Miss Benson’s Beetle, by Rachel Joyce

What to read when… …you need to feel there are still adventures to be had in this world.  I promise you that Miss Benson’s Beetle will make you want to quit your job, sell all your belongings, and hop a freight for the other side of the world.  The only issue there is that I […]

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, by Lisa See

I hope I’m not alone in this.  Women mostly don’t talk about it.  I know I haven’t.  But I believe that if you’ve had a miscarriage, or had trouble getting pregnant, or if you’ve given birth to a special needs child, then inevitably we all ask the same question.  It’s the one we’re never supposed […]

Weyward, by Emilia Hart

I finished this book last night and this morning I saved an ant who had crawled up into my kitchen sink.  Violet and her striped-leg spider, Goldie, are entirely to blame.  Normally there would have been a swift death by drowning, but thanks to this book, I carefully led the ant onto a paper towel […]

Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr

Any author who gets me to read science fiction has absolutely earned their Pulitzer Prize.  I don’t know if it’s Konstance’s mass of curls that “haloes” her head or the fact that her socks are full of holes, but I was entirely sunk by the end of the very first paragraph of Cloud Cuckoo Land.  […]

The Exiles, by Christina Baker Kline

There are only a few cardinal rules for a writer: you must not be boring (I’m looking at you, Trust by Hernan Diaz, whom I can pick on because you won a Pulitzer Prize).  You must also not have plot holes (Doerr, what were you thinking?  I haven’t finished Cloud Cuckoo Land yet, so I […]

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto

What to read when… …your boyfriend’s moved in and you’re trying really hard to be normal about it.  It had been 13 years since a man lived in my house, and for all the ways his nearness turned me into a warm gooey brownie inside, his permanent presence in my previously unmanned house baked me […]

The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams

I think some of us always remember the first time we’re called a “dumb b*tch.”  It happened to me at 19—stalled out in the middle of an intersection, in the driver’s seat of a car I could not drive.  The car was an ’87 Pontiac Sunbird, five-speed…manual transmission.  I had been taught to drive the […]

Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

What to read when… …you just need a soft place to go to sleep.  Do you have a “comfort” book?  Something like mashed potatoes, or macaroni and cheese, or ice cream?  A book you read on a bad day but with less calories?  Or maybe a book you switch over to when you’re finishing Colson […]

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

I dropped out of school in 9th grade, was married at 17, and had two children by 21, so um, yes, I’ve been in Nora’s shoes and wondering what my life might look like if I’d made different choices.  Sadly, we meet Nora at the lowest point in her life—possibly the end of her life […]

The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Before beginning this post, I searched the house for my copy of Eat, Pray, Love.  I thought it would be interesting to compare the writing style between the books, since I thought I remembered that Gilbert sounds like a more serious Mindy Kaling in the former (have you read Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? […]