The Testaments is a cringey book that you can’t put down. The long awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments takes place in a not-too-distant future America, where the zealots have overthrown the US government and set up a religious totalitarian state. America, now Gilead, is a place where gender roles are strictly defined, and the men in power get to write all the definitions. Women are confined to their “rightful” place of home and family, no longer taught to read or allowed to have positions of responsibility, other than having children and maintaining their households.

Where Handmaid’s Tale focused on the horrors of the Handmaids, who served as sex slaves and wombs to the ruling Commanders, in The Testaments, the Handmaids are in the background. The peripheral characters of the first book (children, wives, maids “Marthas” and the nun-like “Aunts”) are the players here. The book weaves together the stories of three women; Daisy, an outsider from Canada; Agnes, of the first generation to be raised in Gilead; and the older Aunt Lydia who lived through the violent formation of Gilead to become one of the most powerful women in the new regime. Without spoiling the story I will just say that Atwood cleverly weaves together these women’s lives and the future of Gilead.

When I read the Handmaid’s Tale many years ago, during the Reagan/Bush era, the nascent anti-choice movement was emerging and the vision was frighteningly real. The Testaments emerges in the age of Trump and is equally dread-inducing. There is a very Trump-like Commander Judd, who kills off his young wives and collects child pornography, while torturing women for their improprieties. In passing we learn of Judd’s “National Homelands” campaign to promote whiteness. The various Commander’s wives, in the absence of meaningful work or education (only Aunts are taught to read) vie for power in the home, over the petty details of domestic life.

Agnes is the one pure character in the book, as she knows not of life beyond Gilead, cannot read, and rarely leaves home, other than to attend the sanctioned religious school for girls. Her transformation and bravery are a challenge to the reader. In the face of overwhelming opposition, will you stand up for what is right? Put your body on the line to help others? The Testaments is both a warning and a call for action that is hard to ignore.

The Islanders is a great summer read, even in October. The narrative structure follows three unconnected characters – Joy, Anthony, and Lu – who are all on Block Island prior to a major storm that we learn in the prologue has left two people dead. Gradually these characters’ lives come together. It is a narrative structure that I always enjoy, even if it is predictable.

Food and writing, and writing about food, are major players in this book. As an amateur blogger and foodie, I couldn’t help but enjoy the narrative of Lu, the food blogger who is constantly thinking of new recipes and food themes for her blog.

All three characters struggle with parenting; one as a single mom, one as a dad separating from his wife, and one as a stay at home mom who wants out of the home. The struggles of the women characters are classic; the feminist subtext is a little heavy handed (Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own figures prominently Lu’s transformation). But I can’t really complain about a book being too feminist.

The book has some quirky characters. The highlight for me was 13 year old Maggie, who has a collection of T-shirts with corny sayings (one has a periodic table and says “I wear this shirt periodically” another “cute but psycho”).

But when it comes right down to it the book is just a fun read with a good narrative arc and a happy ending. And we all need a little pleasure in the text sometimes. Even when it’s no longer summer.

Song of Solomon dwells in the less discussed crannies of African American history – middle class black experience in the 1930s-50’s in the Midwest. Against this backdrop we are witness to a coming of age story in which the central character, Milkman, journeys to the south to seek the history of his family and his name, Macon Dead.

As we discussed in my book group, naming (and being able to accept, reject, know the history of, or pass on one’s name) is a central theme in the novel. Milkman’s grandfather, Macon Dead, was given his name by a drunk Yankee soldier. His grandfather picked his daughter’s name from the Bible, copying the letters “PILATE” although he couldn’t read on a piece of paper. Pilate has her naming paper made into an earring which she carries around with her the rest of her life. The poetry of biblical names, nick names, names imposed by others and names chosen for one’s self, form a central poem throughout the book.

Milkman, in the first half of the book, is presented as self-centered and un-self-examined. He does not identify as “other”, gets bored when his friends attend talking about the murder of Emmet Till, surprised the police would stop him when he was not speeding or otherwise breaking the law. He is insensitive to race and class difference.

But as he learns more about the story behind his own name, he gradually awakes to the stories of his family and friends, and sets off to the south in search of gold, and in the absense of gold, truth.

Toni Morrison is a brilliant storyteller and I feel inadequate at describing the narrative rhythms through which children’s songs, flying men, ghosts, and bags of bones come to life and gain meaning through her prose. It is a book both instructive and pleasurable, which must be read.

I read this book in 24 hours and couldn’t put it down. I have a full time job so this feat involved a few long escapes to the bathroom when I couldn’t put it down.

Alice hits her head and wakes up on the floor of the gym thinking it’s 1998 instead of 2008. All her memories of the past 10 years are gone- last she remembers she is pregnant with her first child, Bill Clinton’s sex scandal was in the news, and she is happily married to Nick. So it is a shock to learn she now is the mother of 3 and she and Nick are in the process of separating.

She has no recollection of her other children being born, doesn’t recognize her new circle of friends, her problems with Nick, or her new boyfriend.

Alice’s temporary amnesia takes her outside of her “busy busy busy” life and relaxes the social expectations of those around her, allowing her to see things in a new way and change her behavior. It is perhaps this extreme ability to step outside her life that makes the story so appealing. As the book proceeds we cheer on the old Alice of 1998, not wanting 2008 tiger mom Alice to return.

I’m not going to spoil the ending but will say it is a gratifyingly happy one. A fitting end to a very pleasurable read.