THE SWERVE BY STEPHEN GREENBLATT

This book stars two often forgotten heros of Western culture:  the Roman poet LUCRETIUS who argued that the world was made up of atoms and that the fear of death was foolish and POGGIO BRACCIOLINI, whose rediscovery of LUCRETIUS's great poem launched all kinds of radical intellectual inquiry into the modern world.

The ancient poem, was called, ON THE NATURE OF THINGS.  It had been lost to history for more than one thousand years.   It was a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas:  that the universe functions without the aid of gods, that religious fear is damaging to human life, that pleasure and virtue are not opposed but intertwined, and that matter is made up of very small particles in eternal motion, randomly colliding and swerving in new directions.

The poem's vision would shape the thoughts of GALILEO and FREUD, DARWIN and EINSTEIN and in the hands of THOMAS JEFFERSON, leave its mark on the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

It is an excellent book!!!!

AN INVISIBLE THREAD BY LAURA SCHROFF

An Invisible Thread tells of the life-long friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy and how both of their lives were changed by what began as one small gesture of kindness.

When Laura Schroff  is brushed by a young panhandler on a New York City corner one rainy afternoon, something made her stop and turn back.  She took the boy to lunch atMcDonald's across the street that day.  She continued to go back again and again for the next for years until both their lives had changed dramatically.  Nearly thirty years later, the young boy, Maurice, is married and has his own family.  Now he works to change the lives of disadvantaged kids, just like the boy that he used to be.

An Invisible Thread is the true story of the bond between a harried sales executive and an eleven-year-old boy who seemed destined for a life of poverty.

It is the heartwarming story of a friendship that spanned three decades and brought meaning to an over-scheduled professional and hope to a hungry and desperate boy living on the streets.

THE FORTUNE TELLER'S KISS BY BRENDA SEROTTE

Poet Serotte relives a childhood cataclysm in this culture-rich affecting memoir.  In l954, she contracted polio, mere months before the Salk vaccine, a coincidence that struck her Sephardic Jewish household as especially cruel.  In this lively subculture, a minority among even New York Jews, Serotte earned high praise for her beauty, grace and belly dancing.

The family matriarch, Nona Behora, was revered for her ability to read fortunes in Turkish coffee grounds.  Before her death,  she divined misfortune for the author, her granddaughter. The family desperately sprouted medieval benedictions to deflect the evil eye. 

A prolonged agonizing hospital stay forced the author to work her own miracles.

The drama of Serotte's struggle to walk again creates a wonderful narrative.

THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT BY ANN PATCHETT

The book, THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT BY ANN PATCHETT was an extremely interesting one. I had never read a book like it.

The book told the story of Sabine, an Israeli young lady, living in California who was a magician's assistant.  She was in love with a magician named Parsifal who was a gay gentleman and who had a lover named Phen, a Vietnamese computer expert who also made the costumes for the act.  Eventually, Sabine marries Parsifal after Phen dies.   Both Parsifal and Phen die.  It is implied although never said that they had AIDS.   Sabine is to inherit everything.

Sabine is told by a lawyer that Parsifal's real name is Guy Fetters.  Parsifal has told Sabine that he is from Connecticut, where his family died in a car accident.  This is not true.  He hails from Alliance, Nebraska, where his mother Dot, sisters Kitty and Bertie, nephews, How and Guy and brother-in-law Howard still live.

To learn about this family and the reasons Parsifal (Guy) left, Sabine travels to Alliance on the invitation of Dot and Bertie who have come to meet Sabine in California.

It is a novel with many secrets.  As the story evolves one sees the dysfunction in the family.  For example, Guy kills his father after the father has abused the mother too many times.  He did not lock himself in a refrigerator as he told Sabine, but was locked in there by his father.

I found the book to be a page turner.  I also enjoyed the way the main characters were fleshed out and the descriptions of the different places.