The Ghost at the Table by Suzanne Berne

This book would be riped for family discussion in the coming holidays. Cynthia, a writer of a young adult series called Sisters of History, agreed to spend Thanksgiving with her older sister Frances in Massachusetts and their now disabled 82 years old father. Cynthia suspected their father of murdering their invalid mother with an overdose of pills when she was 13 years old.

To coincide with her visit Cynthia wanted to see Mark Twain's home in Hartford for her research on the writer's daughters, and their relationship with their charismatic father which eerily enough parallels her story as well. As they gather together, each one harboring long held suspicions and unspokens secrets, the drama heightens and pulls the reader in their midst.

How could siblings brought up in the same home by the same parents come away from their childhood with disparate interpretations of events? It is compelling writing at its best and deliciously witty to boot.

Berne's first book " A crime in the neighborhood" won Great Britain's Orange Prize.

Black and White by Dani Shapiro

Clara has been her mother's muse since she was three years old. Ruth Dunne, a renowned controversial photographer in New York, was made famous by the nude portraits of her daughter from age three to fourteen. Unable to bear the pressure and scrutiny, Clara ran away when she was eighteen, got married, settled in Maine and had a daughter.

Fourteen years later she was called to New York by her older sister to tell her that their mother is dying and would like to see her. Coming face to face with her past can she find peace and forgiveness? The mother-daughter intricate relationship is taut with tension and pschological dilemna.

Just like in her previous novel "Family History" Shapiro excels in mapping out family dramas and coaxing the emotions out of the shadows and into our lives.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Jacob Jankowski was twenty-one years old when he dropped out of Cornell's Veterinary School and joined the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth during the Depression. The circus is third rate at best, peopled with some of the most unsavory characters and yet this is where Jacob fell in love with Marlena, the wife of August, a cruel paranoid schizophrenic animal trainer. His second love is Rosie, an elephant, who returned his love just as equally.

Gruen's meticulous research about life in the circus in the 1930's is rich in detail, bringing to life the horses, the lions, the midgets, the drunks. The book is very rich in atmosphere with vivid description of their train arriving in town, the set-up and take downs and unsparing in the grunginess and smell of the menagerie.

The book is narrated by Jacob who is now "ninety or ninety three--one or the other." It is about surviving in the direst of circumstances; it is about animals showing us how to love and trust.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A gripping story of Nigeria in the cusp of a civil war in the 1960's and how it struggled to stay unified. Seen through the eyes of
a 13 year old houseboy Ugwu and twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, born into an affluent, well-connected family, the book is compelling in its portrayal of the brutalities of the war in all sectors of society. Olanna, the beautiful, cultured twin fell in love with a radical professor while tough, business-minded Kainene got enamored with a blue-eyed British expatriate. This book stayed with me long after I've put it down not only for its exceptional prose from such a young writer but for its depiction of a country struggling to heal after an internal bloodbath brought about by ethnic prejudice and greed for power. The characters endure a country's transformation and looked forward to healing itself as the emblem of hope "half of a yellow sun" emerges in the horizon.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

" One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."

Khaled Hosseini's "A thousand Splendid Suns" is a story of friendship between two most unlikely women; Mariam, a 'harami' an illegitimate daughter of a wealthy man who is ashamed of her existence and Laila, a beloved daughter of an intellectual who encouraged her to pursue an education. Their friendship is the only light in a life of servitude and humiliation in a household ruled by a cruel husband and a country terrorized by the Taliban.
Just like the "Kite Runner" the story is framed within the greater canvas of the country's history and as the story unfolds the reader is drawn to the very interior of the household and to its consuming drama. The plight of women "to endure...its all we have" and how the gift of friendship found in the most unlikely place could be the "sun that shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns."

Songs without Words by Ann Packer

The author of "Dive from Clausen's Pier" came back with a tender, evocative, searing friendship between two women. Liz and Sarabeth were neighbors growing up in Northern California. Their friendship deepened even more with the suicide of Sarabeth's mother when they were in High School. The bond formed in childhood was greatly tested when Liz's 15 year old daughter became severely depressed and affected all their lives. Packer is brilliant in depicting the interior lives of women, the daily rhythm, the emotional waves. She writes with such honesty and realistic portrayals of characters in situations unimaginable that the reader almost feel like a voyeur. How much could we expect from a lifetime of friendship?

"Songs without Words" opened with " Each evening, the streetlights came on at dusk, and the view out the window changed, from barely glowing kitchens and TV rooms to the houses that contained them, and to the trees that sheltered the houses. It seemed to Sarabeth that for a little while there was a kind of balance out there, an equilibrium. But then quickly, darkness came down from the sky and soon the lit rooms returned to prominence and finally everything else was black...."