For every one of us there is a point when we know we are in love with a book and for each of us it is different. For me, it was page 17 in Hunting and Gathering when the anorexic Camille crumpled up a note from a well-meaning young doctor asking her to call him so he could take her to dinner. One sentence, no special words and yet, to me, it so perfectly encapsulated this ... Read More...
Fallen Beauty
Fallen Beauty is the story of a lovely young woman, Laura Kelley, who pays the price for one night of passion by becoming pregnant. It’s 1928 in upstate New York and her decision to keep her child, despite the father’s unwillingness to acknowledge her, changes the course of her life. Both her parents are dead and so, at age nineteen, she is left to run their dress shop alone ... Read More...
Bristol House
Annie Kendall’s life has not gone the way she’d hoped it would. In the midst of a stellar academic career as an architectural historian she let a fondness for alcohol get away from her and in doing so lost custody of her young son. By the time she regained her sobriety both her personal life and career were in shambles. It is fortuitous then that billionaire Phil Weinraub ... Read More...
On Such a Full Sea
People often write of singers or actors with such amazing voices it would be a pleasure to listen to them read the phone book. For the written word Chang-rae Lee is such a person. His words and the way he melds sentences are all so quietly beautiful the plot is secondary. He has a voice of astonishing grace and range. This is not to say that his newest novel, On Such a Full ... Read More...
The Signature of All Things
Elizabeth Gilbert is back after her foray into relationships in Eat Pray Love and Committed, with a new work of fiction called The Signature of All Things. The novel is a family saga that spans generations and continents. Gilbert begins with Henry Whittaker, Alma’s father and a man who fell into his field through stealing plant specimens from one of England’s greatest ... Read More...
Sweet Thunder
In Sweet Thunder, Morrie Morgan and his new wife Grace are still on their year-long honeymoon when they get called back to Butte, Montana. A former boss is giving them his home, a grand old mansion. The only caveat is that he, Sam Sandison, is now their tenant in this massive new home. For Morrie, a wandering sort of fellow who won his fortune betting against the White Sox in ... Read More...
