Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses By Claire Dederer

Claire Dederer has written a witty and heartfelt book. Through her spiritual search practicing yoga, she finds that the poses weren't just acrobatic feats. The deeper that she explored them, the more they tested her most basic ideas of what makes a good mother, daughter, friend and wife. Suddenly headstand, was a way to wrestle with anxieties that she had always dodged, jump through helped her to understand her mother's flight (and maybe her own pursuit of freedom) and the dreaded crow reminded her that loosing one's balance could be worth a great deal more than keeping one's feet on the ground.

It's a wonderful book!!!!

THE IMPERFECTIONISTS by Tom Rachman

Set against the glorious backdrop of Rome, this debut novel follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors and executives of an international English-language newspaper as they struggle to keep it and themselves afloat.

There is Lloyd Burko, the Paris Correspondent who at the end lives with his son, Jerome and knows nothing of the demise of the paper. Arthur Gopal, the Obituary Writer who looses both his wife to divorce and his daughter to death, goes on to make a new life as a New York reporter for a major newspaper. Hardy Benjamin, the Business Reporter is still with her boyfriend, Rory. Herman Cohen, the Corrections Editor, was going to retire and write a history of the paper in Philadelphia, but instead is enjoying his grandkids. Kathleen Solson, the Editor-in-Chief, has an open marriage and at the end returns to Washington with her husband to work in a lower ranking position. Winston Cheung the Cairo Stringer comes back to the United States to work in animal care. Ruby Zaga, the Copy Editor, continues to live in Rome, not Queens. She has earned enough money not to have to work. Craig Menzies, the Editor-in-Chief leaves journalism to work at a lobbying firm in Brussels, sets up a science workshop in his garage and occasionally thinks about Annika. Abby Pinnola, the Chief Financial Officer was offered a position at Ott headquarters, but decides to work for LehmanBrothers.

All of these characters are not perfect, but very likeable!!!!!

THE ROOM by Emma Donoghue

I couldn't put this book down!!!!! It tells the story of a kidnapped woman who was held hostage in a shed under a house for 7 years. She was kidnapped at the age of 19 while in college. The man called, Old Nick, rapes her. The first child, a girl, dies at birth. The second, a boy named Jack survives.

The story is told from Jack's perspective. He is a five year old and this ROOM is the only world that he knows. When because of a plan created by MA works, both move into the Outside. OLD NICK is put in prison until his court case comes up.

Jack and Ma must move back into the real world. It is very difficult.

This is a must read!!!!

LOST by ALICE LICHTENSTEIN

On a cold January morning, Susan a professor of Biology, leaves her husband alone for a few minutes and returns to find him gone. Suffering from dementia, no longer able to take care of himself, Christopher has wandered into a frigid landscape with no sense of direction, LOST!

Susan's life intersects with those of two strangers, Jeff, her liaison with the police, a social worker and search-and-rescue expert and Corey, a twelve year old boy rendered mute by a family tragedy who has become one of Jeff's cases.

From the unexpected convergence of three lives, Corey, Jeff and Susan, emerges an arresting portrait of the shifting terrain or marriage, and the uneasy burden of love and regret.

THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

It is January 1946. London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man that she had never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world

of this man and his friends. It is a wonderfully eccentric world. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, born as a spur of the moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island, boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers, all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society's members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

The book is written with warmth and humor as a series of letters.

HOMER AND LANGLEY BY E.L. DOCTOROW

Homer and Langley are brothers, the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness or perhaps greatness by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets for things they think that they can use, hoarding the daily newspapers, as research for Langley's proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet, the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothers, wars, political movements, technological advances, and even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters, jazz musicians......and their housebound lives are fraught with peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.

The book is brilliantly conceived, and gorgeously written, this is a wonderful rendering of the lives of the Collyer brothers.

Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything that a modern American woman is supposed to want, husband, country home, successful career, but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic and confusion. The book tells the story of how she left behind all those outward signs of success and what she found in its place. Following a divorce and a crushing depression , Gilbert set out to examine three different parts of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures, pleasure in Italy, devotion in India and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.