The Floating World C. Morgan Babst Algonquin Books October 15. Forty-seven days after landfall. The Boisdore family is collapsing, the levees of their carefully constructed life breached by the destruction that was Hurricane Katrina. The patriarch Vincent, once a renowned New Orleans furniture carver, drifts in and out of dementia, one moment clear-thinking, the next …
The Story of Arthur Truluv Elizabeth Berg Random House Elizabeth Berg’s new novel The Story of Arthur Truluv is, as the title suggests, a story about True Love–not necessarily the love you’ll find in sappy Valentine cards, but the kind of love that is even greater. Like the love that reaches across generations, old to …
Wonder R. J. Palacio Knopf I might very well be the last reader in the U.S. to have read Wonder, writer R. J. Palacio’s best-selling first novel. I’m kind of out of the middle-reader loop at this stage in my life, and I found the title by clicking on a trailer that popped up on my …
The Best Kind of People Zoe Whittal Ballantine Books The story is an all-too-familiar one: a beloved teacher is charged with improper behavior towards female students. Headlines scream. Families crumple. Lives disintegrate. I’d venture a guess it’s happened in just about every high school at one time or another. And if a parent or administrator …
Are You Sleeping? (NetGalley) Kathleen Barber Simon & Schuster Kathleen Barber’s new novel Are You Sleeping is a little bit mystery, a little bit thriller, and a lotta bit pop culture–the story is great vacation reading. Or, since the fall and winter are fast approaching, it would also make a good blizzard read! (Does anyone …
A Piece of the World Christina Baker Kline William Morrow Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train made me curious to read more about the orphans shipped cross-country at the turn-of-the-century. So when I read about her latest novel A Piece of the World and it’s subject–the painting Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth–I immediately put the book on my wishlist. …
The Lauras (NetGalley) Sara Taylor Crown Publishing Ma bustles twelve-year-old Alex out of bed in the middle of the night, grabs a backpack always waiting by the front door, and Alex doesn’t return “home” for nearly four years. And “home” is what Sara Taylor’s novel The Lauras is all about. Is “home” the birthplace our …
Girl Last Seen (NetGalley) Nina Laurin Grand Central Publishing/Hatchett Group Unbecoming Rebecca Scherm Penguin Two young women: Laine, a kidnap victim; and Julie, an accessory to a crime. Both are living under assumed names, supposedly for protection. Except, as both Girl Last Seen and Unbecoming demonstrate, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to run away from one’s past. The …
The Windfall (NetGalley) Diksha Basu Crown Publishing Let’s get it out of the way right from the start: I was captivated by The Windfall. Writer Diksha Basu writes a sort of Indian Pride and Prejudice with some overtones of Great Expectations. The novel is at times humorous, poignant, and scathing–sometimes all on the same page. For nearly their entire married …
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 …
This is my symphony 