The Lady in the Van Alan Bennett After I read Alan Bennett’s delightful The Uncommon Reader (review link here) I do what all readers do, I assume—I ran to get my hands on another of the author’s works. The library had a copy of a two-fer: The Clothes They Stood Up In (another novella) and …
Th1rteen R3asons Why Jay Asher RazorBill Penguin More than a few of my students recommended I read Jay Asher’s Th1rteen R3asons Why and this one was a doozy–very difficult to read, but incredibly meaningful. Clay Jensen picks up the package from his porch without much thought–hmmm, cassette tapes?–but his life is forever changed. His co-worker, …
Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett Piqador Mrs. Queen Takes the Train William Kuhn Harper Perennial I’m one of those wackos who, on July 29, 1981, got up at 4:00 AM to catch the first network coverage of the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to Charles, Prince of Wales. (I believe the winner was NBC which started …
The stockings are hung (although sadly, there’s no chimney), the candles lit, and creche arranged–it’s the most wonderful time of the year! And every year for the past twenty-something, I’ve added Susan Branch’s Christmas From the Heart of the Home to the stack of holiday books on my coffee table. Branch inks and watercolors every …
The Perfect Mother Nina Darton Plume Jennifer Lewis leads a perfect life—her Connecticut home is oh-so-shabby-chic, her lawyer husband handsome and successful, her three children active and popular. Jennifer herself gave up a career as a model and TV actress so that she could dedicate all of her time to family. Jennifer is the Perfect …
The Boston Girl Anita Diamant Scribner release date: December 9 In Anita Diamant’s latest novel, eighty-five-year-old Addie Baum tells her granddaughters the story of her life as a girl growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century. Arriving with her family from a small village in Russia, Boston might offer refuge from pogroms, but …
The Life We Bury (Edelweiss DRC) Allen Eskens Seventh Street Books I usually pass over mystery or crime novels–but something in the blurb for this title pulled me in. It could have been that the main character, Joe Talbot, was an English major . It could have been the mention of his autistic brother. Or it could …
Mill River Redemption (NetGalley DRC) Darcie Chan Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence—Plato Josi DiSanti had taken refuge in Mill River twenty-some years earlier after the death of her husband Tony. With daughters Emily and Rose snuggled in beside her and Aunt Ivy at the wheel, her small …
Painted Horses (NetGalley DRC)by Malcolm BrooksGrove Pressrelease date: August 13, 2014 Standing by the side of the road the first time I drove through North Dakota and into Montana, the Earth’s curve domed overhead. I recognized it at once–that wide expanse of sky so often described by McCarthy and McMurtry and Cather. Breathtaking. (I also caught …
A Man Called Ove (NetGalley DRC)by Fredrik BackmanAtria Books Time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us … One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than …
This is my symphony 