We will meet on Tuesday, March 12, via Zoom, todiscuss the novel, A Bend in theStars, by Rachel Barenbaum. Thehardcover was published in May, 2019 and is 456 pages. The book isavailable as an ebook, audio book, large print edition, as well as a regularbook format. It is obtainable from the Oakland and Berkeley libraries, andthrough Link+:
A Bend in the Stars, by Rachel Barenbaum
In Russia, in the summer of 1914, aswar with Germany looms and the Czar’s army tightens its grip on the localJewish community, Miri Abramov and her brilliant physicist brother, Vanya, arefacing an impossible decision. Since their parents drowned fleeing to America,Miri and Vanya have been raised by their babushka, a famous matchmaker who hastaught them to protect themselves at all costs: to fight, to kill if necessary,and always to have an escape plan. But now, with fierce, headstrong Miri on theverge of becoming one of Russia’s only female surgeons, and Vanya hoping tosolve the final puzzles of Einstein’s elusive theory of relativity, can theybear to leave the homeland that has given them so much? Before they havetime to make their choice, war is declared and Vanya goes missing, along withMiri’s fiancé. Miri braves the firing squad to go looking for them both. As theeclipse that will change history darkens skies across Russia, not only thesafety of Miri’s own family but the future of science itself hangs in thebalance. Grounded in real history — and inspired by the solar eclipse of1914 — A Bend in the Stars offers a heart-stopping account ofmodern science’s greatest race amidst the chaos of World War I, and a lovestory as epic as the railways crossing Russia.
