It’s 1895 in England and women are kept firmly in their established roles as wives, mothers, and arbiters of society. Deviation from these roles or even a desire for something more could lead to a woman being institutionalized by her guardian “for her own safety”. A guardian was the male in her life be it father, husband, or brother. These female problems were often thought to ... Read More...
The Correspondent
When Sylvia Van Antwerp came of age there was no such thing as digital. Given that, she sees no reason to abandon her lifelong habit of communicating via letter. She’ll even use email when it is the only option, but that is as much as she’ll concede. This means Virginia Evans’ debut The Correspondent is an epistolary novel comprised only of Sylvia‘s communications with the ... Read More...
The Next Day
Nonfiction has not been rewarding for me this year. My guess is the petulant part of my brain feels that it is already working too hard to process this country’s current reality and has no room for more information. But then I discovered The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward by Melinda French Gates and while the book’s title did not specifically talk to me, the ... Read More...
Georgia by Dawn Tripp
When I become interested in a subject, especially when it’s a woman, I turn to historical fiction. I’m not sure why—maybe diving right into nonfiction makes me feel like I’m back in school? At the very least my compromised ability to pay attention means fiction of any kind is the right starting point. Thankfully, I found Dawn Tripp’s novel Georgia—a wonderful introduction to ... Read More...
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett
I’m moving away from terror today with The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett. Eudora is 85 years old, has never married, and lives quietly in her London rowhouse. She’s in reasonable health, but is tired of the idiocy of the modern world and afraid that because she has no family she’s going to spend her last days in a government facility with doctors trying to prolong her ... Read More...
Kate & Frida: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Books
It begins with a letter sent from Paris to Seattle. Nothing romantic or between friends, but business because in 1991 that’s how these things were done. Frida writes to the Puget Sound Book Store looking for a book. Kate is the employee delegated with filling this customer request. Neither could know that this brief correspondence would grow into an intense and wonderful ... Read More...
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