Books like The Boys of Riverside — picked by fans

I’m not sure why this Oprah’s Book Club pick is named Long Island since most of the crucial scenes take place in Ireland, the homeland of forty-three-year-old Eilis Lacey. I read this book because it is the sequel to Toibin’s previous book, Brooklyn, which was made into a movie starring Saoirse Ronan.

I often wonder what happens to couples after their romantic and enthralling beginnings, and life between two cultures interests me. It shows the differences that develop between two people from different cultures who fall in love and try to make a life together. In this second half of their lives, the couple have more than the usual problems. The unending plot-twists led me to finish the book in a day. A good read, but I’m sure the ending will be controversial.

I wanted to know why Michelle Miller, an award-winning broadcast journalist on the CBS Saturday Morning show, yearns to reconnect with her biological mother. She wants her Latina birthmother to recognize her as her own. Questions we both wanted to know: Was she abandoned because her father was married to someone else? Because she had darker skin than her Hispanic mother? Or because her mother’s family disapproved of their daughter being with a Black man despite his being a surgeon and a city councilman? 

Michelle attended Howard University, where she formed tight friendships. Her journalistic career is marked by interactions with famous civil rights movers and shakers. Yet, throughout her life, she missed having a mother and a “normal” nuclear family to belong to. 

Few things delight me more than being immersed in a world where a character is searching for where he/she belongs, such as in the world of closed adoptions. From the first page to the last, the book absorbed me in the highs and lows of an adoptee’s search for her biological mother and father.

Julie perseveres in her hunt for nearly a decade. The author’s vivid descriptions of her intense emotions during her quest made me aware of the painful consequences of keeping adoption information secret. I felt her sorrow, disappointments, and tension. The depictions of her Collie companions, her garden, and Chicago make them characters that add authenticity. This book is a heartfelt memoir—with a surprise ending. I highly recommend it.

I read with fascination this study of how quality, environmentally sound, and satisfying lives have been achieved in two intentional communities in two distinct cultures: the Kankanmori community of Tokyo, Japan and Quayside Village of Vancouver, British Columbia.

The author’s observations about how humans are becoming more isolated rang true to my experiences in California. I was encouraged by how both these cohousing communities developed bonds through play, work, and frequent interactions at common meals. I would have thought the strict structure of the living arrangements in Japan might have counteracted the desired feelings of belonging. But they bonded just as well as the ‘hang-loose’ Canadians. I was convinced that living in cohousing, especially as I age, is the way to live more happily and less isolated.

A perfect counterpart to Plimpton’s book, Jerry Kramer’s gritty account of gridiron trench warfare arrived two years later and is considered the first “adult” book about football for its inside look at a season that culminated in an NFL championship. It may read like Neanderthal times, but it’s almost more fascinating than today’s game.

This book fed America’s hunger for a story about what goes on in the locker rooms and playing fields—particularly those of legendary coach Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers.    

No dynasty in sports history has been more dissected, debated, or discussed than the New England Patriots. And no reporter has done more groundbreaking investigative work on the franchise, its quarterback, Tom Brady, or its coach, Bill Belichick, than Wickersham.

But, as much as I love this book for its scoops, it’s the narrative that Wickersham threads that made me say out loud to my wife, “This is freaking insane,” while I read it. He is a fierce and tireless reporter and the details he unearths make all these legendary characters real and their dominance inevitable. 

Perpetual sports amateur Plimpton once said of golf, “The smaller the ball, the better the book,” but ironically wrote a terrific bestseller in 1966 that fed America’s new and insatiable appetite about the NFL when he talked his way onto the Detroit Lions as a rather elderly, Yale-educated rookie quarterback.

What began as a PR stunt turned into a moving appreciation of the men, coaches, and sport when the Lions decided to take him seriously—albeit only as far as the preseason. 

Brian Banks was one of the best high school football players in the country when he was wrongfully arrested at the age of 16 years old for raping a classmate. He went to prison, and a decade later, his accuser admitted it never happened. I love this book because it gives a first-person view of what a child goes through when they are eaten alive by the criminal legal system.   

It is also a great book about hope and determination. Brian never gives up on his dreams and ultimately lives them on an NFL field after more than a decade-long ordeal. This book has something for everyone. 

An introductory chapter describes our greater Bay Area climate and its microclimates. The plants listed are ones that will thrive in the region with a minimum of summer water. The glory of the book is in the photographs by Saxon Holt, which include close shots for identification and wider shots that will inspire you to combine plants handsomely in your garden. 

John Steinbeck wrote the Working Days... journals while writing The Grapes of Wrath.

The intent of the journal was to establish a schedule, including a completion date for the novel. What he reveals about his self-doubt is tonic for any writer who is haunted by the same malaise.

Here is the entry for June 18, "…I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty to it… If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no one else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time."

Sometimes, I seem to do a good little piece of work, but when it is done it slides into mediocrity…John Steinbeck’s honesty and humility remind me that self-doubt is a part of the creative process.

I sometimes read entries from… show more.