Lattes and Literature

This month's novel is Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See (352 pages).

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian (pronounced Yoon-shien) —born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine: the Four Examinations, Six Pernicious Influences, and Seven Emotions—and that the body is a reflection of the cosmos.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women abd girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a captivating story of women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.

This month's novel is The Rosie Project by Graeme Samson (292 pages).

An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.

This month's novel is News of the World by Paulette Jiles (209 pages).

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd drifts through northern Texas, performing live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world - of the Irish pouring into New York City, of the railroad driving into the new state of Nebraska, of an eruption of Popcatepetl near Mexico City. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the Captain once made his living as a printer, until the War Between the States took his press and everything with it. Now, at seventy-one, the Captain enjoys the freedom of the road, even if his body aches and money is scarce.

At a stop in Wichita Falls, Captain Kidd is offered a fifty-dollar gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives near San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders viciously killed Johanna Leonberger’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as their own. Recently recovered by the U.S. Army, the ten-year-old girl with blue eyes and hair the color of maple sugar has once again been torn away from the only home and family she knows. The Captain’s sense of duty and of compassion propel him to accept, though he knows the journey will be long and difficult.

Winding through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain, the four-hundred-mile odyssey south proves dangerous as well. A corrupt Reconstruction administration runs the state government, and anarchy and lawlessness have taken hold. The Captain must watch for thieves, Comanches, and Kiowa, and the federal army - and corral the wild Johanna. Small and thin, the despondent child has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the wary Johanna slowly draws closer to the man she calls “Kep-dun”, and the two lonely survivors forge a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

But in San Antonio another hurdle awaits, one that will force this respectable man to make a terrible choice that will determine Johanna’s fate - and his own. Unfolding in gorgeous prose, News of the World is a vivid portrait that captures a beautiful and hostile land, and a masterful exploration of the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.