Geraldine Brooks, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Hoffmann - these are a few of my favorite authors. When they publish a new book, I get it immediately, and often devour it in just a few days. After reading Circling the Sun, I am adding Paula McLain to this list. I loved The Paris Wife - the other book of hers that I read. It was a fictional account of Hadley Richardson, Earnest Hemingway's first wife, and told the story of their time in Paris, while he wrote The Sun Also Rises. I know that I like a book, when immediately after finishing it, I run to Google to learn more about the characters. After finishing The Paris Wife, I ran to Amazon, first reading a non-fiction book about Hadley, followed by The Sun Also Rises, A Movable Feast, Hemingway's Boat and a book of Earnest Hemingway's letters. This reading odyssey culminated in an actual odyssey when my husband and I traveled to San Sebastian and Pamplona to see some of the places I read about during this frenzy. Upon hearing this, a friend who is an professor of literature told me, "You should have gotten a grant!" I recount all of this to illustrate the fact that when I read something fictional about a real person, if it's done well, I am hungry to learn more.

Paul McLain's latest book Circling the Sun, a fictional account of the life of Beryl Markham, is another wonderful example of this type of book. Beryl Markham was, by many accounts, a fascinating woman - the first female horse trainer in Kenya and the first female pilot to fly cross the Atlantic from east to west. As in The Paris Wife, McLain, does an amazing job of imbuing the book with a sense of of place. You feel as if you are in Kenya in the early 1900's. She also creates characters that are consistent and true to form so while the reader may not always agree with a character's decision; you still recognize the behavior as something that they would do.

I wanted to read this book the moment I heard about it, and waited several months for it to be released. I often suffer from a condition that I call Inverse Expectation Disorder - if I am dying to see, read, or hear it, I am doomed to be disappointed, but if I am expecting it to be terrible, I end up loving it. This book was a rarity in that I could not wait to read it, and when I did, absolutely loved it. I cannot recommend it enough, and encourage people to pick it up when they can. And while others are reading it, I will be moving on to West with the Night, by Beryl Markham and Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. At least until Geraldine Brooks' next book comes out on October 6!