The Oblivion Seekers by Isabelle Eberhardt translated by Paul Bowles (author of The Sheltering Sky) is a small collection of writings that fascinated me and sent me traveling around the world on my own many many years ago. I have just revisited this slim volume after my daughter asked me “Who was the woman you read about who dressed up like a man and traveled in North Africa over 100 years ago?” Re-reading Eberhardt’s work continues to inspire me. Much…
The Cemetery of Untold Stories is the newest novel by Julia Alvarez. There are some parallels here between Alma, the protagonist and Alvarez herself. A Dominican writer and teacher retires and sells her house in her small New England town and moves back to the DR after inheriting a piece of unwanted land left to her by her family. Her three sisters think she’s lost her mind when she decides to live there and build a cemetery for her unfinished…
The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark is set in India in 1947 on the eve of Britain’s departure. Evie and her anthropologist husband and young son are living in a colonial bungalow where she finds a packet of letters hidden in the wall written by the bungalow’s previous residents in 1857. Newmark paints a compelling picture of war-torn India as the story goes back and forth between these two time-lines. Newmark captures the sights, sounds and smells of India, the…
The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi by Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees is a beautiful novel that unfolds in two parallel stories, one modern and one set in the thirteen century. Part historical fiction based on the life of Rumi and his beloved mentor and friend Shams of Tabriz. I spent the last month in Turkey and read this novel while I was there. I was much more drawn to the story line…
The Museum of Failures is the latest novel by Thrity Umrigar author of The Space Between Us. Remy, born and raised in Bombay and now living in America with an American wife hasn’t been back home to see his ailing mother in many years. He has always found her difficult. While spending time in India and hoping to adopt a child of his own there, family secrets surface which give him a whole new understanding of his mother, his father…
The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery couldn’t be more different than her book The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and if you loved one, you most likely will not like the other. The Life of Elves is a highly lyrical, often esoteric fable about two young girls Maria and Clara, one living in a small village in France, the other in Italy, united by their strange otherworldly powers and ancient magic. Everything depends on them as a battle between dark…
The Second Chance Store by Lauren Bravo is a novel set in England. Gwen, 38, single, recently let go from her job finds her second chance volunteering at a charity shop. Although somewhat predictable, this novel is full of a lot of heart. As each item in the charity shop finds its second chance, so too does Gwen. An easy, enjoyable, non-demanding read; a perfect escape.
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes is a surprisingly funny, heartfelt novel set in L.A. Richard, middle-aged, successful, living in a fabulous house in a wealthy L.A. neighborhood appears to have everything; but his life has become sterile and boring and completely shut off from the rest of the world until a few events that he can’t avoid pull him out of his isolation. In this book you will find sinkholes, horses, famous actors, helicopters, kidnapping, donuts…
Glaciers is a slim little novel by Alexis M. Smith. It takes place in Portland, OR over the course of one day in the life of twenty-something Isabel. This is a book about longing. Longing for a past that is gone, longing for a future she imagines and longing in the present for a relationship with a soldier who is about to be shipped off to war. Isabel remembers her past growing up in Alaska and watching the glaciers already…
Lisa See is one of my favorite authors of historical fiction and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is her latest book. Set during the Ming Dynasty it tells the story of Tan Yunxian, a female doctor whose remedies are still used today. Xunxian and Meiling come from very different backgrounds, one is raised by her grandmother who is a doctor and the other by her mother who is a midwife. Despite their different circumstances, they form a deep friendship that…