Author madammommy

A woman and her small white dog sit atop a VW camper/bus, with a lake behind them.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad 

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by Piyali C.

A woman and her small white dog sit atop a VW camper/bus

“I used to think healing meant ridding the body and heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future gutted by their loss.” (P.312) This passage from Suleika Jaouad’s inspiring memoir, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, resonated so much with me that I had to write it down. 

At the tender age of twenty-two, when Suleika’s peers were looking forward to their futures, she was diagnosed with leukemia with a 35 percent chance of survival. It started with an intolerable itch all over her body, followed by mouth sores and extreme fatigue. When the diagnosis came down like a heavy anvil, she was, understandably, shattered. Thus began a tremendously painful journey of chemotherapy, clinical trials, a bone marrow transplant, waiting for biopsy results, and interminably long stays at the cancer ward in hospitals. During those stays, Suleika felt she had limited time left on this earth so she decided to do something meaningful while she still could. After her anger at the unfairness of her fate dissipated some, she took up writing blogs geared towards young adults suffering from cancer. The New York Times published her blogs under the column Life, Interrupted. She got an outpouring of letters and emails of support from people from various parts of the country.  

After three years of painful struggle, her cancer finally went into remission. However, Suleika discovered that she did not know how to come back to a life without cancer – the kingdom of healthy people. She found herself at a junction where she needed to relearn how to integrate into regular life again. Such a close brush with her mortality made her aware that life is much more than what she had envisioned at twenty-two, before she got sick. Like any young adult, Suleika had hoped for a successful career and love. After her remission, her definition of success changed. She adopted a puppy, Oscar, borrowed a friend’s car, learned to drive, and embarked upon a 100 day, 15,000 mile road trip across the country to meet with some people who had sent her letters of love and support when she was sick. 

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted is about Suleika’s fight against cancer, and so much more. It explores what living truly means and how to emerge to the other side of pain stronger with a clearer vision of the meaning of life. This book is about new beginnings. 

We read books for many reasons. Personally, I love reading because books teach me empathy. They allow me to understand that everyone is fighting their own battle and I need to extend grace. In this particular book, Jaouad’s struggle against cancer was painful to read, however, I drew inspiration from her resilience, her fierce determination to win, her understanding and respect for other people’s pain, and by the love and support that held her up. The love came not only from her immediate family – her parents, brother, boyfriend, friends but also from complete strangers who never met her. The innate goodness of humanity shone brightly in this memoir, and it gave me hope. 

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life interrupted by Suleika Jaouad is available in book, e-book, and e-audiobook formats.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at HCLS Miller Branch, where she facilitates Light But Not Fluffy and co-facilitates Global Reads. She keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

The cover shows a woman with long red hair and turquoise blue glasses frames with matching striped top reading an open book with a yellow cover that she holds in her hands.

Light But Not Fluffy – New Book Club

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The cover shows a woman with long red hair and turquoise blue glasses frames with matching striped top reading an open book with a yellow cover that she holds in her hands.

by Piyali C.

While Covid ravaged the world, I went into a reading slump. I love to read literary fiction, historical fiction, and other thought-provoking books that are deep, engrossing and have messages for me to decipher. But Covid took up so much of my mental bandwidth. There was not much left in me to devote to complicated plots and complex characters in a novel or to focus on nonfiction. I craved happy stories – stories that gave me hope.

I shared that thought with a like-minded friend and colleague. She could relate. We both started reading books that were lighter in content than our usual fare but had issues to discuss and ponder. We read books that ended with “happily-ever-after” or with the hope of “happily ever after.” We suggested titles to each other and then began a list, jotting those titles down. We wondered if there were others out there who felt like us – who needed page turners with a purpose and were willing to discuss them. But starting a book club, at that time, was just a dream.

The book cover shows a yellow A-frame house in the background, against a turquoise sky with four fluffy white cumulus clouds. The house has green deciduous trees behind it. The eye descends from the house on top of the hill across a green expanse to the bottom, where a red lobster floats in blue water against a shoreline of grey rocks and pebbles in varying shades, shapes, and sizes.

However, the dream became a reality recently. I am starting a book club called Light But Not Fluffy on March 16, 2023. We will meet on the Third Thursday of every month at Miller Branch from 2 – 3 pm. The selected titles will be available for pickup 4 weeks prior to the discussion date from the Customer Service Desk at Miller Branch.

We will read books that talk about love, grace and, most importantly, hope. The books will include humor and perhaps some snark as well, to spice things up. If the thought of reading lighter books and joining in a discussion that will, hopefully, leave us feeling happier appeals to you, join us. 

The book shows a woman, facing the camera, from her nose to her hips. She holds a bound brown leather book against her chest with both hands. She is wearing a red shirt or dress with a white apron trimmed in a paler red over top. Her dark red lipstick matches her fingernails.

Below are the dates and titles for Spring:

March 16 – The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman (also available in e-book and e-audiobook format from Libby/OverDrive) – previously reviewed on Chapter Chats.

April 20 – Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (also available in e-book and e-audiobook format from Libby/OverDrive)

May 18 – The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan (also available in e-book and e-audiobook format from Libby/OverDrive) – previously reviewed on Chapter Chats.

Registration is preferred, not required. Click here to register.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at HCLS Miller Branch, where she facilitates Light But Not Fluffy and co-facilitates Global Reads. She keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

The photograph depicts a woman in traditional Indian clothing of red, black, white, holding a microphone with arm outstretched as if belting out a song. She stands in two spotlights shining on her from above, and in front of a representation of the globe with the words "World Language Karaoke" surrounding the globe in yellow. All of this is against a backdrop of twinkling stars against in the darkness of outer space.

World Language Karaoke

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The photograph depicts a woman in traditional Indian clothing of red, black, white, holding a microphone with arm outstretched as if belting out a song. She stands in two spotlights shining on her from above, and in front of a representation of the globe with the words "World Language Karaoke" surrounding the globe in yellow. All of this is against a backdrop of twinkling stars against in the darkness of outer space.

by Piyali C.

“Reading is not really my thing. I don’t come to the library.” My customer told me this as he waited for me to find a book that he needed for his school project. He was honest with me about his preferences. He was only at the library because his teacher made him come.

“Do you like music?” I asked him.

“Oh yes. I love music.” He replied enthusiastically.

“Did you know that we are having a class called World Language Karaoke ” I asked him.

“WHAT? You can do karaoke in a library?” He was incredulous.

The idea of library being a quiet place filled with books is a thing of the past. To quote Paula Poundstone, libraries have truly become, “raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy, and community.” And we love to celebrate our diverse community every chance we get. Our community speaks so many different languages. It makes us smile as we walk around our library and hear the plethora of languages being spoken around us. We thought, why not celebrate all these different languages and bring everyone together for an evening of music? After all, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did say that “music is the universal language of humanity.”

Join us on Thursday, January 26 at 7 pm for World Language Karaoke at Miller Branch to sing songs in the language that you prefer, INCLUDING ENGLISH.

When you register, please tell us the song or songs that you are going to sing in the ‘Special Notes’ field, so we can create a playlist before the class and keep it ready for you to belt it out!

Register for the class here.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at HCLS Miller Branch, where she co-facilitates Global Reads and facilitates Light But Not Fluffy (starting in March 2023!) and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

The cover of the book shows a stylized, cartoonish wood duck flying above a lake, with several wood ducks floating beneath along with a canoe tied up to a dock on a rocky shore. In the background are steps leading up to a small cottage with a streetlight and a railing behind it. The sun is reflected in the water and hovers in a purplish sky with two fluffy blue clouds.

Flying Solo by Linda Holmes

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The cover of the book shows a stylized, cartoonish wood duck flying above a lake, with several wood ducks floating beneath along with a canoe tied up to a dock on a rocky shore. In the background are steps leading up to a small cottage with a streetlight and a railing behind it. The sun is reflected in the water and hovers in a purplish sky with two fluffy blue clouds.

by Piyali C.

I have discovered many beautiful reads while shelving carts at our branch. Sometimes, I check out more books from the cart than I put on the shelf (that is somewhat of an exaggeration, but not by much). Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes was one such discovery. I loved that book so much that I was excited when I found out the author was publishing her next novel, Flying Solo. This time I was prepared, and I requested a copy right away. After I finished Flying Solo in two sittings, I was in a dilemma. Which one did I love more? Bottom line – I like this author’s stories. I like how she does not tie everything in a neat bow at the end, because life is messy and our problems do not resolve beautifully all the time. However, she leaves us with hope, and what better resolution is there than to remain hopeful?

In the new title, whenever Laurie needed a break from her obnoxiously noisy brothers during her childhood, she went to her great Aunt Dot’s big, quiet house for refuge. Dot’s house was only a short bike ride away from her loving but loud family in a small, seaside town in Maine. Young Laurie was Dot’s favorite niece and best friend. When Dot dies at 93, Laurie is the one who takes up the responsibility of going through Dot’s possessions and readying her house for sale, since the rest of her family does not have time to deal with it. Laurie is now on the cusp of 40, she has broken her engagement, and she is going through a midlife crisis as she tries to figure out what she wants. The huge responsibility of sorting through Dot’s photos and belongings is somewhat of a distraction when her own life is falling apart.

Laurie discovers a beautifully carved wooden duck decoy lovingly stored in a chest under some blankets. Puzzled about the significance of the duck, so fondly hidden, Laurie sets out to learn more. In her quest to uncover the mystery of the duck, she falls victim to a con artist and rekindles a romance with her high school sweetheart, who is (and this was important to me) the beloved town librarian with terrific research skills (what could be more attractive than that?). Laurie also comes in contact with some genuine and unforgettable characters who become important parts of her life as she tries to uncover the mystery of the decoy and, in the process, learns more about the hidden aspects of her great aunt’s life. This journey not only reveals the colorful life of charismatic Dot, who flouted societal norms set for women and lived her life on her own terms, but it also helps Laurie discover what she actually wants in life and perhaps reconciles her to the idea of flying solo.

Told in a lucid voice, the story is a relatively light read, yet it makes the readers think about their own relationships and what they want out of them.

Flying Solo is available at Howard County Library System in print, large print, e-book, and e-audiobook formats.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates Global Reads and facilitates Light But Not Fluffy (starting in Spring 2023!) and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

The book cover shows a two-lane highway at night with no falling. The book rests against snow.

No Exit by Taylor Adams

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A hand print appears smeared across a frosty blue window. The cover fades to black at top and bottom, with title and author in

by Piyali C.

It was almost 1 am when I let out a long breath. I did not even realize I was holding my breath and at the edge of my seat till I read the last page of No Exit by Taylor Adams. This is the kind of thriller I like to read – one that allows me ‘no exit’ until I finish the last page. A thriller that is crisp, fast paced and yes, thrilling. In one word – unputdownable! 

Darby Thorne, a sophomore at CU-Boulder, gets a message from her sister Devon that their mother has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is, most likely, at the last stage of her life. Darby, who was determined not to venture ‘any further off campus than Ralphie’s Thriftway’ (p.4), finds herself racing down the highway in the middle of a fierce blizzard in the Colorado Rockies to reach her dying mother in Utah. Darby’s old Honda Civic does not have snow chains on the tires and the last sign that Darby read before heavy snow obliterated her vision was ‘CHAINS MANDATORY’.  Darby is forced to pull in to a desolate rest stop to wait out the raging snowstorm. She discovers, much to her dismay, there is no cell reception at that rest stop. There are, however, a coffee machine, a vending machine and….. four complete strangers taking refuge, just like her. 

The charge in Darby’s phone is at 17 percent and rapidly depleting. She is desperate to talk to her sister to know more about her mother’s condition so Darby goes out in the snow to search for signal. As she tries to hold her phone up near the cars parked in the parking lot of the rest stop, she sees a little hand – the hand of a child in the back window of one of the parked cars. Shocked at this discovery, Darby moves closer to the car and tries to look inside. The inside is dark and she can detect no movement or sound. She convinces herself that the hand she she saw was nothing more than a trick of light and gets ready to go inside. But before she goes, she wants to put her suspicion to rest so she directs the LED light from her phone inside the back of the car. A child’s face stares back at her. The little girl is confined in a dog kennel in the back of a car in a raging snow storm. 

Darby has no way to call for help and no idea how to rescue this little girl. It is clear that one of the strangers inside the rest stop is a kidnapper who may come out any moment and discover that Darby has uncovered his or her secret. Thus begins a chilling and suspenseful tale of young Darby’s effort to unmask and outsmart a psychopath in an increasingly dangerous and alienating situation as the snow piles up and threatens to bury them in the rest stop at the edge of civilization. 

Darby must keep the little girl alive and stay alive herself to save the child. As the odds pile against her, her determination and will to save the kidnapped child increase exponentially. But is her determination enough to defeat the kidnapper who has an answer for all the challenges that Darby throws their way?

This book is not for the faint of heart. If you enjoy a chilling, suspenseful, edgy thriller that will keep you reading late at night, this is the book for you! No Exit by Taylor Adams is available in print and Large Print formats.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

Swatches of color in pale green, beige-pink, cranberry, orange read, and yellow are layered above the silhouette of a town. The swatches resolve to be faces laying horizontally.

Author Works with Naima Coster: What’s Mine and Yours – 2022 One Maryland One Book 

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By Piyali C.

Swatches of color in pale green, beige-pink, cranberry, orange read, and yellow are layered above the silhouette of a town. The swatches resolve to be

Tue, October 4 | 7 – 8 pm
HCLS Miller Branch
Register at this link. 

The theme for One Maryland One Book this year was “new beginning.” As a member of the selection committee, I was assigned to read What’s Mine and Yours as a potential title. It took me a while to recognize the theme in this story, but I realized that instead of the theme being overarching, hope or a new beginning, operates somewhat cyclically in this novel.  

The story opens with the prospect of new beginnings – two men stand at the cusp of a beautiful, happy life. Two fathers share a cigarette and a brief conversation one day about their dreams surrounding the amazing lives that they envision for their children. However, disaster strikes soon after and the lives of both those families take vastly different turns than what the fathers dreamed.  

The story revolves around two families who confront each other over a busing initiative in 2002 in Piedmont, North Carolina. Jade has suffered an immeasurable loss in her life already. Now she wants her only son, Gee, to get all the opportunities that she did not have so he can become a successful, sensitive Black man in America. After her husband is incarcerated, Lacy May, a White woman, is equally determined to keep children like Gee away from her White-passing, biracial daughters. She does not want them influenced by the children from the east side of town at their predominantly white school.

However, Gee and Noelle, Lacy May’s eldest daughter, become friends, which soon turns into more when they meet during a school play. The lives of these two families intersect despite the mothers being on opposite sides of the debate over the county’s decision to enforce integration. The busing initiative provides the primary conflict, with the repercussions manifested in the adult lives of the central characters – Jade and Gee, Lacy May and her three daughters. Despite the different directions each character grows, they all manage to find their new beginnings by the end of the book, in big ways and small.  

Although the story begins in Piedmont, North Carolina, the issues addressed in What’s Mine and Yours are relevant to other parts of United States, including in Maryland and even Howard County. The theme of school desegregation to address socioeconomic disparity is especially pertinent as The Baltimore Sun reports, by 2014, Maryland was the third most racially segregated state in the nation, with one-quarter of its schools considered highly segregated.  

The integration efforts described in the book will touch a relatable chord and inspire interesting and, hopefully, productive discussions. While the story revolves around an effort to desegregate schools, the book explores other, hugely relevant issues, such as the struggles of Black teens trying to prove that they are good enough to be in a White-dominated world, the question of why they have to prove that they are good enough, White-passing biracial people and issues that they deal with, complicated relationships between lovers, sisters, LGBTQIA+ identity, infidelity, abortion, and miscarriage – all things relevant to our present moment. 

We are thrilled that Howard County Library system is the only public library in Maryland on author Naima Coster’s six-stop tour! 

A young Black woman with short curly hair, wearing a black V-neck shirt stands by a wall painted in flowers.

Naima Coster is a graduate of Yale University, Fordham University, and the Columbia University School of the Arts where she earned her MFA. She has taught writing for more than a decade in community settings, youth programs, and universities. She currently teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University in L.A. She is a 2022 mentor for the Periplus Collective.

One Maryland One Book is a program of Maryland Humanities. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Maryland State Library. We would also like to thank our valuable partners Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo) and the Office of Human Rights & Equity (OHRE) and the Last Word bookstore.  

What’s Mine and Yours is available in print and e-audiobook. 

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.
 

A spruce green cover has botanical illustrations framing a manor house with a woman silhouetted in the doorway.

Mrs. England by Stacey Halls

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A spruce green cover has botanical illustrations framing a manor house with a woman silhouetted in the doorway.

by Piyali C.

One of my favorite quotes about friendship is the famous one by C.S Lewis: “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What? You too! I thought I was the only one.” My friendship began with my library colleague who introduced me to Stacey Halls in the same way. We bonded over Daphne Du Maurier, our mutual love for Jane Austen, historical fiction, and literary fiction. So, when she brought The Familiars by Stacey Halls to my desk and said, “Here read this. I know you will like it,” I knew I should drop everything and read it. I did not like it – I loved it.

The Familiars is a story of two women in early seventeenth century England, both fighting for survival. Mistress Fleetwood Shuttleworth is determined not to lose her fourth baby like the ones before and Alice Gray needs to prove she is not a witch during the infamous Pendle Hill witch trial of 1612. Alice is a skilled midwife with extensive knowledge of herbs, and Fleetwood needs her help to save her unborn baby as well as her own life. When Alice is accused of witchcraft and imprisoned, Fleetwood is ready to go to any lengths to prove her innocence. Not only is the story superbly written and well-paced, it shows tremendous character development of the protagonist. One may wonder if all the steps taken by Fleetwood in her quest to free Alice are plausible given the time period, but I embraced her actions wholeheartedly and willed her on to succeed. 

In Mrs. England, Norland Institute graduate Ruby May is looking for a fresh start after the family she worked for emigrates to United States. Although the Radlett family would dearly love their Nurse May to travel with them to America, she is unable to do so for a reason undisclosed at the beginning of the story. In 1904 women from the upper echelon in England are completely dependent on nurses for the care of their children, preferably from the prestigious Norland Institute. Nurse May gets her second assignment without much delay. However, she will have to travel to cold, foggy West Yorkshire to take charge of four children of a wealthy couple, the Englands of a mill dynasty. After reaching her destination, she is surprised to find that she is taking directions about the children’s routine from the friendly and easy-going Mr. England, while Mrs. Lilian England is aloof, cold, and withdrawn. While Ruby develops a nurturing and loving relationship with the children, she simply cannot figure out the mysterious couple for whom she works. When she feels the lives of the children are in danger, she must dig deep within her and ultimately face her fears. While caring for the England children and figuring out the power dynamic in the Edwardian marriage of the Englands, Ruby learns to make peace with her past and only then can she break free from the chains that hold her captive psychologically. 

Fans of Daphne Du Maurier will love this atmospheric, gothic tale and the shroud of mystery surrounding both Nurse May as well as Charles and Lilian England. Although Nurse May’s character is likeable, the readers know she is hiding a secret so a niggling doubt about her reliability as a narrator remains in the readers’ minds. When we get introduced to the England family, the readers have a challenging time believing the authenticity of Charles England’s affability. There is something inauthentic about his outward friendliness. Lilian England is easy to dislike due to her coldness towards her children. Yet there is a vulnerability in her which questions even our dislike for her. Readers vacillate between who to believe – the charming Mr. England or the aloof Mrs. England. And just when we think the mystery has been resolved, we read the last line – just one single line and get a jolt. All the twists and turns that captivated us and kept us turning pages, all that we believed was resolved gets thrown into question and as we finish the book, we start rethinking the whole mystery all over again. 

Mrs. England is available in print, in ebook and in eaudiobook. 

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

The cover shows a Mom in a yoga pose, with shoes, homework, and sports equipment cluttered around her foot. She holds a coffee cup in one hand, a cell phone to her ear, and a grocery bag strung over her arm, with the hose of a vacuum cleaner wrapped around her standing leg.

The Class Mom series by Laurie Gelman

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The image shows a mom with shoulder-length brunette hair, in a white t-shirt and blue jeans with her back to the viewer. Her right hand is raised and her index finger and thumb form the "l" in the book's title, Class Mom.

By Piyali C.

Most people at their workplaces dream of moving up in the chain. They aspire to be assistant managers, managers, or chiefs of staff, and hopefully rise to the top. I dream of starting new book clubs. I already co-facilitate two book clubs at the library – Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction. But if I am allowed and time permits, I dream of starting yet another one that I will name “Light but not Fluffy.’ And Laurie Gelman’s Class Mom along with its sequels will surely feature as some of the chosen titles.  

My love affair with Gelman’s writing started when I discovered Class Mom on the shelves while I was shelving a cart at the library. The jacket looked interesting, so I took it home and read it in two sittings. I met Jennifer Dixon in Class Mom for the first time and fell head over heels in love with her character. In Class Mom, Jennifer Dixon raised two daughters as a single parent before she met Ron, fell in love, married him, and had an adorable baby boy, Max. The story of Class Mom (as the name suggests) revolves around Jen assuming the role of class parent when Max enters kindergarten. Jen is a different kind of class mom than, most likely, you or I have encountered. Her emails to the parents are funny, irreverent, snarky, and raise some eyebrows. Although Jen’s best friend, the PTA president, thinks Jen is perfect for the job, there are many parents who disagree. As we read about Jen’s never-ending commitments to both her child’s school and her own personal life, we wonder how Jen will possibly get everything done. But she does, with an inordinate amount of humor, grace, and – yes – snark.

The cover shows a mom with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a high-visibility vest and holding a "stop" sign that reads "A Class Mom Novel." She has her back to the viewer and appears to be working as a school crossing guard.

In the sequel, You’ve Been Volunteered, Max is in third grade and Jen has been roped into being the class parent again. But this time she must deal with not only the micromanaging PTA president, but also extremely difficult parents who are not charmed by Jennifer’s management of parental politics or the tone of her emails, which remain tongue in cheek, irreverent, and sassy. Apart from the drama in school, Jen’s personal life goes through some turbulence as well, as she deals with her overworked husband and helps her older daughters navigate adulthood. On top of all that, Jen’s elderly parents may also need some supervision. In this book, yet again, Jen juggles all her responsibilities with humor, empathy, sometimes failure, but mostly humor.

The cover shows a Mom in a yoga pose, with shoes, homework, and sports equipment cluttered around her foot. She holds a coffee cup in one hand, a cell phone to her ear, and a grocery bag strung over her arm, with the hose of a vacuum cleaner wrapped around her standing leg.

Yoga Pant Nation is the third hilarious book in this funny series. Max is in fifth grade, so this is Jen’s last year as a class parent in William Taft Elementary school. This year may be her most challenging one yet as she has been entrusted to raise 10,000 dollars to buy devices for fourth and fifth graders. Jen has no idea how she will raise such immense funds with her team of parent volunteers. She is also aspiring to be a spin instructor as well as caring for her two-year-old granddaughter Maud (yes, 53-year-old Jen is a grandmother now). On top of that, her dynamic parents Ray and Kay seem lethargic and forgetful. Jen wonders if it is time for them to move to an assisted living facility. Read this book to find out if Jen Dixon will finally admit defeat. 

Jennifer Dixon is sure to make you laugh as you read about her life. Laurie Gelman puts just the right blend of insanity, charm, love, and sarcasm in Jennifer Dixon to make her readers fall in love with this high-achieving, super snarky, well-meaning mom. If you were or are a class parent or an active member of the PTA, you will relate to Jen. If you have not participated in any of that, you will look at her life with awe and perhaps thank your lucky stars that you have never had to deal with her challenges. No matter which side you are on, one thing is certain: you will laugh. And we all could use some laughter in our lives.

Class Mom, You’ve Been Volunteered, and Yoga Pant Nation are all available in print, and a fourth book, Smells Like Tween Spirit, is due to be published in August.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

A bold illustration shoes a woman's back with her hands raised in a dancing posture, while a votex swirls above her with botes and planes.

Border Less by Namrata Poddar

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A bold illustration shoes a woman's back with her hands raised in a dancing posture, while a votex swirls above her with botes and planes.

By Piyali C.

Dia stretches her arm over her head and forms a mudra with her fingers as she answers phones at a call center, Voizone, in Mumbai. Her customer is irritable and rude. However, if she can resolve the call within seventeen seconds, she has a chance at a promotion in Manali. Thus begins the story of a young woman, Dia Mittal, a passionate dancer who is financing her education by working at a call center in Mumbai and taking care of her family. Dia, however, is representative of modern Indian youth who refuses to stay contained within borders, be it geographic or societal. So instead of listening to her mother’s remonstrations about getting married, Dia dreams of a life that has a higher purpose than matrimony. Although dancing is Dia’s passion, she is realistic enough to know she will not make a name by dancing as a junior artist in Bollywood movies.

Dia wants more from life. Her desire to create her own destiny takes her far from home to the United States where she discovers the dichotomy of belonging to more than one country. After many years of living afar, Dia cannot fully belong to India or relate to her family including her widowed mother. While in United States, Dia is unable to assimilate to the culture and people, even her own people – the desis. She exists in a strange limbo. Namrata Poddar proves her expertise as a storyteller by dividing Dia’s journey in two parts – Roots and Routes. We meet young Dia in Roots. She is still vulnerable, slightly unsure of how her journey in life will unfold, but despite the uncertainty we discover her steely determination to embark on that journey. In Routes, we travel with Dia as she meets new people, finds love and a successful career that transcends borders. Through her eyes we read about the experiences and perspectives of the South Asian diaspora in United States. Through her we discover that although many Indian men and women left their country for better opportunities, they brought with them the patriarchy and prejudices that were, perhaps, a part of their lives when they emigrated.  

Poddar intersperses certain chapters within her story with perspectives of narrators other than Dia without really telling us whose voice we are hearing. Each voice is unique and gives us a glimpse of a slice of life, be it on a passenger train in Mumbai or the struggles of an immigrant who came to the US in the 1960s and built a successful life from scratch. As I read those chapters, I felt a little lost but Poddar guides her readers back to Dia’s life, and it all makes sense at the end. Dia Mittal’s life is by no means smooth or untroubled, however, through it all, her fierce determination to fight boundaries remains constant and just when we think she is going to lose her love and her family, she manages to steer her life back into the path that she has created without losing herself. Not once does she give in to the established patriarchy that threatens to engulf her. 

Although Dia Mittal’s journey is the common thread in this lyrical, superbly told story, many layers interweave to explore themes of belonging, otherness, assimilation, gender, identity, expectation, and as the book jacket says, “a negotiation of power struggles, mediated by race, class, caste, gender, religion, place or migration.” The title Border Less itself, I am sure, will evoke many thoughts among those who like to read and discuss books. I hope book clubs choose this title not only to enjoy Namrata Poddar’s beautiful storytelling but also, perhaps, to understand what it means to cross borders to forge a new path, both physically and metaphorically. 

Border Less is available in print.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction and keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.

The book cover depicts a pale orange curtain falling waves, with dappled stripes of bright yellow sunlight across it. The title and author's name, with "winner of the Pulitzer Prize," are superimposed in white script.

Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

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The book cover depicts a pale orange curtain falling waves, with dappled stripes of bright yellow sunlight across it. The title and author's name, with "winner of the Pulitzer Prize," are superimposed in white script.

By Piyali C.

In the simple, succinct, and gorgeous prose that is her trademark, Jhumpa Lahiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Namesake, Interpreter of Maladies: Stories, and other works, writes about the observations of a single, unnamed woman living alone in an unnamed city in Italy in Whereabouts. Each chapter in this book reads like a page from a beautifully crafted journal. They are chronicles of our protagonist’s day to day life – be it walking over a bridge where she occasionally comes across her ex-boyfriend, or her sojourn to her favorite sandwich store where she buys the same lunch every day, or her trip to the swimming pool where she meets women who share their stories with each other verbally, or even the stories they share through each hard-earned wrinkle on their faces or their swollen feet or the extra flesh in their midsection. The woman of our story quietly listens. Through her ruminations about her past we come to know about her parents, their eccentricities, her relationship with them, her mother’s financial dependence on her father, and her subsequent financial education to her daughter which influences the woman’s monetary decisions all her life (and not necessarily in a helpful way).

The narrator is lonely sometimes, and sometimes she cherishes her solitude. She is frustrated with the sameness of her life sometimes, and sometimes she is content simply sitting at the piazza in front of her apartment observing frenetic activities in her neighborhood. She falls asleep at night reassured by the noise of traffic and wakes up deep in the night, disconcerted at the silence around her when the sounds of automobiles have ceased. She could be any of us – a juxtaposition of contrasts – and perhaps this ‘everywoman’ trait of the protagonist makes the book and her so relatable.  Her keen sense of observation is what many of us lack these days. It was such a joy to see the world – her world and for a short time our world, too – through her eyes. Even after the book ended, I seemed to linger by the side of the piazza eyeing the sandwich store and looking at the men and women living their lives in that unnamed city in Italy. This is a deeply contemplative novel made up of vignettes from a middle aged woman’s everyday life. There is no catastrophic event in this story, no climax or anti climax. It simply tells the tale of life and in doing so it becomes strangely captivating. At the end of the day, I agree with the description that the publisher provides for this short novel – “Whereabouts is an exquisitely nuanced portrait of urban solitude…”

I would like to share a snippet just to whet your appetite for this truly beautiful literary novel so you can borrow it from Howard County Library System for your next read. There is a passage where the woman comes face to face with the man she once loved in the middle of a bridge. Lahiri writes

“We stop in the middle and look at the wall that flanks the river, and the shadows of pedestrians cast on its surface. They look like skittish ghosts advancing in a row, obedient souls passing from one realm to another. The bridge is flat and yet it’s as if the figures – vaporous shapes against the solid wall – are walking uphill, always climbing. They’re like inmates who proceed, silently, toward a dreadful end” (6-7).

This is simply one example of many where I felt Lahiri painted pictures for me with her words.

Whereabouts is also available in large print and in eBook and eAudiobook format via Overdrive/Libby. Whereabouts is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel written in Italian, as well as the first time she has self-translated a full-length work.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at the Miller Branch of HCLS, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction.