Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Cape Cod. I’ve been going there for summer vacations since I was a child. For years, my husband and I have made the trek to Provincetown, the excuse being the Tennessee Williams Festival. True we love the festival but it is only a solid reason not … Continue reading Cape Cod’s Literary Gems: ‘The House on Oyster Street’ Review
This beautifully crafted novel was written for a young adult audience but I would recommend it for teens and adults alike.Long listed for the National Book Award it is the tale of four generations of Filipino Americans grappling with identity, past trauma and the long reach it has into the future.
n Liane Moriarty’s tenth novel, she once again throws her characters into spontaneous crisis. The book opens with a scene we are all familiar with. A flight delay. The cause doesn’t really matter. It sets the reader up to relate to what starts out as a very common day we’ve all experienced and then abruptly becomes a life changer.
This is the 20th book in the series featuring Cork O’Connor. Set in northern Minnesota, these mysteries highlight issues facing the interplay of the white population and the Ojibwe. Cork O'Connor, half Irish and half Ojibwe, always finds himself negotiating the two worlds. I have read about ten of these books and although I missed many … Continue reading Cork O’Connor’s Latest Mystery: Ojibwe Culture Explored
It’s hard to know where to begin talking about this book. Its breath is massive. It is the story of three characters, two rivers, the Tigris and Thames, and an ancient poem. And beneath it all, it connects us all through a single drop of water. Where else can you find a story that begins … Continue reading There Are Rivers in the Sky: A Single Drop of Water Connects Then and Now
The main protagonist, Jane Flanagan, had a troubled childhood dominated by a single alcoholic mother, and a sister she doesn’t connect to. But she has seemingly risen above it to become an archivist at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard. Residual behaviors, unacknowledged yet ever present, rear their ugly heads at a time when all should have been well. She engages in behavior that may cost her both her ascending career and marriage.
If ever there was a timely novel, this is the one. Since banning books has become a strategic weapon in our national culture wars, here comes an entertaining satire set in a quintessential southern town. Framed as a battle over books and a free-standing little library, it is about the influence books have in its residents’ lives and the town’s cultural norms.
This book was a surprise. Given the title—Happiness Falls—I expected much less. Or maybe, just different. A more typical mystery perhaps layered with family dynamics. Instead, this was a surprising meditation on what constitutes happiness, the possibilities of non-verbal speech, and acknowledging qualities that make us different be it because of race, language, or basic … Continue reading Happiness Falls: More than a Mystery
This is the fourth Sally Hepworth novel I’ve read. They are all very different but what they have in common are surprising twists as the story unwinds along with firmly grounded, well developed characters. I’m not usually drawn to this particular kind of book but unlike many others in this genre, Hepworth so fully entrenches … Continue reading The Past is Always With Us: Darling Girls
If this is your introduction into the world of Ruth Reichl, you are in for a sumptuous treat. Her books, whether memoir or fiction, bring the senses alive. This book is a modern-day fairy tale. The reader is transported to a world of taste, smell, and an insider’s look of a Paris we all wish we could magically inhabit.
Reader’s Cafe 