'Sphere' by Michael Crichton

Sphere, Michael Crichton (4.0)

I read this book many years ago but wanted to reread as I had forgotten much. Most of Mr. Crichton’s books are page turners and I have a tendency to read too fast and miss important elements. ‘Sphere’ is certainly that kind of book. Published in 1987, the science holds together well today. I took my time and savored the drama. A group of scientists is called to a crash site in the Pacific Ocean. As the pages turn, you find that it’s not an airplane that has crashed and the government has set up a very detailed plan for the group to investigate the craft while remaining deep in the ocean for many days. The desire to understand what is happening coupled with the claustrophobic nature of being trapped so deep made it very difficult not to tear through the book. Don’t - I recommend going slow and enjoying the journey, if you can!

'The Orphan Train' by Christina Baker Kline

The Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline (3.5)

The background to this story is very interesting – the thousands of orphans from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s who were brought by train from the east coast to the Midwest to be fostered and hopefully adopted. Not surprising, many became basically indentured servants on farms. The author did a lot of research and followed the life of one possible orphan. She managed to balance the reality of the time without it becoming too maudlin. My biggest quibble with this book is how fast it wrapped up. The timeline felt off. 100’s of pages covering late childhood to early adulthood and then in one chapter it was brought up to date.

'The Fraud' by Zadie Smith

The Fraud, Zadie Smith (3.5)

I enjoyed this book – though with some caveats. I love the way Ms. Smith uses words and I was delighted to find out the characters in this book were all real people (figured it out when Charles Dickens enters the scene). The story follows a widow who lives with her husband’s cousin, a hack writer and peer of Dickens. She is a burgeoning abolitionist who follows a real trial of an alleged impersonator of a lost Lord. The trial is riveting as the person is obviously not of the peerage, but the common men and women are convinced (many have compared this to MAGA conspiracies). What I didn’t enjoy about the book was the very long telling of one character’s backstory. Part of it was important to the story, but it really took the reader out of it for too long. I also didn’t appreciate the use of time jumps – these seem to be the trend in current writing – but I found it quite jarring and hard to follow in the beginning.