Where'd You Go, Bernadette?: A Novel by Maria Semple
A laugh-out loud story with a lot of heart. A once famous architect, Bernadette Fox, who has become an agoraphobic recluse in recent years, disappears the day before her family is about to take a trip to Antarctica. Eighth-grade daughter Bee goes on the hunt for her mother by gathering all kinds of documents from and about her mother in hopes of finding her. The story views Bernadette through the eyes of the many people who know her based on narrative, emails, faxes. conversations, and letters. The book is full of satire as it targets corporate culture, Microsoft Corp. specifically as well as social climbing and life in Seattle.
Bryson makes history come alive as he shows us that 1927 was a transformational time in American history from cultural clashes, new technologies, politics, and inventions which changed not only America's future but the world as well.
The book weaves together a tragic story through the lives of a blind French girl and an orphaned German prodigy whose interest in radios, wins him a place at an elite military school, and a special assignment in the German Army during World War II. The rivoting plot is written with beautifully lyricial language. A lesson in the power and resilience of youth despite the madness of adults and the devastation and chaos of war.
This historical fiction novel focuses on sixteen years of Clara Driscoll's life between 1892 and 1908, the years she served as head of the Women's Department at the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company as creative head and manager of women artisans from poor immigrant families still in their teens, known as the Tiffany Girls. Today Driscol is often acknowledged as the designer of the famous lamps-but not in her own time. Clara struggled with her desire for artistic recognition and the challenges that she faced as a professional woman. She also yearned for love and companionship, and was devoted in different ways to five men, including Tiffany, who enforced a strict policy of no married women working at his company. Ultimately, Clara had to decide what made her happiest--her world of work or marriage.
