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
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.
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.
This novel is an absolute page turner. It encompasses many of the elements of what we think of as compelling historical fiction—context, a crime, a trial, a cover up, a disavowal of the rights of women. In its way, it is also a love story. It's also a tribute to women in history whose lives and achievements are left out of the history books. The protagonist is Martha Ballard, a real midwife and healer who lived and worked in colonial America. The seeds of this story were formed when the author, Ariel Lawhon, discovered her diaries.
I read this book quite by accident. Looking for an audio book from the library collection can be challenging if you aren't looking for #18 in a mystery series or self help. Anything remotely interesting is on hold and doesn't help the need for wanting it now! But then, every once in a while, there is a neglected book that turns out to be better than those high up on the best of lists. This may not have a great title but The Collected Regrets of Clover turned out to be a terrific story. Please don't be put off thinking it dark and dreary.
This is a multigenerational tale of a mixed-race family that has many complications. Mixed race is only the beginning. Add into the mix a gay couple who has a baby via sperm donor in the time when AIDS was at its peak. The child, now college age, has many questions about his father and it is with this quest that the book unfolds. THE OTHER MOTHER by Rachel M. Harper, is a novel about l who can be a mother, the different configurations of family, and how the actions of family members may be well-intentioned but destructive..
I don't typically read dystopian novels. Too dark for me. The very meaning of dystopia warns me away. It is an imaginary place in which everything is as bad as possible (Oxford dictionary). In the dystopian fiction world, societies are generally characterized by class divides, environmental devastation, and loss of individuality. Set in a near future, they are allegories to generate a sense of urgency to change our ways. Today is my first foray into this world. I read two dystopian novels this week set in an imaginable future that described a degraded world for all of us, but Asian Americans in particular. As the Chinese New Year began, with its horrific violence, it seemed fitting to immerse myself in these worlds. We have a long history of Asian American discrimination in our country, now exacerbated by the pandemic. Both books have Asian American protagonists.
This is a story of sisters like no other. As anyone who has ever had a sister, known someone with a sister, a read a book about sisters, it is one of the most complex relationships. This book takes the relationship into unusual territory. A story of sisters like no other. This book takes the relationship into unusual territory. To give you the enticing flavor of the story, this is the novel's first line, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamy." It is a fascinating story of deception, family's complicity and the girls caught in the middle.
Any writer worth her or his salt will tell you that reading is the most important part of learning how to write. Of course, if you aren't a voracious reader, why would you want to write in the first place? If you are reader or a writer or both or just like to read about books or writing or people who write or people who read, you are in the right place.
Reader’s Cafe 