Spark Joy, an Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo is the companion to her earlier book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Marie Kondo is everywhere now with her own Netfilx special, so if you’re not yet aware of these books, you probably will be soon. This second book should be read and used only after reading the first book. If you are already on your…
The baby is dead. This is the opening line of The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani, translated from the French. After having two young children, the mother decides to return to work and looks for a nanny for her kids. After seeing so many candidates that won’t do, the seemingly perfect nanny arrives at their doorstep. However, with an opening like that, the reader knows something terrible is going to happen and it is Slimani’s writing and pacing that keeps…
Calypso is the latest by David Sedaris. I love David Sedaris and am going to see him read later this month. However, this is probably my least favorite of his books. Deeply personal and quite heavy, with topics ranging from aging, to his sisters suicide, his relationship with his father, his mother’s alcoholism, etc. Although still very clever and witty, I found this collection somewhat depressing; nowhere near as laugh out loud funny as Me Talk Pretty One Day or…
The Clockmaker’s Daughter is the new novel by Kate Morton. I love getting lost in her books. This time it is set at a house in the countryside in England on the banks of the Upper Thames. The novel follows all those who have lived in or passed through the house. There is a tragedy and a mystery at the heart of the book and one narrator who sees it all. I love Morton’s writing and even at 500 pages…
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is a beautiful novel about a socially awkward young woman who spends all her time alone when she is not working. As circumstances throw her into an unlikely friendship with a coworker, we see her inner world slowly open up in the most intimate, vulnerable and often hilarious ways. A character reminiscent of Fredrik Backman’s Ove and Britt-Marie, but wholly her own, it is impossible not to laugh out loud and fall…
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by John Oliver and Jill Twiss is my favorite book of the year. If you haven’t read it, order a copy now from Amazon, all the proceeds go to charity. The book tells the story of Mike Pence’s bunny Marlon Bundo, who finds himself in love with a boy bunny. They get married, despite the stink bug (that looks an awful lot like Mike Pence) telling them they couldn’t. The message that…
It’s fitting to end 2018 with the best selling book of the year, Becoming by Michelle Obama. The book is broken up into three parts, the first about her childhood and teenage years through college. This is the part I took the most issue with, as I feel like so much was left out. The reader never got a real view into teenage stumbles or anything that would be considered remotely controversial. Much is made about this book being honest,…
Ordinary People by Diana Evans is a novel that follows the lives of two black couples during a year of marital struggles in London, starting on the eve of the Obama presidency. One couple lives in a crooked, drafty, possibly haunted house which becomes a character all its own; the other couple has moved outside the city to get away from crime and to raise their kids. The four are friends and their lives intersect in ways that are both…
A Separation by Katie Kitamura is a small, taut, suspenseful novel about a woman who has been separated from her cheating husband for six months, but his parents don’t know. Then he goes missing in a small town in Greece and she is called upon to go look for him. As the novel slowly unfolds, Kitamura’s power to draw the reader in with her almost hypnotic prose is on full display. An undeniably smart, well written book, yet also forgettable.
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven, is a novel about a young woman named Lilia who moves from place to place and has never learned to settle down, ever since her father took her away from her mother when she was a young girl and they spent years on the run. St. John Mandel is a brilliantly original writer, I was mesmerized by this story of a lost young woman searching for truth…