How has he not had it drummed into him that brats don’t whine? We don’t plead. We don’t need. We require nothing. Not even real roots. We’re air ferns. In Sarah Bird's new novel Above the East China Sea the island of Okinawa is the centerpiece of a multi-generational drama that plays out during World War II and modern times. Tamiko is a native of the ... Read More...
Plainsong
From an aerial satellite view one might think Holt, Colorado to be a town so tiny as to be without interest. That would be the case if not for Kent Haruf, who brings this town to quiet, poignant life in the novel Plainsong. There are the McPheron brothers, older farmers who have never married and still live life much as they always have. There is Guthrie, a teacher with two ... Read More...
The Engagements
J. Courtney Sullivan returns, this time turning her insightful eyes to a subject dear to many women’s hearts and one that epitomizes the eternal hope of love, diamonds. In her latest novel, The Engagements, we meet Frances Gerety, the woman who, in the 1950s, created one of the most celebrated slogans of the century: A Diamond is Forever. Frances and her work with DeBeers ... Read More...
Seating Arrangements
Seating Arrangements is the weekend long drama of the Van Meter family, gathered in their house on Waskeke Island, off the New England coast. For the family patriarch it is a time largely viewed as a disturbance to the normal stately pace of his life. The tiny minded Winn Van Meter, lives up to his last name by meting out every penny and every action as receivable or payable ... Read More...
Suite Française
There are novels that come with a backstory so complex and heartrending the book itself can be overwhelmed. Irène Némirovsky, was a Ukrainian Jew living in Paris with her husband and two young daughters. She was a successful author and had written the first two parts of Suite Française in Paris during the German occupation. In 1942 at age 39 she would be sent to her death ... Read More...
