I seem to have been in survival mode this year. In January 2025 I found this book, first published in 2002. For me, it was a gripping and inspiring story of the human spirit that soars as it stares death in the face. In 1941 the entire city of Leningrad was blockaded with no way in or out. Rather than try to conquer, the German forces chose to wait while the people slowly starved to death. The book follows one young woman as she tries to keep her child and others alive as anything resembling food gradually disappears. It's a depiction of people who hold on to their humanity as they struggle merely to survive.
Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by The New York Times Book Review, The Siege is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental -- the Nazis' 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed six hundred thousand -- but her focus is heartrendingly intimate. One family, the Levins, fights to stay alive in their small apartment, held together by the unlikely courage and resourcefulness of twenty-two-year-old Anna. Though she dreams of an artist's life, she must instead forage for food in the ever more desperate city and watch her little brother grow cruelly thin. Their father, a blacklisted writer who once advocated a…
At first I thought, oh, another dystopian story of the end of the world. But quickly it became thought-provoking and real, a saga of the near-future results of climate change. The hurricanes and flooding don't just send Florida back 500 yrs but worse: back to the swamps. Civilization is destroyed as most people evacuate or stubbornly try to hang onto the life they've always had. One young girl learns to survive, and her next generations hear legends of how people used to live in boxes on dry land and drink water out of pipes, and they wonder how such things could ever have existed. A searing yet hopeful look at one possible future result arising from our glut of technology now. pub 2022
Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda—a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane—as she navigates a rapidly changing world: A “symphony of beauty and heartbreak” (Associated Press).
A Good Morning America Book Club pick · #1 Indie Next pick · LibraryReads pick · Book of the Month Club selection · Marie Claire #ReadWithMC book club selection · 2022 NPR “Book We Love” · New York Times Editors’ Choice
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches…
This is a deep dive into the scarier possibilities of Artificial Intelligence. Mickey Haller is now doing civil suits, but his old familiar crew is there to help him against a huge company that may or may not be trying to kill everyone involved. He represents two mothers as he tries to force the company to admit culpability for the murder of one teen girl and the life sentence of a disturbed boy who was told by his AI 'companion' to "get rid of her". As always, I was stunned by depth of Connolly's research into the main topic, even as he enthralled me in a modern-day thriller.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly, the Lincoln Lawyer is back with a case against an AI company whose product may have been responsible for the murder of a young girl.
Following his “resurrection walk” and need for a new direction, Mickey Haller turns to public interest litigation, filing a civil lawsuit against an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty.
Representing the victim's family, Mickey's case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails. Along…
First in my Del Sueno Files series: Kate McGonagle arrives in the tiny desert town of Del Sueño, intending to meet up with Josie Hadding, her best friend since childhood. But Josie’s embroiled in conflict with the town council over the End of the Line, a shabby bar with a shadowy past and clientele who swill beer for breakfast.
Mystified by Josie’s loyalty to the Line and the stand-offish town dwellers, Kate is nevertheless persuaded to stay and help tend bar. But when she finds Josie’s bludgeoned body one dark night in the back office, the town’s citizens and local police force seem a little too eager to write off the killing as a random burglary gone bad.
Remembering how Josie once stuck to her guns to prove Kate’s innocence in a long-ago crime, Kate refuses to let the murder get swept aside. She’s not leaving Del Sueño until the truth comes out.
But small towns and long-buried secrets have a very nasty way of coming back to bite...
