The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright

I consider myself to be a fast reader - that is, I can speed through most books at a decent pace while still comprehending what it is that I am reading. Rarely, if ever, have I made it through a book as quickly as I did The Wednesday Letters, which, at the very least, was a mercifully quick read. The speed at which I was able to read, however is indicative of the overall depth of both the story and characters.

The premise of this book is sweet and promising - a husband and wife pass away together, drawing their three grown children back home. As the children deal with the loss of their parents, they discover boxes and boxes of letters that their father wrote to their mother every - wait for it - Wednesday - during their life together. Together, the kids discover a family secret that none of them could have guessed. Amazingly, the plot surrounding the devastating revelations and sub-plots are all neatly wrapped up on one whirlwind weekend of mourning.

I do not want to include any spoilers in case anyone would like to give this book a try - to be fair, it did receive a positive review from Publishers Weekly, and lots of people on Amazon reviewed it glowingly as well. From my perspective, this book was offensive to women, overly didactic, and completely lacking in any sort of character development or logical plot evolution. I would be interested in hearing other reader's takes on this particular title, however, and am REALLY looking forward to our book club discussion on it!

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

Like so many women of a certain age, one of my favorite books growing up was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Jo March was and always will be a heroine of mine, and Louisa and Jo, in my mind, were one and the same.

Author Kelly O'Connor McNees, also a fan of Little Women and Louisa May Alcott, took the opportunity to do some research and create a fictionalized account of one of Louisa's summers of which little to no documentation survives. We were fortunate enough to have Ms. McNees join us at the Minooka Branch, where she provided a reading from the book, answered questions from the audience and signed copies of her book.

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott takes place during the summer that Alcott's family spent in Walpole, New Hampshire, when Louisa was 22 years old. During the course of the summer, in this fictionalized account of her life, Louisa falls in love. McNees deftly weaves her story in with fact, producing a hopeful yet very human heroine. This is a bittersweet and nostalgic book that I would highly recommend to any fans of Alcott, historical fiction or romance.

Check out the very wonderful and lovely Kelly O'Connor McNees at her website as well:

http://kellyoconnormcnees.com/

The Immmortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Recently recognized as one of the best books of the year by Amazon.com, Oprah, NPR, and the New York Times, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will take you on a journey that fascinate, infuriate and educate.

Henrietta Lacks tragically lost her life at the hands of an aggressive cervical cancer back in 1951, made even more tragic by the fact that she was the mother to five young children at the time. What no one in her family knew then, or for the next 20 years, is that doctors harvested some of her cancer cells while she was still alive (without her knowledge or consent,) and these cells have been crucial to breakthroughs in medical science ever since - in curing polio, studying how cancer grows, learning how viruses spread, just to name a few applications - Henrietta's cells even went into space.

While Henrietta's cells continued to multiply, her family floundered. Struggling to get by, often ironically lacking basic medical coverage, her family continues to have trust issues with medical facilities and personnel. While Henrietta's cells have generated billions of dollars for some, none of this has gone to her family. Not only is this book an amazing story of human life and incredible science, it also addresses the ethical and moral issues surrounding our bodies and ownership of such.

Author Rebecca Skloot, who spent ten years writing this book and gaining the Lacks' family's trust, does an amazing job of combining the scientific with the personal. This is narrative non-fiction at its best.