• Grief Cottage, by Gail Godwin
• Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent
• In Other Words, by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Inheritance from Mother, by Minaie Mizumura
• Astrid & Veronika, by Linda Olsson
• The Street Sweeper, by Elliott Perlmann
• Colorless Tsuuru Tazaki, by Haruki Murakami
 
RUNNERS UP
• The Glass Castle, Annette Walls
• All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
• Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
• The Lowells of Massachusetts, Nina Sankovitch
• The Manicore, by Robertson Davis

The Good Widow, by Liz Fenton &Lisa Steinke
If you’re going to Hawaii and want a good mystery to read on the plane, give this book a try. I read it, however, not on a plane but in my living room, and I’ve never been to Hawaii.
Fenton and Steinke were childhood friends promised to write a book together, and they did. Check out their story http://www.lizandlisa.com/about/
Two friends, one book. An amazing tribute to long-time friendships.

As I begin to create a list of my top ten reads of 2017, I believe this one is going to make it. If not, definitely an honorable mention. What a nuanced story of an unlikely friendship; two women of different ages, backgrounds, education, and class meeting on the beach in Lyme, England in the 1820s, linked together by their love of ‘curries’ (fossils). Compassion was easy to come by for every female character in the story, and even for a few of the men.

. It’s not going to win any awards, but I love it because it takes me right into my favorite time in history (1469) and of course, my favorite city. I am here in Florence now, and just visited the graves of Botticelli and the most beautiful Woman in Florence at the church of Ognisanti.