The book for this month is The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food, while…

The book for this month is The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to…

The book for this month is Phantom by Susan Kay. Before he was the phantom of the opera, he was Erik, a disturbingly gifted child, horribly disfigured from birth, who flees into a cruel world where he learns to survive at any cost. Torn between good and evil, driven to seek power as a substitute…

The book for this month is Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the…

The book for this month is Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter. Joe and Rose Kennedy’s strikingly beautiful daughter Rosemary attended exclusive schools, was presented as a debutante to the Queen of England, and traveled the world with her high-spirited sisters. And yet, Rosemary was intellectually disabled — a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and…