Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge. Once again, a book about parents and children, but this one hangs together in a way that Amy and Isabelle didn't. Perhaps because Olive carries and fills the book by force of character alone. A story of love and kindness and anger; the edge between despair and managing to muddle along each day.

Abraham Verghese, My Own Country

Abraham Verghese, My Own Country. Verghese tells his own story of being an infectious disease doctor in the 1980's in rural Tennessee. A moving personal history of the AIDs epidemic in America: sometimes a little clunky and in need of editing, other times dated in language and perspective, still a riveting story and one we need to remember.