This 2014 National Book Award Finalist is a beautiful affirmation of hope in the face of devastating loss and upheaval. Station Eleven is often characterized as an apocalyptic novel, but I believe this term is too limiting and does a disservice to the author. While the destruction of civilization is at the core of the plot, Mandel is more concerned with the creation of a new world than the destruction of the old one. This is a novel about resilience, about knowing what to hold […]
In the Bleak Mid-Winter
I’ve now read all of two Edith Wharton novels and she is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. With beautiful evocative prose, Wharton creates the socially circumscribed world of early 20th-century East Coast America, a bleak place where romantic tragedies occur. In The House of Mirth, the main character Lily Bart was a beautiful young woman whose family status gave her access to upper class New York society but whose sex and poverty severely limited her ability to function successfully there. In Ethan Frome, […]
The Real World: Little House on the Prairie
I think I read all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books when I was a kid and I watched the TV show for at least a few years when it ran. While I enjoyed the novels and the TV show, I don’t remember re-reading or re-watching them, so I am what you might call a casual fan as opposed to a fanatic. Still, when I read last summer that the “true story” of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life — in her own words — was […]
Read it because it will make you sad and angry
This is a short novel that reads very quickly, but at a certain point, when you realize a tragedy is in the offing, it might slow you down. I dreaded finding out what was going to happen to characters whom I liked so much. The Book of Unknown Americans focuses on immigrant families living in the same apartment complex in Wilmington, Delaware. Henriquez allows each family or individual to speak for themselves in each chapter, and so the reader learns about the diversity within. They […]
Silas Marner Gets the Lifetime Movie Treatment
This novel was, apparently, a New York Times bestseller. I don’t recall reading any reviews of it, but I’m guessing it was a big hit with folks looking for something easy to take to the beach or on long plane rides. The funny thing is, it’s exactly the type of book the main character hates. AJ Fikry is an over-educated 40-ish widower who owns a bookstore on Alice Island, which is near Nantucket. He is grumpy and has very exacting tastes in literature, preferring short […]
A Delightfully Gloomy Norwegian Novel
…you don’t know what mothers do when they can’t stop crying…. This is a delightfully gloomy Norwegian novel about tragedy, death, and loss of one’s treasure. You know you’re off to a good start with a sentence like this: Jenny Brodal had not had a drink in nearly twenty years. She opened a bottle of Cabernet and poured herself a large glass. Jenny is 75 and her daughter Siri is throwing her a birthday party at their summer home, Mailund, on a winding, misty coast […]