AN AVAILABLE MAN BY HILMA WOLITZER

This is a very tender and funny novel.  The author mines the unpredictable fallout of suddenly becoming single later in life, and the chaos and joys of falling in love the second time around.  

The main character is Edward Schuyler, a modest and bookish, sixty-two year old science teacher who is widowed and finds himself ambushed by female attention.  

He begins dating, torn between his loyalty to Bee's memory and his growing longing for connection. 

Just when he thinks that he has the game figured out, a chance meeting proves again that love arrives when you least expect it. 

The novel celebrates the endurance of love and its thrilling capacity to bloom anew.

FORGOTTEN COUNTRY BY CATHERINE CHUNG

This is a very interesting story about inner relationships in a Korean family.  The story line doesn't go very far, but the characterizations are very interesting.  I enjoyed the intense love-hate relationship between the sisters.  It was fascinating to see why this family moved to America and how they were rejected.  The husband-wife relationship and family relationships, once they moved back to Korea, because the dad had cancer were also fascinating.

THE TIME KEEPER BY MITCH ALBOM

This is a truly excellent fable.  It is the story of a timekeeper.  The real value is that it tells the value of time and how to live in the moment.

THE SECRET KEEPER BY KATE MORTON

This is an excellent novel!!!!   It's a real page turner!!!!!

It starts in 1961 when Laurel, hiding in her tree house is the witness to a strange man coming up the walkway of their farm.    He has "found" her Mother who is carrying Laurel's baby brother, Jerry.  Laurel's mother kills the man and Laurel is the witness to something that the family never discusses.

Years later as the mom is dying Laurel unravels this amazing World War II story.  It's the story of Jimmy, Vivian, Dolly and Henry and the setting is World War II during the German bombing of London.

An amazing story!!!!!!!

OF MICE AND MEN BY JOHN STEINBECK

This is an intimate portrait of two men, George and Lennie, facing a world marked by petty tyranny. misunderstanding, jealousy and callousness.  

The theme is universal.  It is about a friendship and shared dream that makes an individuals existence meaningful.

WENDY AND THE LOST BOYS BY JULIE SALAMON

The book tells the story of the life of Wendy Wasserstein.

I found this book to be a very interesting portrait of a playwright who had to deal with a very difficult family in a very difficult time period.

WILD BY CHERYL STAYED

This is a blazingly honest memoir:  the story of an eleven hundred mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again.

It captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened and ultimately healed her.

It's from LOST TO FOUND ON THE PACIFIC COAST TRAIL.


Stunning, an incredible journey inward and outward!!!!