1.  The Bielski Brothers : The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffym 1/11/2024, 5 stars.  This is one the best documented books I've read about treatment of the Jewish people in WWII.  A fascinating story indeed by brothers who saved over 1200 Jewish people in Belarus.

2.  All But My Life : A Memoir by Gerda Weissmann Klein, 1/13/2024, 4.5 stars. Check out this wonderful memoir of a Polish woman who lived through six years of Nazi domination.  Learn what helped her survive and recover her health and build a new life in America as she put her past aside.  She never forgot and the life and love of her parents and brother.

3.  The Boyhood of Diego Revira by Leah Brenner (Not listed by PBS.), 1/15/2024,  3 stars.  When the author interiewed Rivira she felt much was fantasy so she chose these to print.  Not surprising as his vivid imagination flourished from childhood on.

4.  Girlfriends: Invisible Bonds, Enduring Ties by Carmen Renee Berry, Tamara Traeder, 2/27/2024, 3 stars, is an older book that shares friendships, both good and bad, and how women cope with them.  3 stars.  Sometimes friendships last a lifetime.  Other times friendships are short.  One woman described how her friendship group dissolved.  When she lost her job she turned to this group for solace but found only ridicule, anger and disgust.  No support at all so she left the group and searched for new friends and a new job.

5.  All That Fall (Faber Paper-covered Editions) by Samuel Beckett, 2/27/2024, 3 stars.  This is the script of a play written for radio about a woman who is walking to the rain station to meet her blind husband.  She encounters many people including one who give her a ride but goes to considerable trouble to get her into and out of the car.  She is a BIG woman.

6.  The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich takes the reader into the heart of Wyoming.  2/27/2024, 3.5 stars.  Any individual who has traveled or lived in this beautiful state will enjoy her descriptions about life, the beautiful environment and the wild creatures that live there.  This reader found it thrilling.  Almost like being there.  It makes one want to travel those open spaces once more to see what one can see. 

7.  An American Breakfast by Hideo Asano, 2/28/2024, 4 stars.  A Japanese student is taking a car acoss the US to deliver to thel new owner when it breaks down in Nebraska.  It's an awakening about how farmers in our country cope with the challenges of weather and living with a growing family with dreams beyond farming.  Some parts are sad but others are hilarous.

8.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, 3/13/2024, 3.5 stars.  This little book shares many of the experiences the author endured as a youngster growing up as a slave.  It's was sad to see how demeaning some of those supervising treaded him during those periods.  Reading cannot help one understand the effect it could have on anyone but it's enlightening to learn about it.  

9.  The Loneliest Polar Bear: A True Story of Survival and Peril on the Edge of a Warming World by Kale Williams, 3/31/2024, 4 stars.  A native hunter steps onto a high portion of an iceberg only to fall through into a polar bear's cave.  He shoots the bear but discovers that she has two cubs which he hopes to rescue.  Only one survives.  This is her story in captivity as she moves from one polar bear enclosure to another.

10.  Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy, 4/11/2024, 3.5 stars.  This is an impressive and lengthy book about how our country worked to crack the many secure codes used by the Germans and Japanese during WWII.  The author spent years searching archives in many places, including petitioning for unclassification of secure files.  Sometimes she was successful, sometimes not but the book she put together has so much information it's one readers can come back to again and again and discover more tidbits that were missed or forgotten thrhough the first read.

1. Awful Beautiful Life: When God Shows Up in the Midst of Tragedy Author: Rebecca Powell, Katherine Reay This was a great read. It was written well, so I read in one sitting. This tells the story of a woman whose husband committed suicide and left behind a great deal of debt. She was counseled to declare bankruptcy and then she wouldn't have to pay, but she was determined to pay back what was owed.
2. The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir Author: Steffanie Strathdee, Thomas Patterson The subtitle pretty much tells you what this book is about. But it is well-written, and the narrator is up front about mistakes she made along the way, and about how the objectivity of science mingled with the personal tragedy that was taking place, and the realism makes it hard to put this book down.
3. Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers Author: Anne Lamott This is a very short book but very thought-provoking. 
4. No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) Author: Kate Bowler A short memoir a bout the author's battle with stage 4 colon cancer.