Elinor Lipman hits upon another fun one. Emma Lewis is taking over her parent’s estate sale business. She is living in their home rent free, and her father’s friend and her high school algebra teacher Frank is moving in as a renter. A former “bed and breakfast” that had more use for the beds than for breakfast, is going up for sale and an estate sale is needed. Emma jumps on the opportunity, coming to realize the open secret of the town – it was a brothel. Emma begins dating the handsome new Police Chief, and Frank begins dating the mother. Screwball comedy ensues. Light, fun romantic comedy.
Tag: books
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Rosie and Penn fell in love, got married, and had kids. After 3 boys they decided to try one last time for a girl. Then Claude was born. Creative, smart, and by 5 years old obsessed with becoming a princess. ER Doctor mom and Author Penn go to great lengths to keep this a family secret. While they tried everything to support their child, the complexities of what this truly is and the choices that must be made are overwhelming. And secrets are difficult to keep. When this is reveled the confusion grows for everyone. The truth of this is stark. No matter what is done there are two sides to each choice. While there are a few things missing, like the mom not knowing what additional resources to use to help, it faces a difficult topic with compassion. The fact that there is no one answer is the point of the story.
The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King
Monica Tsai, a reclusive computer science college student, is torn between the project her professor has her working on and the need to help her recently Alzheimer’s diagnosed grandmother. Through her work on the project EMRG, an application that is to connect people, she finds a connection to her grandmother’s cousin. As she works to untangle the past, she learns of the magic that existed in the family to reforge or recreate the words written with handmade pencils from the family company. A family saga follows them through wars and distance, always returning to the heart – of the pencil or of the family. What happens to the stories written in pencil appears to be going the same way for the digital content. As her grandmother faced the question of is it right to share other’s words without their knowledge, so does Monica.
The work for her professor is about journalling to leave a digital record of who you are and what your life was. The work for her grandmother was the same, but through the process of reforging from a pencil. Either way, the importance of leaving your story for others to share is the focus.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
In the year 2044 the world is harsh to those that don’t have much. The escape is into a virtual reality game called Oasis. Created by James Halladay, a pop culture fan of the 1980s, who passed away five years earlier. Control of this program/world is to be gained through an “easter egg hunt”. Clues are hard to find, and no one has been able to find them in all these years.
Eighteen year old Wade Watts spends as much time in Oasis as possible. With few friends, and few resources, he is able to project who he wants to be by selecting an avatar and hiding behind it. This is where he meets his friends. And you can’t believe that it is Wade that solves the first clue. The world takes notice, and the chase is on – and is real in both Oasis and the real world.
Great puzzle, engaging characters, and a timeless message. Be true to who you are, and you will always find your place.
What ever happened to Kitty Karr? by Crystal Smith Paul
This novel is a story told by two people – Kitty Karr, a star actress, and her former co-star’s daughter, Elise St John. When you start you are with Elise, and you are sent in circles trying to figure out who she is, how she is connected, and why we should care. The Kitty Karr parts are fascinating, learning how she came to California in a long and winding fashion. It is even more circuitous to finding out the relationship to Elise St John.
In the end, this was an easily guessed premise that has been used many times. I did, however, enjoy Kitty’s story. Elise’s seemed too contrived.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
Inspired by the life of Martha Ballard, a well‑known midwife from the 1700s, this book gives a close look at a world where women had to live very carefully. They worked hard at home, supported their husbands, raised their children, and went to church. Anything outside those roles was risky. A woman’s word was rarely trusted. She could only speak in court if her husband stood beside her. Even years of hands‑on experience meant less than a man’s formal education. And if a woman became pregnant outside of marriage, she carried all the blame and shame.
In this setting, Martha Ballard is asked to examine the body of a man pulled from the river. With no doctor in town, her experience as a midwife made her the closest thing to a medical expert. The dead man was a well‑known citizen who had recently been accused of a violent rape. One of the other accused men—the town magistrate—decides that a newly arrived doctor should give the official opinion instead. This doctor immediately contradicts Martha’s conclusion that the man was murdered.
Against this backdrop, we see Martha support and protect women through her work as a midwife, pushing back against male arrogance and sexism. We also see her try to raise her children, especially her sons, to be good and responsible people. Her husband loved her and even taught her to read and write, which gave her opportunities most women of the time did not have.
Some of the conversations between the Ballards, and between groups of women, felt more modern than I expected, which made me wonder how much creative license the author used. Still, the story was interesting and worth reading. I do prefer her other book, The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress. That was really good.
Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan by Various Authors
I’ve been trying to read books from around the world to learn about different cultures, and that led me to this collection of stories by women authors from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is in Central Asia and is bordered by Russia to the north, China to the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea, and Turkmenistan to the south.
The stories in this book were originally written in both Russian and Kazakh, and they span many different time periods. It seemed to me that the language used in each story might reflect the political leadership at the time it was written, though that’s just my impression. Each story offers a small window into the country’s culture and traditions. Together, they show powerful moments of what life was like for women in different eras.
If you enjoy learning about people around the world—and seeing how our lives can be both similar and different—this collection is a meaningful and eye‑opening read
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout brings many of her familiar characters back together in Crosby, Maine. By pulling in people and histories from her earlier books, she continues the character‑driven storytelling she’s known for.
This time, Lucy Barton and her ex‑husband William, Bob Burgess and his wife Margaret, and Olive Kitteridge and her friend Isabelle Goodrow all end up in the same orbit. It’s an unusual mix, and even when I tried to map out how everyone was connected, it still felt tangled. What holds the book together is the way these characters pair off and share stories about other people. There is a lot of this. Bob hears about his sister‑in‑law’s declining health from his sister instead of his brother. Olive learns about Isabelle’s future living situation from the retirement‑home staff. Bob hears about Lucy’s plans from William. Almost everything comes secondhand, like gossip passed along before reaching the source. It made me want to know the full truth behind each story.
Each character is trying to understand not only their own place in the world but also what life means more broadly. Lucy and Olive meet to talk about “unrecorded lives,” hoping to shine light on people who might otherwise be forgotten. The fear of not being remembered—or not mattering—runs through many of Strout’s stories about these women, and it feels like the force behind their need to tell and retell these moments.
Bob’s murder case also ties into this theme of being seen. The young man accused of killing his mother has lived a life mostly unnoticed while caring for her. Bob helps bring him into a world he has been shut out of. This storyline requires action based on what Bob observes in the present, while many of the other stories rely on looking back at things that have already happened.
I enjoyed reading about these people, but this is a very contemplative book.
Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris
This book is told in two different timelines, and at first they don’t seem to connect. The stories are interesting on their own, but I struggled to see how the years between them fit together. Maybe that was intentional—maybe we aren’t supposed to know everything that happened. Still, I found myself wanting more answers, especially about the rituals that survived without much explanation.
The first timeline takes place in 1492 and follows Luis de Torres as he flees the Spanish Inquisition. Although his family has publicly converted to Christianity, they secretly continue practicing Judaism as “Conversos.” As danger grows in Portugal and the risk of being exposed increases, Luis leaves his family behind. He joins Christopher Columbus’s voyage as an interpreter, hoping to find a safe new home where his family can eventually join him.
The second timeline is set in 1992 in Entrada de la Luna, New Mexico. Miguel Torres is a teenager who loves the stars but lives in a town with little opportunity. Nearly everyone in the community is either a Torres or a Roybal, or both. Vincente Roybal, who owns the town store, has spent decades building a family tree to understand why. When Miguel visits the store for supplies—sometimes buying them, sometimes receiving them as gifts from the kind‑hearted Roybal—he notices an ad for a nanny job. At just 15, he calls the number and is hired by Rachel Rothstein, a newcomer to town.
As Miguel works for Rachel, he begins to recognize rituals, like Friday night Shabbat dinners, that feel familiar to his own family’s traditions. After one of the boys he watches is injured, Rachel finds Miguel at his favorite stargazing spot—the old town cemetery, where he uses a telescope given to him by his world‑traveling aunt. There, Rachel notices that many of the headstones are written in Hebrew. This discovery leads the town to uncover its hidden Jewish roots, much like many other families descended from Conversos.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed
This story explores the expectations society places on women and the personal cost of trying to meet them. It takes place in the male‑dominated world of 1980s space exploration, where women are only beginning to break through. Reading it reminds us how much has changed in the last 40 years.
The book uses two timelines that eventually come together. This structure shows how each choice Joan Goodwin makes leads her to the moment she is living now. The back‑and‑forth kept me engaged, trying to connect her past to her present and guess what would happen next.
Joan tells her own story. As a child, she loved the stars and pushed through tough science classes to become an astronomer. She earned her doctorate and became a professor at Rice University. She was proud of what she had achieved and didn’t expect to go any further. Is it a mirror opposite of her sister, Barbara, who challenged rules in her own way but still felt trapped by society’s expectations. Barbara’s daughter, Franny, is raised by both her mother and Joan.
Everything changes when Barbara finds an ad calling for women to apply to NASA and shares it with Joan. Joan applies on a whim, never thinking she’ll be chosen. But she is—and suddenly she must put her own goals first. As she steps into this new world, her relationships shift, especially with her sister. Joan begins to see how often she lets others define her place in their lives.
During astronaut training, Joan forms a new circle of friends—Hank Redmond, John Griffin, Lydia Danes, Donna Fitzgerald, and Vanessa Ford. They help her see new possibilities for her life. As her love for space grows, so does her sense of self. When she falls in love for the first time, she again faces pressure to hide who she is and fit into a role others expect.
When the two timelines finally meet, Joan understands what she wants, who she is, and what she stands for. She stays true to herself and supports the people she loves as they try to do the same.
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