Still Alice

Still Alice
by
Lisa Genova
adult fiction

Alice is a successful professor at Harvard. She has a good family life and takes care of herself. None of this matters to the disease that confronts her. She is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. The unique take on this book is that it is told from the patient's viewpoint. She knows she will be going downhill and has to prepare for this. She is still herself, but knows that she will be forgetting more and more.
It is heartbreaking and a book that is hard to put down. I stayed up late reading it - each time thinking "no!" as she declines in health.
A discussion guide and interview with the author are included. This is a must read book for family, friends, and patients dealing with dementia.
A fellow librarian noted the lovely cover with the blue butterfly and the pages with butterfly silhouettes.

Postmistress

Postmistress: A Novel
by
Sarah Blake
adult historical fiction

I was a bit reluctant to pick up yet another romance/chick lit book set during WWII or the Civil War. I think these stories are overdone and I would rather explore a different time period. How about the Korean War? Crimean War? Spanish Civil War? War of 1812? Texas Independence? Give me something original!
That being said, this was a perfectly fine novel that follows three ladies - a gung ho American reporter that goes to London to cover the news, a doctor's wife who is left wondering about her husband working in London, and the postmistress at home in Massachusetts. They are all looking for order and sense in this seemingly senseless war. The reporter is trying to figure out what the Nazis plans for the Jews are.
I recommend this for the wide audience of 18-100 year old lady readers, but I wish she had chosen a less-explored time period. Maybe her next book will be more original.
Kudos to the author for letting her postmistress be a postmistress instead of dumbing down our language to make all females exactly the same as males. I think postmistress and aviatrix and executrix and actress are perfectly fine words that do not need to be abandoned.
- A word from the Library MISTRESS