What I read This month’s book club read is Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People and it will stay with me for quite some time. Imagine a bank robber at the end of their rope–no job, no apartment, worried about losing custody of their kids. Imagine a motley assortment of lonely hearts and misfits, held hostage after …
What I read Elizabeth McCracken’s novel Bowlaway is just about everything I want in a novel. The story is quirky, the characters unconventional, and the writing–oh, the writing! Think John Irving meets early Anne Tyler, then sprinkle it all with a dusting of magical realism. It’s Massachusetts. Early twentieth century. And Bertha Truitt is found …
What I read Before I read Margaret Atwood’s recently published sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, I thought maybe a second reading of the first was in order–especially since it had been thirty-some years since I’d read it. (I haven’t watched the television series because, well, you know … books.) I remembered how I felt after …
What I read It’s hard to believe I first read Anne Tyler thirty years ago. I was a different woman then. Tyler’s characters are finely drawn and I feel as if I know them–maybe not in this world, but in some other reality, perhaps. Her families are made up of people as different from each …
For someone who reads as much as I do, I struggle with contemporary poetry. What should be a pleasure–me! lover of word-craft and all that is story–is more often a frustration. I find most of it arcane. Baffling. And, dare I say, way too self-absorbed. I want my poetry rich with images that I can …
We are expecting a big storm here in the Great Lakes starting midnight Sunday. Forget about the local TV weather forecasters who yell “SNOWMAGEDDON!” at the first flake–even the U.S. National Weather Service in our area says that between tonight and Wednesday we are due for 11″ of snow and the wind chill will be …
Three Things About Elsie Joanna Cannon Scribner (2018) “Everyone’s life has a secret, somethings they never talk about. Everyone has words they keep to themselves. It’s what you do with your secret that really matters. Do you drag it behind you forever, like a difficult suitcase, or do you find someone to tell?” Joanna Cannon’s …
Anything Is Possible Elizabeth Strout Random House Years ago I was a bit put off by writer Elizabeth Strout’s novel Olive Kitteridge: great writing, stunning insight–but Olive was so … unlikable. (And I know, I know, the novel won the Pulitzer, so who am I to talk?!) But I tried her again with Burgess Boys (there was that …
My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry Fredrik Backman Simon & Schuster I was enchanted by Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove and Brit Marie Was Here. But with features in the New York Times and thousands of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, there’s probably not much left to say about My Grandmother Asked Me …
Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d Alan Bradley Delacorte Press Little Flavia is growing up. In her previous adventure, The Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, as well as her new one, Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d, Flavia displays more poise and decorum than she ever thought possible. And she’s puzzled by a new-found tendency towards …
This is my symphony 