Written by Steven Galloway “The Cellist of Sarajevo” is a stunning book in every sense of the word. It is a stark yet surprisingly inspirational novel that takes us into the midst of war. Set in the capital city of Bosnia Herzegovena in 1992, during the first of the four years Sarajevo was under...
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“Noah’s Compass” Written by Anne Tyler I’ve been thinking a lot about Liam Pennywell over the last few days. Wondering how he’s getting along. Whether he and Barbara will be spending any holidays with the kids over the next months … That’s what Anne Tyler does to me. She introduces me to a character...
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“The Paris Wife” Written by Paula McLain I’m downright dizzy from the hours I’ve just spent with young Ernest Hemingway and his appealing wife, Hadley, in the apartments and cafés of the Left Bank of Paris in the 1920s. It’s exhilarating! One day we’re listening to Gertrude Stein tell Ernest to stick to strong,...
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“Mudbound” Written by Hillary Jordan When I looked at the title of Hillary Jordan’s “Mudbound” (2009) on my book club list, my heart sank. It sounded like the last book in the world I’d like to read during the excessively wet spring we’ve had, but I grudgingly picked it up. Yet in spite of...
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“The Glass Room” Written by Simon Mawer Simon Mawer’s latest novel “The Glass Room” (2009) will keep any book club talking for hours on end. In my group we didn’t even wait to get our coats off before we began an animated discussion. The story is set in Czechoslovakia during the 1920s and ‘30s...
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“Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” Written by Helen Simonson After many false starts, Helen Simonson finally discovered the winning ticket to writing her first published novel. She tells an interviewer she put aside her early efforts at an edgy sort of book that people might expect from a 30-something woman and sat down instead to...
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“Love and Summer” Written by William Trevor How could it be that I’ve only now just discovered the prolific William Trevor? The 82-year-old Irish writer who now calls England home has won the O. Henry Prize four times, the Whitbread Prize three times and according to a reviewer in The Washington Post, “has been...
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“The Last Chinese Chef” Written by Nicole Mones Nicole Mones gives readers two gifts in her novel, “The Last Chinese Chef” (2007). The first is an appealing story of a budding cross-cultural romance between two complex characters. The other is her encyclopedic knowledge of the culinary culture of China. Mones was a frequent contributor...
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“Lifesaving: A Memoir” Written by Judith Barrington It was hard for poet Judith Barrington to write “Lifesaving: A Memoir” (2000). In her poetry and fiction, she could soften the starkness of her raw emotions, but the memoir required her to claim the feelings and behaviors as her own. Barrington’s clear and honest writing in...
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Written by Joyce Maynard Joyce Maynard. Just her name conjures up so many images for me that my curiosity impelled me to pick up her recently released paperback, “Labor Day.” In the 1980s Maynard wrote a syndicated column, “Domestic Affairs,” that I, as a new mother, followed religiously. Her daily reports of life in...
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