Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee is the follow up to To Kill a Mockingbird. Written before Mockingbird, Watchman is set two decades later when Scout is a young woman 26 years old living in NYC and returning to Maycomb, Alabama for a visit. What she finds when she returns home, disturbs her greatly and turns her whole world upside down. Her Father and her fiancee are not the perfect men she always believed them to be and she…
After reading Dinner with Buddha, someone recommended The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie. Told from the cat’s perspective the book is filled with rare insights and bits of wisdom gathered while sitting on the Dalai Lama’s lap or in the windowsill while he entertains famous visitors from around the world. A funny, charming book for cat lovers, Buddhists, or anyone interested in an entertaining read filled with simple life lessons for greater happiness. This is the first in the…
Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand, is set on Nantucket Island at Christmastime where the Quinn family reunites for their yearly ritual. The past year has been full of sorrow because one son is in jail for insider trading and another is missing in action in Afghanistan. However, they come together to celebrate the baptism of the third son’s new baby girl and there is much joy to go around as well. It was somewhat fun to escape into a family’s…
Emma, by Alexander McCall Smith is a modern day retelling of Jane Austin’s classic. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read the original, so I can’t make a comparison of the two. However, I did enjoy McCall Smith’s novel. Emma is a spoiled, snobbish and rather unlikable young woman living in the English countryside, zipping around in her Mini Cooper and meddling in everyone’s lives. Over the course of one summer, she learns a lot about life and becomes self-reflective…
I’m not sure why I keep reading Elizabeth Strout’s books, but I do. Her latest, My Name is Lucy Barton, is about a woman who lives in New York with her husband and two young daughters and is in the hospital for nine weeks when her mother, who she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years, shows up from her childhood home in Agmash, llinois. The book is made up of Lucy’s reflections on their conversations during this week. Strout’s…
The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig is a novel set in 1920’s London. When Rachel’s mother dies, she returns from her job as a governess in France to discover a picture of her father who she believed died when she was four. He is a famous and respected Earl, while she has lived her life in near poverty. She seeks entrance into society to find out the truth about her family and to seek revenge. It was all a bit…
Dinner with Buddha by Roland Merullo is a follow up to his earlier novel Breakfast with Buddha. Fifty-one year old Otto Ringling had lost his wife, his job and his way. He takes time out to visit his sister and enlightened brother in law, Volya Rinpoche and embarks on another road trip across the Western United States in search of…he’s not exactly sure. It’s impossible not to be drawn into Rinpoche’s simple wisdom, humor and gentle nature. A wonderful story…
The Photographer’s Wife by Suzanne Joinson is a novel set in 1920’s Jerusalem and 1937 England. The protagonist is not actually the photographer’s wife, but rather 11 year old Prue, daughter of an English architect living in Jerusalem. Seventeen years later, she is an artist living by the English seaside with her young son, when memories of her childhood in Jerusalem come back to haunt her. A beautifully written book, almost like a dream, yet lacking in depth and character…
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy is a novel about a big American family with thirteen kids from Detroit and the house they all grew up in. They are grown now, and the oldest brother Cha-Cha is seeing a psychiatrist because he believes he has been seeing a ghost, or a haint, as they are called down South where his parents are from. The house is empty now and in what’s become a bad neighborhood in the city. Most of…
Untwine is the new novel by Haitian author Edwidge Danticat. Set in Miami, it is the story of two identical twin sisters, born holding hands. Sixteen years later, one wakes up in a hospital room unable to speak or move and tries to piece together the tragedy that just befell her family. A beautifully written novel; a heartbreaking story about loss and finding yourself again. However, I kept hoping something else was going to happen in the story, and when…