Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett is a rambling little stream of consciousness book of connected stories of daily life by an unnamed female narrator living in an unnamed coastal village in an unnamed European country. She spends a lot of time eating porridge and taking out the compost. Some reviewers found this book brilliant and highly original. I found it interminable.
A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay is a novel about an art restorer who meets and falls in love with an Italian chef, then marries him after two weeks and follows him home to Italy. Once there, she has a hard time fitting in; mostly she tries to fix everyone and everything and begins questioning her life choices and marriage. A somewhat charming, yet forgettable read.
The Red Car by Marcy Demansky is a deceptively simple little novel that packs a real punch. When Leah gets a call in NY that her old boss and mentor died in a car accident and left her her red car, Leah flies out to SF for her funeral, leaving her possessive husband behind. There, her old life awaits her and she finds herself on a journey of self discovery in the very car that killed her friend, a car…
Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey is an original debut novel about a Brazilian writer who one day takes a small suitcase, climbs into a tree and disappears. This sends her two grown children and her American translator on a quest to find her. They discover she had an online gambling debt, is being chased by a loan shark and might be in contact with her editor. The writing is brilliant, I liked it better than I liked the characters…
The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood is a novel about Ava, a woman living in Providence, Rhode Island. Her husband of 25 years leaves her for an old fling, her grown kids are both living abroad and she finds herself alone and lonely, until she joins a book club. This book club is much more serious than any I have ever been a part of, it was intimidating just reading about it. Each person picks the book that…
The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis is historical fiction based on the Barbizon Hotel for women, referred to as The Dollhouse in the 50’s, and the women who lived there. Mystery unfolds as present day journalist Rose tries to discover what happened on a tragic night in 1952 to one of the older women still living in the building. Rich in detail of NYC’s jazz scene at the time, and full of colorful characters, this should have been a great book….
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller is a novel set in Dorset, England. A mystery involving the disappearance and assumed drowning of a mother with ten and fifteen year old daughters. During the last days before her disappearance, she wrote letters to her husband and placed them in the books piled all over the house. Eleven years later, believing he has spotted his missing wife, the father takes a bad fall and the daughters come home to take care of him….
The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith is part of his 44 Scotland Street Series. I’ve read a couple of these, so far this is my favorite. McCall Smith is back with his usual charm and wit; this time Bertie’s Mother is on a prolonged stay in the Persian Gulf. When his Grandmother arrives from Portugal, she quickly cancels his yoga, psycho-therapy and Italian lessons, orders him a pizza and gets down to the business of letting him…
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick is a sweet book about a sixty-nine year old man whose wife of forty years has just died. On the one year anniversary of her death, he decides to clean out her closet and finds a gold charm bracelet unlike anything he has ever seen his wife wear. It sets him on a trail of discovery and travel as he finds the meaning behind each charm and uncovers his wife’s long…
When Women Were Birds, Fifty Four Meditations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams is a beautiful, poetic, meditative memoir that is written in honor of Tempest William’s mother, who has passed away and left her her journals; three shelves of journals she was instructed not to read until her mother was gone. When she opened them, she found every single one blank. This book is Tempest William’s reflections on what that might mean, and we are richer for the experience…