The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins ***

A

Rachel travels to London by train every morning, returning to her room in a friends' apartment every evening. On her daily journey, she sees a beautiful young couple on the patio of their home, and imagines their relationship, even to the point of naming them. But one day she sees "Jess" kissing another man on that patio, just before Jess goes missing.

A pretty good thriller told from the vantage point of three women. It was a quick read, not much substance, but I guess that's not expected from a thriller. I like to have a thought or two to chew on in my reading- I guess that's why mysteries are not high on my list of preferred reading.

While The World Watched by Carolyn Maull McKinstry

I read this book just a week after seeing the film "Selma". The movie begins with the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, a bombing that killed four young girls, all of whom were friends of the author of this book. 

Carolyn relates her life story up to the day and hour of the bombing, concentrating on the discriminatory practices. I recall particularly Carolyn's grandmother, who spent the last two weeks of her life in a segregated hospital, in the basement of the hospital with dripping pipes, little food, and only cursory examinations by a doctor once in a while. 

Then there s her telling about the terrible treatment the blacks received at the hands of Bull Connor and the Birmingham police. Carolyn suffered for many, many years after the bombing that killed her friends. She was in the church that day and had just left her friends in the restroom when the bombing killed them. 

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All The Rules- Catharina Ingelman- Sundberg ***

This was a quick, entertaining read about a group of pensioners in a retirement home in Sweden where they are not treated properly, so five of them form a group to commit a crime that will send them to prison, where they believe life would be better.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story by Barbara Leaming ***

This biography delves much more into Jackie's life than anything else I've read. And I learned many things, some of which I'll list, not in any order:

Her father, Black Jack Bouvier, was a ladies' man, just like President Kennedy.

She was engaged to someone else when she met Jack.

She never recovered from the traumatic events of November 22, 1963, and suffered from PTSD.

She seemed to be genuinely fond of Onassis, who became very close to her children.

She didn't monopolize the attentions of Bobby Kennedy, as other books have maintained.

She didn't get along that well with Jack's sisters.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandela ****

The story begins in Toronto at the Elgin Theater, where King Lear is being performed the evening a terrible virus called the Georgia Flu begins to wipe out civilization as we know it. Twenty years later a group of survivors called The Travelling Symphony wanders through Michigan and Ontario performing Shakespeare's plays in a completely altered world. The story goes forward and back in time, but is still easy to follow, as we learn how the lives of the main characters are inter- connected.

Easy to read and interesting approach- sort of a combination of literary fiction and science fiction. The characters are all human, too- no monsters or space ships visiting from another galaxy. We get a pretty good glimpse of what our world could look like in the future, and how we might deal with the changes.

Top Ten Books For 2014

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin - purchased in paperback

Road Ends by Mary Lawson- Kindle

Paris by Edward Rutherford- purchased in paperback

Longbourn by Jo Baker- KL library

The Invention of  Wings by Sue Monk Kidd- KL library

Grave-Digger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates - purchased in paperback

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The Diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing - KL library

Sweetland by MichaelCrummey- KL  library

All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

Non- Fiction: Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult ***

I didn't understand the significance of the title until I had read- and re- read - the last few chapters of this book. A very cleverly thought-out story, and loads of information about elephants. The three main characters: Jenna, a 13- year-old searching for her mother; Serenity, a physic, and Virgil, a former detective make an interesting trio. 

I've read a number of Picoult's books, and I'm repeatedly impressed at her story- telling, her research, and the wide- ranging audience of readers she writes for.