Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

As far as story goes, this book was barely above average.  It jumps around in confusing ways that did not impress me.  Maybe the goal was some story telling dynamic, but it made for short periods of being extremely confused.  If an author wants to jump forwards and backwards in both time, space, and character, there needs to be an obvious road flag.  This book did not have those. Therefore, it only gets an "ok" on story.
This story deals with history, and as far as accuracy goes, it gets mostly a fail.  The author clearly wanted to touch on all the atrocities suffered by slaves and former slaves, and even freemen.  But chronologically, you can't put them all together within a few year period.  This book included references to traveling from Africa aboard a slave ship, institutionalized slavery, king cotton, the underground railroad, lynch mobs, medical testing and sterilization.  Slavery was over before we knew what "germs" were, so you can immediately see where my issue comes in with the scientific angle.  It grated against the timeline of history, too many anachronisms together.
This book might be ok if you're into wishy-washy story telling where the feel of the story is more important, but it bothered me to the point of being unable to enjoy the story. I would not recommend this book.

Mermaids in Paradise - Lydia Millet

A cute book, but not great.  The narrative character is not someone I would get along with in real life, and therefore I found her slightly vapid and sometimes grating.  It took a long time to get to the point of the plot.  It was a fun book with a nice setting and interesting characters.  But, as I've said before, it wasn't life altering or very impactful.  I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone because it's nothing special, but if you were stuck somewhere and this was your only option, it could be worse.   

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

I bumped up Vonnegut books after chatting with some friends about how much they liked his books and told me that I would really enjoy them too.  I wish they had been right, but either this was a poor example of what they had in mind, or I'm not a fan of his books.  By the time you get to the end of Cat's Cradle and the main character commits suicide, you don't even care ( or at least, I didn't) and that's a sign that the characters, story, or both aren't compelling.  It was an interesting idea, but I wasn't excited to get back to the book. It was just something to fill the drive to/from work with.  I'm disappointed about how it turned out and while I do plan on reading another Vonnegut book to make sure this one wasn't a fluke, he got bumped way down on my list again.

Grist Mill Road - Christopher J. Yates

Eh.
That's how I would describe this book.... eh.
Not bad, not good, medium pace, but never sped up or slowed down so it felt disappointingly even, story ok, not enlightening or surprising....
I know what the author meant to do. I understand how he wanted to work the novel, and he succeeded too.  It just didn't impress me too much. 
Blah....
I guess I wouldn't recommend? I don't really have much of an opinion either way, I suppose that means you shouldn't read this book.

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

This book made me want to murder everyone about 60 years ago.  Women (and men too) have an awful lot to thank Supreme Court Justice Bader Ginsburg for today, as in the fact that you are considered fully human under the law.  RBG got her career rolling by repeatedly attacking sexist laws one at a time.  Her philosophy (with which I completely agree) is that to make lasting and effective change, you have to do it slowly, methodically, and in a logical progression, so that by the time you attack the root of the problem, there are no other excuses standing in your way.  Think of sexism as a pyramid.  If you go after the base, even when you chip part of it away, the less important parts above will still cave in and block your path.  RBG also used the narrow-sightedness of the male experience against them by attacking sexist laws that hurt men, breaking a path to easily continue removing sexist laws that attack women.  She is very smart.  I know large portions of people who get lost in books and cerebral careers aren't great at understanding people, society, or psychology.  RBG was not one of those people.  She is very aware of how to avoid the knee-jerk reactions of the privileged when the playing field is leveled.
The end of the book addresses something I've been hearing for a while:  the public call for her to retire.  Have you ever heard of a sustained, wide-spread call for a male justice to retire? Not really.  I see her remaining as another battle against sexism.  She plans to retire when she can no longer recall every single detail of the court battles that got her to where she is today.  I support that.  There was an incident a few years ago where she fell asleep during a speech (state-of-the-union? I forgot which speech).  People love to use this as an example that she shouldn't be working anymore.  But if you habitually stayed up until 5 am working, you would also fall asleep at a boring ass speech too.  If fact, I'd say most people would fall asleep without keeping the crazy work schedule she does.  I understand her issue perfectly.  Working at your peak when the rest of  the world demands you work on their schedule (which is awful) is hard. Always. 
I look forward to seeing her on the court for many more years. 

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

I saw that this had been made into a movie again, so I'd love to watch that now.  I've always enjoyed Agatha Christie for her logic and no-nonsense plots.  As far as murder mysteries go, I'd say she is my favorite author.  I haven't read any of her works for years, so I was glad to get back to her.  I will keep her higher up on my list in the future.
This is a fun book, solidly written and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fiction. 

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

I had fun with this book. It was odd, but the styling was great.  It is a recently written book written in the style of early 1800 British fiction novels, think Pride and Prejudice or Jane Ayer.  However, this book has a more modern topic than actual novels written during that time.   Magic certainly wouldn't have been an acceptable topic during those times. But it is now, so I'm very glad the author came up with this idea.  It had all the positive characteristics of the old novels, but with a more interesting topic than marriage, money, and socializing.  The only component I didn't like was the magic was odd. I assume it was based on old English accounts of magic, which today seem fanciful (at best), but once I got used to the limits and what one could do with the magic, I liked it.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes both fantasy and the Bronte sisters.