This is the third book in my Top Ten list for 2015:

“Lydia is dead.” With those three simple words, Ng proceeds to unravel the secrets of the Lee family, Chinese Americans living in Ohio in the 1970s. Lydia, the middle child of James and Marilyn, was the favored one in the family, and much was expected of her–that she excel in school while having an active social life. Her siblings, Nathan and Hannah, know far more about the reality of Lydia’s life than their parents. When Lydia is found dead, drowned in a lake, the surviving family members finally have to voice the painful silences they have cultivated for years.

This is one of the finest family dramas I have read in a long time. Ng never sinks into melodrama or sentimentality. The plot has twists that are always believable, and the characters are rendered in fine detail. Lovely, lovely, lovely, and the novel is worthy of all the accolades it has received.

The Campaign for the American Reader has this fascinating column in which authors talk about how they would cast the movie based on their book.

I got to indulge in this fantasy, and it was great fun. The link to the piece is below, but first, a couple of spoilers.

Here is my first choice to play Peggy Utinsky:

And here is Claire Phillips:

Do you recognize them?

Here’s the article:

http://mybookthemovie.blogspot.com/2016/01/theresa-kaminskis-angels-of-underground.html

The second on my list of favorite books from 2015 (I read them in 2015 but they weren’t necessarily published that year) is one I also mentioned on this blog last January:

Sarah Bird’s masterful work of historical fiction is every bit as moody and melancholy as Katy Simpson Smith’s The Story of Land and Sea. Bird situates her dual timeline in 1945 and in contemporary Okinawa. During World War II, young Tamiko experiences the savagery of the final months of the conflict between Japan and the United States. In modern day Okinawa, the teenaged Luz tries to make sense of her older sister’s recent death as she adjusts to this new air force posting with her mother.

As both of these young women struggle to stay alive, they learn about the importance of love and family, patriotism and country. Part mystery, part ghost story, part coming-of-age tale, this is a mesmerizing novel.

The first on my list of favorites from 2015 (books I read last year, not necessarily books that were published then) is one I mentioned on this blog last January: The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith.

It was one of the first novels I read in 2015, and the story has stuck with me. Smith has a PhD in history and her masterful knowledge of early American history is subtly woven throughout this slim, powerful book.

In three parts, The Story of Land and Sea tells the story of a man named John living in coastal North Carolina during the long revolutionary period. The glories and the tragedies of the newly-emerging United States are reflected in John’s career as a sailor and then a merchant, and in his private life with his wife Helen, daughter Tabitha, and the enslaved woman Moll.

This is marvelous historical fiction. I can’t wait for Smith’s next novel.

The attack had been underway since December 8, 1941. With the United States Army Forces Far East withdrawn to the Bataan peninsula and Manila declared an open city, its residents waited for the inevitable.

Restaurateur Gladys Savary went to the market early on the morning of January 2, 1942, assuming that whatever was to come, people would still need to eat. The streets were mostly deserted; city officials had encouraged people to stay indoors. Still, customers trickled into the Restaurant de Paris throughout the day. Some friends urged Gladys to have a drink with them across the street at the Bay View Hotel, and she joined them briefly in the early evening.

Gladys may have caught a glimpse of Peggy Utinsky there. Peggy had spent the day nursing patients at Remedios Hospital, unaware the Japanese had arrived in Manila. At six o’clock, she was told to go home, and as she walked along a city street, a passerby pointed out signs of the occupation: Japanese motorcycles, Japanese soldiers, Rising Sun flags. “Here they are, they have us,” Peggy thought. She ducked into the Bay View Hotel and for the next hour chatted with other Americans, gathering all the information they had. Then Peggy returned to her apartment on A. Mabini Street and began planning how she would undermine the enemy occupation.