"A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" By Anthony Marra

""You're here," Sonja said, surprised.  "Yes," Havaa agreed.  "I'm here.  This is the waiting room."  Sonja glanced down to the floor, to the chairs, puzzling over this and then nodding.  "You're right.  This is the waiting room," she said, and sat in the folding chair beside Havaa.""

"We Need New Names" NoViolet Bulawayo

"Come, Ethiopia, move, move, move; Israel, Kazakhstan, Niger, brothers, let's go!  The others spoke languages, worshiped different gods, ate what we would not dare touch.  But like us, they had left their homelands behind.  They flipped open their wallets to show us faded photographs of mothers whose faces bore the same creases of worry as our very own mothers, siblings bleak-eyed with dreams unfilled like those of our own, fathers forlorn and defeated like ours.  We had never seen their countries buy we knew about everything in those pictures; we were not altogether strangers."

As an aside:  A well-written & good read, but seemed, perhaps, over-worked.  Every piece of "African plight" seemed contained in these pages (which may be how it is in Zimbabwe), and ended up not really saying enough about any of it.  Also, the main character illegally immigrates to the US, and all I could think was, "This is why his dad couldn't be here when he was born.  Why he wasn't given a tourist visa.  The choice of the one affects many. 

"The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells" Andrew Sean Greer

Quick read, no dog-ear quotes

"Good Kids" Benjamin Nugent

"Only now did I realize that I had probably been looking as tense as she did.  The words, 'I'm Republican' had triggered a fight-or-flight instinct.  The knowledge that somebody who was even sort of a Republican might kiss me was enchanting and noxious at the same time, cocaine-like."

"Elders" Ryan McIlvain"

"Seth, there's nothing special about doubting.  Some of my colleagues at the office are devout atheists...they go on and on about the 'courage to question.'  But do you know what I think?  I think the real courage is in trying to believe.  Doubt comes easy for a lot of people.  It comes easy for people like you and me, Seth.  But do you know what doesn't come easy?  Faith.  Faithfulness.  Obedience.  Humility.  Self-denial.  Self-sacrifice.  There's your courage.  It's not easy to confirm your life to a worldview that makes demands, that is not morally relative...There's your courage."

For the Boy

"There is a mystery surrounding this man who is so central to my life in so many ways, but who I'll never know."  (Maybe from a New Yorker article??)

"The Middlesteins" Jami Attenberg

"And finally, she doesn't always love being a stay-at home mom, but the other option, dealing with bosses and responsibilities and meetings in poorly lit rooms and office politics and all that other crap that Benny goes through on a daily  basis, sounds so appalling that she will gladly gush, "This is what I was born to do," to anyone who might ask...even if she suspects there might have been another option, if only she had not let Benny just put it in for a second because it felt so good and never made him take it out again before it was too late."