Clare Pooley Novels
Clare Pooley Novels If you are looking for charming, feel-good stories, I recommend the novels of British author and former advertising executive Clare Pooley. I reviewed How to Age Disgracefully […]
The Novels of Barbara Pym
The Novels of Barbara Pym 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite British authors Barbara Pym. So by way of celebration, I reread a […]
Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward I could not finish this dramatically downbeat book about a poor rural family on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, but my book club’s thoughtful […]
Life After Life
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Don’t you wonder what might have happened if you had married another, spoken sooner, or taken a different route home? Ursula Todd, the protagonist […]
Crusoe’s Daughter
Crusoe’s Daughter by Jane Gardam This is my third Gardam book in as many months. Having enjoyed Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat, I turned to Crusoe’s […]
The Man in the Wooden Hat
The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam (Book 2) Don’t you occasionally wonder how your spouse experiences your mutual milestones as well as the minutia of your everyday […]
Old Filth
Old Filth by Jane Gardam (Book 1) Prior to his retirement to Dorset, Sir Edward Feathers was a successful Hong Kong judge. He was greatly admired in the legal community, […]
Beautiful Ruins
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter Satirical novels about the movie business are funny but rarely charming. Beautiful Ruins manages to be both. In 1962, a beautiful actress arrives on the […]
The Weird Sisters
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown “The weird sisters” of the title are not necessarily all that peculiar, but as daughters of a professor of Shakespeare who names them after […]
The Weight of Ink
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish I love it when a novel inspires me to conduct extra research, and in The Weight of Ink there was plenty of material […]
The Visitors
The Visitors by Sally Beauman The discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1923 was the single most important Egyptian archeological find of the 20th C. Not because King Tut was […]
The Three Weissmanns of Westport
The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine Betty Weissmann lives with her two middle-aged daughters. Or rather mother and daughters are living together again—after 20+ years. This unnatural situation […]
The Thing Around Your Neck
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The NCN Book Club’s January read was a stunning short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, […]
The Spies of Shilling Lane
The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan The Spies of Shilling Lane is another British World War II era novel from the author of the best-seller The Chilbury Ladies’ […]
The Son
The Son by Philipp Meyer When a friend asked me about The Son, I told her that I probably would not finish it– seeing as it is about a few […]