4 Books to Read Over a Winter Weekend

Zumas' bracing novel is set in Oregon after the United States has banned abortion, making it punishable by jail. At the same time, new legislation is set to prohibit single people from adopting. Where a lesser writer might have delivered a shrill, one-sided polemic, Zumas draws us into the intersecting lives of five women in a profound exploration of our attitudes toward motherhood, freedom and life itself. There is a writer desperate for a child; an unhappily married wife craving a break from 24/7 parenting; a scared, pregnant teenager; and an herbalist who lives in the woods and dispenses natural remedies. The fifth woman is a 19th-century polar explorer, about whom the writer is researching, and whose story is eerily resonant. A page-turning plot is rendered in sentences as gorgeous and wise as poems: The desire for children comes from "the desire to recur," Zumas writes. "Give me the chance to repeat myself. Give me a life lived again, and bigger. Give me a self to take care of, and better." Faced with crushing disappointment, the writer realizes that "her life, like anyone's, could go a way she never wanted, never planned, and turn out marvelous." Be prepared to dog-ear these pages.