An Irish Country Love Story by Patrick Taylor

When the doctor's house is damaged in an accident, politics become a big part of the Ballybucklebo story when Fingal is faced with demolition of the house he loves to make a safer roadway. It makes Kitty's desire for new curtains seem quaint.

Also in this 11th episode of the series, Barry is pining for his fiance who's teaching abroad in France. He keeps himself busy with model shipbuilding, along with looking for a cottage the pair can buy to begin their married life. We also get a new young lady doctor in the practice, but it's not smooth sailing with the new addition. And brother Lars is spending a LOT of time with the Lady Myrna.

I love this series, and I especially adore the audiobooks. This gentle, consuming community narrative came at a perfect time for me, as John Keating's lilting delivery is always a soothing, captivating experience.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

A gang of tough boys form their own kind of family in a world that doesn't accept them. Conflicts with the popular kids, avoidance of the law, and general poverty conspire to make life tough for a 14-year-old boy and his gang.

This is the book that's widely celebrated as introducing the genre of teen literature - before this, books were either for children or adults with nothing in between. I picked this one for the library's book discussion from The Great American Read's list because somehow I missed this as a teen. Stranger yet, I'd also never seen the movie. Got 'em both out of the way now!

I enjoyed the book, but it's dated. There's still plenty to talk about, and there are universal thoughts and discoveries to be found within ... but it's a piece of historical fiction since the kinds of discrimination and the conflicts in the book are downright quaint when compared with modern problems.

Monkeys by Susan Minot

Balancing the all-seeing perspective yet limited understanding of youth, this novel (in the form of short stories) show us a New England family through the eyes of its seven children.

Each story moves us forward in time, eventually covering about 15 years. The stories mostly center around small, relatively commonplace occurrences - monumental life events happen outside the stories, though we see their impact through the changing interactions of the family.

It's a story from the perspective of the kids, without it being a children's book. With such a range in age, it's interesting to ponder the ways each Vincent child processes events like mother's tears, father's alcohol abuse, or the addition of another baby.

Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan

Telling the story of one family and two generations of siblings, this novel flips back and forth in time between the 1950s when two sisters immigrate from Ireland and the modern-day as the family deals with the sudden death of an oldest son.

It's a story full of secrets and the way secrets rarely stay hidden. As a naive girl in Ireland, Nora makes a hasty decision (to marry the neighbor boy) that sets in motion everything that comes after. But as often happens, she's daily reminded of those decisions and sometimes feels like a martyr for the sacrifices she's made.

In the next generation, the kids are a tight bunch but are holding their own secrets. Coming together in the wake of Patrick's death brings them closer and also offers an opportunity for change.

The book is engaging and very well done. While satisfying, the ending is left open and unfinished, with the rest of the story for you to imagine. I highly recommend it!

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

In a sweeping, multi-generational storyline, a modern American tells the complete story and history that led to his fantastical intersex existence.

This book won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and we chose to read it for the library's book discussion. A lot of ink was spilled by reviewers who criticized the words used and treatment of Cal's medical condition, but I think it's a fantastic read and a really good book to talk about after you've finished it. Beyond the gender conversation, there's a lot to discuss: the immigrant experience, chasing the American Dream, race relations.

And aside from that - and maybe most importantly - it's really a great story well told. I listened to the audiobook (excellently read by Kristoffer Tabori) and Callie became a friend during the 21-hour duration of the book: I wanted to know what happened to her, how she felt, how Cal emerged, and how he coped. Her experience was not in any way similar to my own, and I wanted to see the world through her eyes and experience her remarkable family.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

Over several decades, the owners, editors, and reporters of a Rome-based English newspaper deal with one another, the quick-turnaround news cycle, family, life abroad, and the decline of print journalism in this comic novel.

The book's like an interconnected series of short stories - vignettes of life from the modern-day editor of the paper, the original founder, his descendants, the copy editors, a wanna-be stringer, and more. There's love, there's hate, it's funny and it's sad.

I really liked this book - it's a gossipy bit of behind the scenes in the world of journalism. I've been listening to the audiobook in the quilting studio, and it's been sort of like serial television: office rivalries and home life and a lot of the challenges of expatriates in Italy.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Family and responsibility are at the core of this literary novel set in India and the United States. Two brothers - almost as close as twins - take very different paths in their young adulthood. Which is greater: civil action that works for change, or the tending of tradition and family?

We read this as a book discussion title at the library, but I didn't finish it in time for the conversation. Too bad, because there's a lot to talk about.

Even while Subhash builds a life in America, he's bound by duty to his family in India. He marries out of a sense of obligation, but when their daughter is born he finds a pure delight in raising her in Rhode Island. His duty to her future becomes more urgent than his dedication to the past - but that's not true for his wife, who never really left India behind.

The book offers mothers and fathers, siblings, husbands and wives, and there are lots of comparisons to be drawn between counterparts. Also, the role of responsibility: personal responsibility, family obligations, parental duty, social activism, passive acceptance. It's a heavy book, filled with lots of internal dilemmas, and it really would make for a fantastic discussion.

I listened to the audiobook version, which was an excellent way to read a book filled with foreign names and places.

Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart by Jane St. Anthony

Her new home in Minneapolis is a duplex, with nosy elderly landladies downstairs. A new school, a new town, and a different life - but all Isabelle really wants is the old life back.

It's a universal yearning when something bad has happened - I just want things the way they were before! - and St. Anthony does a lovely job addressing it for kids (Isabelle is in eighth grade, but this book could read younger with no problem.) You like Isabelle right away, and I rooted for her to make new friends and not get stalled in her grief.

And while the book is set in the 1960s, it feels contemporary and not stuck in history: A lack of technology is the only real giveaway, and perhaps that the events of the landlord sisters lives are so far back in time, now.

At 140 pages it's not an intimidating read for kids, and the short chapters make it easy to digest. You like the characters enough to keep reading, and the emotion is so real and relatable.

I really, really liked this one!

An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor

In this installment of the lives of our favorite 1960s small-town Ireland physicians, the curmudgeonly Dr. Riley is counting down the days until his 30-years-later wedding to his college sweetheart Kitty. Also, the young Dr. Laverty woos the feisty local schoolteacher.

This is the seventh book in the series (I've been a bit out-of-order with the series lately, but I'm straightening that out now I think).

Along with the usual (and always delightful) workaday village problems the doctors help to sort out, their receptionist and housekeeper, Kinky Kincaide, suffers her own a health scare.

I probably mention this every time, but I cannot give too many props to John Keating's audiobook narration on this series. I have come to love every one of these characters like they're my own friends and neighbors!