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Everybody’s Son: A Novel

June 15, 2017

son

When a novel opens during a heat wave with a ten-year-old boy breaking a window to get out of an apartment with no electricity after being left alone for a week while his mother goes out to buy drugs it doesn’t seem as if much nuance to the story can follow. Unless the author is Thrity Umrigar, one of my favorite writers for presenting human emotion at its messy, inconvenient, ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, Harper, racism, social issues

It’s Monday, June 5th: What Are You Reading?

June 5, 2017

Monday

  In case you didn't know, I’m a big fan of synchronicity. Coincidence is so boring when you can choose to believe that the most random things are part of a greater pattern! So…how awesome is it that my Monday reading is A) one of my favorite authors B) she lives in Cleveland and C) I’M IN CLEVELAND! I know, I’m giddy, too. And in my little rainbow unicorn mind ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Feature, Reading Tagged: Harper, social issues

Commonwealth: A Novel

September 12, 2016

commonwealth

The Keatings and the Cousins turn into one extended broken family when Mr. Cousins decides to kiss Mrs. Keating at her daughter Franny’s christening. Two divorces and relocation follow and what were two distinct sets of children merge into one unruly tribe in Virginia every summer. This is Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Commonwealth, and it is a story as comforting in its ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: American life, book clubs, family, Harper, literary, marriage

Rare Objects: A Novel

April 20, 2016

rare objects

  Before we’ve even met her Maeve has lived a lot of life for a twenty-five-year-old woman in the 1930s. After secretarial school she leaves Boston for New York City, using the lie of a big job opportunity as a way to get out of marriage and town. But because no such job existed in Depression era NYC Maeve ends up working in a dance hall on Broadway where only alcohol ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1930s, chick lit, historical fiction, New England

Terrible Virtue

April 15, 2016

terrible virtue

  Margaret Sanger is well-known as the founder of Planned Parenthood and the first advocate of birth control and family planning for women in the U.S. Ellen Feldman’s novel Terrible Virtue begins with Sanger’s impoverished childhood in Corning, New York as one of thirteen children—a fact that greatly shaped her attitude towards child bearing, as she watched her mother die ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Harper, historical fiction, social issues, women

The Good Liar

February 8, 2016

good liar

  Roy Courtnay has been working one scam or another all his life. Now in his mid-70s he’s turned his hand to internet dating as a way to prey on wealthy widows. When he meets Betty she seems just his type—pretty and a bit ditzy. He provides her with welcome companionship and even opens up with his own concerns about his pension and how to stay financially afloat in ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, Harper, mystery

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