January and books

YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE  by Siobhan Fallon (Amy Einhorn Books, 978-0-399-15720--2) is a sleeper.It sneaks up on you as you read it.  It is an loosely interconnected stories that deal with service wives and families when their husbands are off on tours of duty.  The fallout when they come home is there as well.  As is the hum drum of lives on hold.  Each woman and each family cope in different ways, when they do cope at all.  The stories are spare and lean, but cut to the bone on their depiction of fear, guilt, loneliness. They also deal with death, alienation, jealousy and remorse.  Fallon has been a service wife herself and her tales have that been there seen that quality. This is a penetrating and powerful look at what war does to those who live it at home.
A CUP OF FRIENDSHIP by Deborah Rodriguez (Ballantine, 978-0345-51475-2) is a novel from the author on the nonfiction best seller KABUL BEAUTY SCHOOL. Set in Kabul. this is the story of Sunny, an ex -pat American who operates a coffee shop for her peers.  The stories that they all live and tell about are the grist for this saga. Sunny rescues a young woman, Yasmin. who was kidnapped from  a rural village, used, and then abandoned in the city when she became pregnant.  The cafe is the meeting place for
a wide range of characters who include a wealthy American beguiled by a shady local playboy type, Halajan,a older widow affiliated with the coffee house whose long love defies custom, political speakers, her politically correct son, Sonny's ex, Tommy, and the enigmatic Jack  as well as political speakers and others.  There stories involve  clandestine love, rescues of kidnapped girls, adventure, friendship, love, and life on the cusp pf a coming war.  One can learn much about a co8untry and its people by listening to those who live where even if they are fictional.  The writing in this book is beautifully crafted.
And last but not least, we have THE ANATOMY OF GHOSTS by Andrew Taylor (Hyperion,978-1-4013-0287-0).  Set in England in 1785 this is the story of a book seller, John Holdsworth.  He has fallen on hard times and  after his son  drowns and his wife commits suicide after she claims to be visited by the son Georgie's ghost  Holdsworth had written and published a treatise on the anatomy of ghosts but this did not deter his wife.and so sets about debunking their existence.  Even though his dreams about his dead son are as real to him as are the ghosts to others.This book however was the reason he is taken into the circle that includes Lady Ann Oldershaw, whose late husband has made a huge bequest of his books to
Cambridge University. He is attached to her household to evaluate and value these books, but his real purpose turns put to be to exorcise or at least explain some ghosts that have been reported in the area. These ghostly emanations have been seen by the impressionable son of Lady Oldershaw and because of this he is incarcerated in a rather suspect mental hospital.  Lady O wants him out and she thinks Holdsworth is the man for the job.  His investigation uncovers illicit loves, plots among and against the instructors, tutors,   and the  undergraduates of the university, as well as murder most foul as well as some mistaken identities and unfortunate events   as well as some shady beginnings of some of the colleges secret societies for the chosen.  This is a suspenseful thriller set in a period that gives the plot credence,  It also provides a backdrop for an interesting foray into the history of English life, the eternal politics of academia, and above all,the anatomy of a ghost - or at least the anatomy if a ghostly story.  A spirited romp.