The Most They Ever Had by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg is a powerful book by a stunningly gifted author. He bears witness to the lives of good, hard working people employed in the cotton mill in Jacksonville Alabama. His words show he honors telling their stories, giving them the respect and dignity their hard working lives deserve. He conveys their essence with power; "You need not use foul language to damn a man here. Just say a day's work would kill him, and you tore him down to the bald nothing." We used to value hard work in this country. The people in this book are proud people who take pride in working hard to provide for their families. They don't expect much, just a roof over their heads, a newer car every once in a while, and maybe a night at the movies. They are not anticipating easy lives or great wealth. Is it too much to expect a safe working environment and a living wage? Apparently it is. Rick Bragg has written a eulogy to the time in America where we built things rather than chased ever faster after the next deal and the easy dollar. Now a company's parts are worth more than its whole, the jobs can be done cheaper overseas, and the bad boys of Wall Street need to be kept happy. We have become a nation of financiers. A nation obsessed with flashy ball players paid mega dollars to play a boy's game, CEO's bringing home checks with so many zeroes it will make your head hurt, and TV reality shows illustrating the decline of our culture. In this era of bigger is better, Rick Bragg has written a book about the lives of hard working, everyday people who hold their dignity close. Rick reminds us of a set of values and a way of life that defined our country far better than the lust for the deal, and fast money culture of late. This book is a powerhouse!

Open this book and it feels like you have stepped through a portal into Boston at the end of WWI, Lehane's writing makes the story come alive! Babe Ruth passes time during a train stop playing a pickup game of baseball with some black men in a nearby field. Luther has fast in his blood; he gives Babe a game to remember. But the main story is the police strike that felled Boston in 1919. It is a cop's story about a time they were paid less than trolley car drivers. Danny's Dad is a respected police captain, putting his son on a fast track to a gold shield. His future is pretty well assured if he will just stay on the path his father paved. Instead Danny finds himself embroiled in the union's fight, not a good career move. Luther shows up in Boston, running from a bad night down in Tulsa. He goes to work for Danny's dad as a houseman, his troubles are not over, they are just getting a good start. The Given Day is brimming with tension, violence, humor and history, from anarchist's bombs, to a cavalry charge down the main streets of Boston during a riot. It is packed with vibrant characters and plenty of action.

Rarely does a novel combine so many interesting, important topics so successfully while telling a story that leaves you feeling good.  All Roads Lead Me Back To You by Kennedy Foster is a real find, a northwestern story with heart and substance.  All Roads Lead Me Back To You is set in the foothills of the Blue Mountains in Eastern Washington.  Wild, open country with miles between neighbors, it possesses a lonely, quiet beauty.  Alice Andison lives alone with her dogs and critters on the ranch she grew up on, her roots in that hard, lonely soil are deep.  During a snow storm, the ranch is cut off from everyone, town miles away over snowed in roads. Her dogs alert Alice to an intruder, a rider-less horse. In that brutal weather Alice doesn’t think the chances are good that she will find the rider, even lower that the rider is still alive.  Still she feels bound to go out into the teeth of the storm and search, just in case someone is injured and alone.  Domingo Rogue is fortunate Alice had such a strong feeling for what is right, or surely he would have frozen to death.  He is in rough condition.  Alice brings the injured man back to her ranch and helps him thaw out.  He starts to do chores around the place, repaying her kindness.  There is a cultural chasm between the two characters roughly the size of the Grand Canyon.  It is here the book picks up some real weight, in the interplay between two cultures with different belief systems and different chances in life.  Domingo is at first suspicious of Alice, while he is grateful to her for saving his life, he has learned not to trust.  He fears the immigration officers and a quick trip back across the border stripped of his beloved horse. Alice has stayed within the law; she has avoided employing illegal aliens and is not all that familiar with the tensions their lives hold. Running a ranch is brutal hard-work.  Alice has been doing it on her own too long and it is taking a toll. She is saddled with a shiftless partner, Jerry Graeme, who provides the story with an evil villain.  No help is forthcoming from him.  Domingo’s help lifts a large burden from Alice’s shoulders; he is capable, kind to the stock, and hardworking. Hiring him as a ranch hand would make her life so much easier. Alice’s sister Janet teaches in the nearby town, she knows some of the pitfalls that could ensnare the employer of a Hispanic man lacking a legitimate green card.  The interplay between the two characters as they form a friendship and begin to understand the challenges each faces, is priceless.  The story lives here, in these two very different lives that are drawn together by chance, develop a friendship and cross that deep canyon to reach an understanding of what is important.  Of course there is also the back story they bring.  Alice’s nemesis is her evil partner; Domingo has some secrets of his own. Here are characters that feel real, they make the reader care what happens to them. The book is a pleasure to read, the northwestern setting familiar, and it got me to thinking about current issues in a new way simply by reading their enjoyable story.