This book is weird. Odd. Strange. But the weirdest, oddest, strangest part of all is this: It's really, really GOOD. I just couldn't stop reading it.

This is the second in the seasonal quartet by Scottish author Ali Smith. The series begins with "Autumn" (it was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize) and ends with "Summer," but you don't need to read them in order, unlike most series.

Taking place mostly on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day—with lots of flashbacks to earlier times, including another Christmas Day years ago—this is the story of two sisters, Iris and Sophia, as well as Sophia's son, Art. Iris and Sophia have been estranged for years. Iris is a bleeding-heart liberal who has made a life as a protestor, while Sophia, an entrepreneur, disdains this. Art and his live-in girlfriend, Charlotte, are supposed to visit his mom in Cornwall for Christmas. When he and Charlotte have a huge argument and she walks out of their London apartment, Art hires Luz, a homeless former college student from Croatia whom he meets at a bus shelter, to pretend she is Charlotte and come with him for the holiday. When they arrive late at night, quickly realizing that Sophia's mental state has frighteningly deteriorated, they call Iris in as a reinforcement—never mind that she and Sophia haven't talked for decades. What could possibly go wrong? Or put another way, what could possibly go right?

With both a lovely nod to Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" and a not-so-subtle diatribe against Brexit, this is a sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious family soap-opera drama that had me riveted to my reading chair.

The book may be a bit quirky in places, but the writing is truly extraordinary and the imaginative storyline so tight and well-crafted that what could have been just a literary highbrow novel is also a super good and compelling read.

This very short novel—really, more a novella—is one of the most powerful and poignant books I have ever read. It is the story of the Japanese "picture brides" who were sent to the United States in the early 20th century to marry Japanese men, who mostly needed another set of hands to do farm work and someone to warm their beds at night.

What makes this book so unusual is that it is told in the first person plural using the pronouns "we," "us," and "our" (instead of "I," as is typically done in the first person) by an unnamed narrator without named characters to populate the story. The first few sentences set the linguistic style for the rest of the novel: "On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves." The brilliance of this literary ploy is that author Julie Otsuka can better tell the sweeping, tragic story of the whole, rather than focusing on only one story that is not representative of the entire experience.

And tragic it is. Beginning with the trip on the boat from Japan to San Francisco, the story continues with the young women's first night with their new husbands, their hardworking lives doing backbreaking, exhausting labor, their birth experiences, their children, and their deportation to Japanese internment camps during World War II.

The immense power of this short book is in the masterful writing, which is so eloquent and exquisite that these words of prose are as close to poetry as prose can ever become.

This is the heartbreaking and remarkable story of resilient young women who immigrated to a strange land without family or friends and how they gradually relinquished their native identities of self and country to become Americans—even though they were shunned and persecuted and never fully accepted.

This is a difficult book to read. It's also difficult to stop reading.

It's difficult to read because of the subject matter—a 42-year-old high school English teacher grooms a 15-year-old student for sex—and it's difficult to stop reading because it's written with such psychological compassion, emotional depth, and intelligent insight into the human condition.

Here is the crux of the plot: He is a pedophile. But she thinks it's love.

Vanessa Wye is the one who never fit in. She is going into 9th grade and earns a scholarship to Browick, a prestigious boarding school in Maine. The novel begins at the start of Vanessa's sophomore year when she is taking an American literature class taught by Jacob Strane, a 42-year-old who has never married. He makes overtures to Vanessa, but she is so innocent and naïve she doesn't immediately figure out what is happening. When she does, she is thrilled. Strane tells her how special she is, so smart and talented. A rare gem. It doesn't take long for Strane to dress her up in little-girl pajamas and take her to bed. The affair continues for months until something truly devastating happens to Vanessa. And then come the years ahead as Vanessa tries to parse what occurred. Was she a victim? Did Strane really rape her if she was willing? He truly loved her, right? (Right?) The bulk of the book is about what happens to Vanessa after her affair with Strane ends, as she grapples with these questions that consume her so totally that her life is mostly in shambles.

This brilliant novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell is so much more than a lurid tale about a creepy pedophile grossly manipulating a child. (Although, it is that, too.) It's an important and vivid exploration of the meaning and effect of sexual abuse—a deep dive into the psychological horrors inflicted on Vanessa as she valiantly tries to cope while the adults in her life look the other way.

The thing that struck me over and over again was the sheer honesty with which the story is told. It would have been so easy for the author to fall back on platitudes and oversimplifications to neatly tie up the loose ends and make a sweet ending about a hundred pages earlier. But that doesn't happen. As such, it's almost brutal to read. But I dare you to stop!

This is a book about teen boys playing hockey. Well, kind of. I mean, yes, it is about teen boys playing hockey in a small town in Sweden. But it's SO SO SO much more than that. And if you barely know a puck from a stick (count me in that category), you will still love this book. Because it's about so much more than hockey.

This is a book with some of the best life advice you'll ever read. This is a book about parenting. This is a book about getting along with your neighbors. This is a book about marriage. This is a book about growing up. This is a book about families. This is a book about community. This is a book about what it truly means to have courage and to be loyal to your friends. This is a book about secrets. This is a book about love. This is a book with a heart. A very big heart.

Written by Fredrik Backman, this is the story—on the surface—of an unlikely ice hockey team in Beartown, Sweden. The boys were not supposed to be winners, but with the right coaching, dedicated players, and fanatical fans, the team turned into winners. Now they are getting ready for the championship—first the semifinal and then the final. But something horrific happens that leaves a 15-year-old girl stunned, shocked, and nearly suicidal and a 17-year-old boy terrified for his future. They aren't alone. All of Beartown takes sides, and the result is ugly and frightening, as well as one filled with courage.

The charm, heart, and soul of the book are the population of characters young and old—so many, but they are easy to remember because they are as distinct and special as real human beings. Add this to a solid plot, excellent writing, and brilliant insight into the human condition, and this book vaults into something extra special.

And bonus: The ending. It's perfect.

Treat yourself to a trip to Beartown.

This is a 10-star book in a five-star world.

If you're an Ann Patchett fan, this is a must-read. If you've never heard of Ann Patchett, you still need to read this, but first treat yourself to one or two of her novels. I highly recommend "The Dutch House" and "Bel Canto."

Each of these essays is a sparkling little gem, a valuable lesson in life, lessons in living and in dying. It could just be an astute observation or it could be a pithy little sentence that makes you go, "Yes! That's it!"

I adored every single one of the essays, but just to whet your appetite, here is a sampling:

• "Three Fathers": Ann Patchett had three fathers because her mother had three marriages, two of which ended in divorce. At her sister's wedding, Ann realized all three of the men, who were never together for obvious reasons, would be in the same place at the same time. So she had her photo taken with them. One of the dads astutely observed to the other two, "You know what she's going to do, don't you? She's going to wait until the three of us are dead and then she's going to write about us. This is the picture that will run with the piece." He was right.

• "The First Thanksgiving": When Ann was a freshman at Sarah Lawrence College in New York City she couldn't go home to Nashville, Tennessee for Thanksgiving. Because she didn't know any one well enough to be invited home for the long weekend, she stayed in the dorm. What happened next is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

• "How to Practice": A wise admonition to men and women of a certain age to get your house in order—clear the clutter, get your papers organized—long before you die so your children don't have to do it for you.

• "Cover Stories": A fascinating explanation of how book covers are created, specifically Ann Patchett's book covers.

The best one, and that's really saying a lot because they could all be considered "the best one," is the title story, "These Precious Days," in which Ann recounts her unlikely friendship with Tom Hanks's personal assistant, Sooki. Have a box of tissues handy when you read this one.

Brilliantly written with keen insight these essays are, quite simply, a treasure. When you close the book on the last page, you will feel like Ann Patchett is your friend because you will know that much about her.

Bonus: I read this book, as I read every book, on my Kindle. But if you read the hardcover version (it's not available in paperback yet), you get a double cover. The front and back covers are different. I had to Google it to see the back cover. Why? Read the essay "Cover Stories" to find out! (P.S. I just bought the hardcover version for just this reason.)

I hadn't even read half the book when I realized that this would likely be one of my favorite novels of all time. It is brilliant. A masterpiece. Monumental. All overused words in book reviews, but totally apt descriptors for this brilliant, monumental masterpiece by Kent Haruf.

Taking place in the fictional rural setting of Holt, Colorado, this is the story of several people who have one thing in common: They are all emotionally damaged, but through their interactions with each other they achieve a level of healing.
--High school history teacher Tom Guthrie is the father of two boys, Ike and Bobby who are 10 and 9 years old respectively. His wife, Ella, has retreated to the guest room where she sleeps all day and all night and eventually leaves the family entirely.
--Victoria Roubideaux is 17 and pregnant by a young man she met the previous summer. She has no idea where he is now. And things get complicated very quickly when her mother kicks her out of their house.
--Raymond and Harold McPheron are elderly brothers who live 17 miles out of town on a cattle ranch. Orphaned at a young age, the two have always lived together and neither ever married.
--Maggie Jones is a high school teacher who has a knack for helping others just when they need it most. But will she ever find happiness of her own?

The astonishingly spare and sparse prose in which the novel is written reflects the spare and sparse landscape of Holt. It's almost as if the writing style allows the reader to vicariously become a part of the setting. But at the same time, the writing is incredibly descriptive from an old screen door to the sight of oncoming headlights to the look of faded wallpaper. Brilliant. Monumental. A masterpiece.

This exquisite work of literature is also a compelling story with a finely rendered plot and characters that simply pop off the page they are so real and vivid. In many ways, this may be the Great American Novel—or at least in the top 10.

Just an afterthought: "Plainsong" was a finalist in 1999 for the National Book Award. Only a finalist? When I realized this, I immediately Googled to find out that year's winner. It was "Waiting" by Ha Jin, which I have read. Here are the opening lines of my review of "Waiting": On the one hand, this is a literary masterpiece, a political allegory, and a love story that won the 1999 National Book Award for Fiction, the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. On the other hand, the title is quite apt. The reader will be kept waiting…and waiting…and waiting for something to happen. It doesn't. This is a relatively short book that feels quite long.

"Plainsong" is better, in my opinion. Much, much better.

Bonus: This is the first in a three-part series, so the story doesn't end here. Yay!

I felt like I was looking in a mirror when I read this book. It is spookily close to my life story. Because of that resonance I found it to be powerful, heartbreaking, and healing, but I can't begin to fathom if this would be something most readers would also experience.

Magnificently written by Tara Conklin, this is the story of four siblings—Renee, Joe, Caroline, and Fiona Skinner. When they are still very young, their father dies suddenly of a heart attack. Their mother retreats to her bed with a debilitating depression—for three years. Still a child herself, Renee becomes the defacto mom, cooking dinner, doing laundry, reading bedtime stories. Joe tries to become the man of the family, Caroline suffers recurrent nightmares, and Fiona, at age five, is just confused. They call this time The Pause. Eventually it ends. The kids grow up. And when they are adults, one of the four of them dies. The book, which is narrated by grown-up Fiona, is not only the story of their childhood, but also the effect these two traumas had on each of them, the people they become, and most of all who they choose to love. Because more than anything, this is a love story. A family love story.

This book has it all: a well-developed, page-turning plot coupled with vivid, pop-off-the-page characters. Parts of it are hilarious, and parts of it made me cry. Just like real life. It is witty, wise, and tender.

Bonus: At the beginning of the third chapter there is a two-sentence description of female adolescence that is so perfect, so spot-on true that it will make all mothers who have or have ever had a 13-year-old daughter almost weep.

And I just want to say after my rather personal introduction to this review: My father died when I was seven, and one of my beloved sisters died more than a decade ago. But after my father's death, my mom never took to her bed. She will always be my hero for how she cared for my two sisters and me during a terrifying time.

This may be a perfect novel. The plot is compelling. The characters are painted with such vividness that they seem real. And the writing…oh my goodness. The writing sings. It is beautiful, lyrical, and poetry in prose. It's the kind of writing that demands to be reread.

This novel is a literary gift.

Written by Nathan Harris, this is the story of a beleaguered group of people living in rural Old Ox, Georgia just after the Civil War has ended.
• George and Isabelle Walker live on a large farm that they pretty much ignore. He is lazy, content to read, putter, and make occasional trips to town riding his trusty donkey, Ridley. She is quiet, reserved, and likes to be left alone.

• Caleb Walker and August Webler are best friends and brothers in arms in the war. But they are more than that. They are also secret lovers. August, who is the son of the town's richest man, returns to Old Ox without Caleb and with tragic news.

• Brothers Prentiss and Landry are slaves on a neighboring plantation who are set free thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. When given the opportunity, they leave their abusive master. They simply walk away from the plantation where George soon finds them in the woods on his property.

It is when two things happen—George, Prentiss, and Landry strike up a friendship and unusual business arrangement, while Caleb and August's deepest secret is revealed—that the rules of society are tested to the breaking point. And it is quiet, reclusive Isabelle who figures out how to survive amidst horrific violence, vicious murder, and senseless destruction.

This is an extraordinary, elegiac historical novel that is often unsettling but always insightful as the old order crumbles, and no one quite knows how to make sense of the new one. Highly recommended.

It may be titled "Spring," but this is not a book about the blossoming of new love or reveling in Earth's colorful pastel rebirth. It is bleak and dark with just a smidgen of hope. It's also experimental in form—so much so that when I was about 35 pages into the book, I stopped reading and started over at page one, which made all the difference to understanding what was happening.

Written by Scottish author Ali Smith, this is the third in what the author describes as a seasonal quartet. Unlike virtually all book series, this one does not need to be read in order. Each book is totally independent of the others. If they weren't grouped together as a quartet, you wouldn't even know they were a series.

But one thing the books in this seasonal quartet do have in common is they are all stories interwoven with political discourse. (Some might even call it political diatribe.) "Spring" is focused on immigration issues in Britain, specifically how immigrants are treated once they arrive. Many are housed in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) where they are held indefinitely—like prisoners—even though they are only supposed to be detained for 72 hours.

This is a book about lost souls in a very divided Britain. Richard Lease is an aging TV and film director who hasn't worked in years. Paddy, the woman who taught him so much and served as his muse has died. He is devastated and suicidal so he decides to travel north from London to Scotland to send her off—at least in his mind. Meanwhile, Brittany Hall is off to her dreaded job at an IRC when a little girl named Florence waylays her and convinces her to go with her to Scotland. Florence is an unusual child to say the least. She has a nearly magical ability to charm everyone around her to give her things, allow her to accomplish the seemingly impossible, and basically just get her way. It is this child of 12 who saves Richard's life, and the three of them begin a journey that is rife with joy, sadness, and betrayal. But in the spring, there is always hope (even if it's just a smidgen)—for new life, for reconciliation, and for love.

Just as much as it's about immigration, it is also a book about the importance of stories—the ones we live, the ones we tell, the ones we read. English majors and avid readers will enjoy the frequent literary namedropping and almost cameo-like appearances of short story writer Katherine Mansfield and poet Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as silent film star Charlie Chaplin and British visual artist Tacita Dean.

At times, the minimal plot of the book can be confusing as it bounces around in time. It didn't keep me reading past my bedtime. But it's an interesting way to frame the dire human concern of immigration and what happens to real people in real ways that are alarming, frightening, and abusive.

It may be somewhat difficult to read, but this is a book that will make you think.

This book by Laurie Frankel is a lot of contradictory things:
-- It's billed as a novel for grown-ups, but it should be shelved in the young adult section.
-- It's a riveting story, but it goes on far too long, spoiling something that started out really good.
-- I wanted to love it because "This Is How It Always Is," also by Laurie Frankel, is one of my favorite books of all time, but I just couldn't love it that much.

This is the story of three sisters, 16-year-old triplets Mab, Monday, and Mirabel. They call each other One, Two, and Three based on their birth order and the number of syllables in their names. This is also the story of their town, Bourne, where 17 years ago a chemical company poisoned the town's water and the residents. Many, many of them died, including the triplets' father, many got cancer, and most of the children were born with birth defects. While Mab is considered "normal," Monday is autistic, and Mirabel, while brilliant, was born physically deformed with only her right arm and hand fully functioning, leaving her unable to walk or talk. Why not move away? Their mother, Nora, is mad. So very, very angry. And she spends her life, when she's not caring for her daughters or working one of her three jobs, fighting the chemical company and seeking restitution for the little town of Bourne. It truly is her purpose in life.

Then, quite suddenly, everything changes in this place almost everyone else forgot about.

This is the story of what can go disastrously wrong when unscrupulous, uncaring people are in charge and then get away with it. It's well researched in terms of science and law, so the novel feels authentic. We're all rooting for the underdogs here, and while the ups and downs, the incessant legal wrangling, and evidence sleuthing are at first fascinating, it all just goes on way too long. What Frankel tries to do is build the story to a climax we'll never forget, but unfortunately the result falls flat like a balloon after all the air has leaked out—and it's only because it took too long to get there.

Still, this novel is very well-written, as well as imaginatively written, with each chapter titled "One, "Two," or "Three" and told from the point of view and in the distinct first-person voices of Mab, Monday, or Mirabel. It's a clever writing ploy, and it works really well. Unfortunately, it's just not enough to pull the story out of the mire into which it eventually sinks.

A lovely bonus: This book is a love letter to libraries and librarians, while it also gives a tip of the hat to vocabulary words learned well and used appropriately in conversation.

This book is so much more than a story about flowers. This is a book about what it means to love a child and the truly horrible things that happen to a child who is not loved—not enough food, no proper clothing, and worst of all, no self-esteem or confidence.

This is a story that broke my heart and then made it soar.

Abandoned at birth, Victoria Jones grows up in the San Francisco foster care system where she is shuttled from family to family. Each change makes her more bitter, more callous, more untrusting, more violent, more uncaring. After all, why should she care about anyone if no one cares for her? When she is nine years old, Victoria is placed with a single woman named Elizabeth, who owns a sprawling vineyard. It is here that Victoria learns not only how to love and be loved, but also about flowers. She is fascinated that every flower from an abutilon (meditation) to a zinna (I mourn your absence) has a special meaning, according to the Victorian language of flowers. (So when a gentleman gives a lady a rose, the color matters. For example, a red rose means love, but a yellow rose means infidelity.)

Beautifully written with candor and compassion by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, the book's chapters alternate between Victoria's troubled childhood and her equally troubled present when she has turned 18 and aged out of the foster care system. Without any education and no one who cares for her, she relies on her wits, her street sense, and her innate love of flowers to make her way in the world. But how can she truly be happy if she doesn't learn how to love—and be loved in return?

The intricate, overlapping plot line between past and present is brilliantly developed, and the characters are so real—all that is good, bad, and ugly about each one—that they just pop off the page. And while this is a difficult book emotionally to read at times, it is an important story that must be told.

Best of all, it's just a really good read. This poignant, thoughtful, and insightful book will keep you reading far past your bedtime.

Bonus: There is a lovely dictionary of flowers at the end of the book. Look up your favorites or get creative and plan a bouquet or even a garden based only on the flowers' meaning.

Brilliant! Simply brilliant! Exquisitely written by Sarah Waters in a highly creative and imaginative format—going backward in time instead of forward—this is a World War II story about the British home front and a group of young women who are trying to make a life for themselves as the bombs fall nightly on London.

Kay, courageous and stalwart, drives an ambulance at night to rescue those whose homes and shelters have been blasted. Helen, softhearted and resolute, works in a British ministry office helping people navigate the bureaucracy after they have lost their homes. Viv, who is having an affair with a married man, is the backbone of her family after her brother, Duncan, is sent to prison. Julia, a writer of murder mysteries, is tough but tender, and causes all sorts of mischief and havoc. Most—but not all—of the women have one thing in common: They are lesbians, falling in and out of love with each other in a time of great national horror.

The storyline is one that pulls you in and won't let go. It's emotionally riveting, packed with historical details, unnerving at times and spellbinding at others.

But it is the literary ploy of going backward in time that makes this book so special. It is written in three parts: 1947, 1944, and 1941. Within each of these parts, the plot moves forward, but when we read the second and third parts, we already know what is going to happen, much like seeing into the future. Still, we don't really because we don't know how it started in the first place, and herein lies the tension—and genius—of the book.

I became utterly engrossed in the novel because I cared so deeply for the characters. I wanted to know the motivations behind their successes and failures, what gave them joy and sorrow, and how it was they managed to still be happy in a time of great tragedy and fear.

This book is absolutely brilliant! Highly recommended.

This is a political message disguised as a novel and delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

And you can almost choose your favorite cause because they're all here: racism, sexism, environmental rights, rich vs. poor, suburban sprawl, the role of women in society, and teen sex/hook-up culture.

Written by Therese Anne Fowler, this is the story of two very different families who must coexist as neighbors. Valerie Alston-Holt, a black college professor, and her biracial and uber-talented son, Xavier, live in Oak Knoll, a quiet and established suburb of a major North Carolina city. Their home is modest: a three-bedroom, one bath model built in the 1950s. Growing in the backyard is a century-old massive oak tree, which Valerie loves like other people love their dogs. But all is not well. The small house behind them has been razed, all the old trees cut down, and a showcase McMansion with an inground pool has been constructed. The Whitmans—Brad, Julia, Juniper, and Lily—move in. Both families have their backstories, albeit very stereotypical and one-dimensional. When the oak tree shows serious signs of distress and decay, caused by the disruption of its root system from the house construction, relations between the neighbors rapidly deteriorate. Adding to the tension is the developing love relationship—from simple flirting to a whole lot more—between Xavier and Juniper. He is a graduating high school senior headed to the prestigious San Francisco Conservatory of Music, while she, who harbors a deep, dark secret, is one year younger and a white Evangelical Christian.

What I liked: The form of the novel appears to mimic a Greek tragedy, complete with the omniscient, third-person chorus chiming in (a lot!) to offer "off stage" comments and background information. This is a clever literary trick that works quite well.

What I didn't like: The novel's greatest defect is the writing. I expected more from Fowler. Much of the dialogue seems fake (who talks like that?), the plot is forced without flowing naturally, and some of the main characters are so superficial they come off as both unappealing and inauthentic. The bad guy is very, very bad, and the good guy is very, very good. No subtleties here.

I rolled my eyes so much while reading this novel that it's amazing I could keep them on the page long enough to finish it.

If a book were your favorite comfy sweater, this would be it. It's a slow, steady, and quietly fascinating read about the men and the very few women who were involved in the making of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

It's also a book about linguistic inequality (although that makes it sound boring, and this book is the opposite of boring). If men write the dictionary, what happens to the words that define women?

Written by Pip Williams, this is the fictionalized story of Esme Nicoll, the motherless daughter of one of the top men writing/editing the OED in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Because she had no mother, Esme would accompany her father to work in the Scriptorium—a fancy name for what was actually a garden shed located on the property of the top editor, James Murray. Esme loved to sit under the massive work table, while above her head the men wrote words on slips of paper, each carefully measured to be six inches by four inches. One day a slip floats down to her spot under the table and lands on her lap. The word: bondmaid. She pockets it! (Fun fact: The word "bondmaid" was lost from the first edition of the OED, and no one knows how that actually happened.) Thus begins her passion for words and collecting them. As she grows older, Esme learns of words that might not be considered proper or polite, as well as words used only by the working class. Using the same kind of slips of paper, Esme collects these lost words as diligently as the men who are working on the OED.

Grounded in the fascinating facts of writing, editing, printing, and binding a reference tool that we still rely on more than a hundred years later, this captivating story of Esme's life from childhood to womanhood, is imaginative, tender, and filled with love and tragedy.

Williams has brilliantly captured a slice of history and made it come colorfully to life through Esme's story. You'll never look at any dictionary the same way again!

If you love words, you'll love this book.

This is the power of reading: It will take you places you can never go in real life. Exhibit A is this book.

This is a coming-of-age story about a nerdy and awkward 15-year-old, prep school-educated black boy, who is spending the summer of 1985 at his family's beach house in Sag Harbor, New York.

Written by Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead, this is the sometimes hilarious and always introspective story of Benji Cooper, the son of a podiatrist and corporate attorney who attends a tony Manhattan prep-school during the school year and lives in Sag Harbor in the summer in a community populated by black professionals. At age 15, he is straddling the line between childhood and adulthood, a line made ever the more clear when his parents essentially leave Benji and his younger brother, Reggie, alone at the beach house, coming out only on occasional weekends. The boys have friends, they get jobs, and they enjoy the beach. They have adventures—some intended and some thrust upon them. They get in a little trouble. They develop a taste for beer. From BB gun mishaps to flirting with girls to scooping ice cream, Benji grows up this summer. And he realizes something about his homelife that he tries to keep secret from everyone else.

The best part of this book is the writing. It is absolutely brilliant. Still, don't expect the plot to zip along. It doesn't. It crawls. Whitehead takes pages and pages to describe the smallest detail, and that's OK in his talented hands. But instead of an ongoing story with one thing building on another, this novel is more like a series of highly-connected short stories.

So just relax, pretend you're at the beach, and go along for the ride. I call shotgun!

Just an aside: This slice of ocean nirvana is real. Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah Beach were founded after World War II as a summer retreat for black families that were not allowed at the beachfront resorts—a kind of refuge from racial strife, according to Wikipedia.

If you need a summer escape from the real world, just open this delightful book by Sarah Addison Allen. It’s the literary equivalent of a bundle of fresh, colorful flowers.

This novel is written in the genre of magical realism, so you must be able to suspend your belief (somewhat) in the natural order of things. Do that, and you are in for a treat!

At age 34, Claire Waverley is satisfied with her life. She may be lonely without many friends or family, but she can better shield herself from hurt this way. Everything changes one summer when two things happen almost at once: First, Tyler Hughes, a new art professor at the local college, moves into the house next door and immediately develops a passionate crush on Claire. Then Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who has been away without any contact for a decade, shows up on Claire’s doorstep unannounced with a little girl of her own in tow. Claire can tell that they are running from something, but what? The Waverleys have long lived in this small town of Bascom, North Carolina, and most everyone agrees they are a bit odd. The garden in the back of the house, which has been in the family for generations, is shielded by a nine-foot fence. There is magic in this garden, including an apple tree that seems to know good from evil. Eat one of the apples, and you will see the biggest thing that will ever happen to you—and that’s not always a good thing.

More than anything, this is an enchanting love story infused with a touch of magic. It’s a true pleasure to read!

This is a story about the deep South. This is a story about the indelible bond and incredible courage of women. But most of all, this is a story about our shared humanity. This is a story that will stay with me for a long time.

Magnificently written by Deb Spera, this novel takes place in and near the swamps of South Carolina in the 1920s just after a boll weevil infestation destroyed the cotton crops and the livelihoods of countless people rich and poor. The book is written in the first person by three women:
--Annie is wife of a powerful man who has lost everything but quickly switches from growing cotton to tobacco on his plantation that still has empty slave cabins on the property.
--Gertrude is a poor, white woman with an abusive husband, four daughters, and no money.
--Retta is the black maid for Annie’s family. Happily married to Odell, the couple still grieve for the only child they lost when the little girl was eight years old.

The lives of these three women intersect in surprising ways, beginning when Retta rescues Gertrude and her daughters and takes them in, much to the disapproval of her black neighbors. But evil and dark, ugly secrets are lurking in the swamp and on the plantation, and when the three women figure out something so horrible, so wicked, so reprehensible, they have very different reactions as to how to tame it. Together, these women and mothers have a power they wouldn’t have alone.

The writing is brilliant with each woman’s voice so distinctive, so nuanced, so razor-sharp that the chapter headings listing the narrator’s name don’t even need to be there. You will know who it is by the style, which is quite a literary accomplishment.

Like the swamp around which the novel is set, this story will suck you in. The last third of the book is so compelling—actually, explosive—that it’s nearly impossible to stop reading. But the book is a tough one emotionally. The plot is unerring and relentless, exploring age-old taboos and physical abuse that hit me hard in the heart. Just know this going into it. A happy, carefree beach book it is not. Instead, it is emotionally searing. But isn’t that true of a lot of great works of literature?

This is an extraordinary book and one of the best I have read.

This book is a ChickLit escape read. Take it to the beach. Read it curled up in front of the fireplace during a snowstorm. It will keep you entertained for hours. But like most ChickLit, it’s all plot without the enduring depth of literature. That said, we all need books like this once in a while!

Written by Amber Brock, this is the story of Vera Longacre Bellington, a beautiful, charming, sophisticated young married woman who seemingly has it all—a handsome, wealthy husband, a penthouse apartment on New York’s exclusive Park Avenue, and so many servants she doesn’t ever lift a finger except to ring the bell. It’s the socialite life to which she was raised to live. So why is she so unhappy? Shifting back and forth in time between Vera’s senior year at Vassar in the fall of 1913 and 10 years later in 1923, this coming-of-age novel starts out a bit slow but soon picks up the pace as Vera, desperately hurt by her cold, inattentive husband, becomes enamored with a European artist hired to paint a mural on the walls of the apartment building’s subterranean pool. Will she risk everything she has for this passionate, illicit love? And what price will she pay if she is caught?

Not only is this book a wonderful dive into the roaring ‘20s among the super wealthy with lots of period details that make it all just pop, but also it’s a solid exploration of the high-end world of fine art. It’s obvious that Brock did her art history research, and this adds so much to the book—sort of like the difference between seeing a black-and-white photo of a painting vs. the real thing in color.

Kudos to the author on the title of the book, which is a clever play of words on several levels. Still, at its core this is ChickLit with a very well-crafted plot that boasts several clever twists (some of which are predictable if you’re paying attention) that will keep you engrossed in the story until the last page. It’s really quite entertaining!

It’s just an old cotton seed bag. But it is truly priceless.

Sometime in the 1850s, Rose, an enslaved woman in Charleston, South Carolina, gave the bag to her nine-year-old daughter, Ashley, on the eve of her being sold away from her family to another South Carolina plantation. It contained a tattered dress, three handfuls of pecans, a braid of Rose’s hair, and all her love. The two never saw each other again. But the story of little Ashley being ripped away from her mother and her mother’s attempt to make sure the child knew she would always be loved by giving her this sack of useful items and whispers of her kisses and hugs, is the premise of this exceptional book.

Written by Harvard historian Tiya Miles, this is an extraordinary testament to Black family love and history. In 1921, Ashley’s granddaughter, Ruth Middleton, who inherited the precious sack, embroidered fewer than five dozen words on it that told not only its history, but also the tragedy of slavery.

Without knowing anything more about the sack or the people who owned it, Miles has written a timeless book for the ages that tells its own chronicle of love, handiwork, and the power of story, all the while putting on full display the cruelty, degradation, and horror of what it meant to be a slave.

Miles quotes Civil War historian Stephen Berry as saying of the sack, "It is the world’s shortest slave narrative, stripped down to its essence, sent back to us through time like a message in a bottle."

Prodigiously researched and magnificently written, this book takes readers down the deep, dark hole of slavery with a special focus on what it meant to be an enslaved woman in South Carolina in the mid-1800s. While very little to almost nothing is recorded about Rose and Ashley, Miles uses the stories of other enslaved women who lived similar lives to illuminate what may have also been true for Rose and Ashley. And what Miles discovers about Ruth brought a smile to my face after all the tears.

A brilliant melding of the scholarly and the personal, this book is a masterpiece. It is impossible not to be deeply affected by it. Quite simply, this is essential reading.

Despite the title, this is a not a light and romantic romp at the beach. This is a serious book about serious subjects—from the horrors of Nazi brutalities to the isolation of the Covid pandemic—but the story had me riveted.

Written by Ali Smith, this is the fourth in her seasonal quartet that officially begins with "Autumn: A Novel," but can be read in any order, since the stories are not related to each other. That said, I would advise—just for the fun of it—reading them during the season for which each is named. The author’s purpose for the four books is daunting: Each book is topical about current news events as they were happening when she was writing. (Novelists don’t do that! Except Ali Smith did. And pulled it off. Somehow.)

The barely-there plot begins in February 2020 just as people around the world are learning about a vicious and highly contagious virus. The story focuses on a handful of people—from a 13-year-old boy who is brilliant but somewhat delinquent to a 104-year-old man whose memories are more real to him than his daily existence. While the core of the story takes place in winter, many of the characters remember a summer that was special to them.

This is how it begins: On the beach in Brighton, Robert, age 13, does something truly mean and dangerous to his older sister, Sacha. Charlotte and Art (characters from "Winter"), who are wandering on the beach in the dead of winter, offer her assistance, accompanying her home. It is there that they meet the children’s mother, Grace, along with Robert (who hilariously falls madly in love with Charlotte), and the five of them—strangers who become like family—go on an unlikely journey together. From this barebones plot the story branches out so we learn the detailed backgrounds—some filled with joy, some with tragedy—of these and other characters. And the tie that binds these disparate people together is…summer.

Each of the four books in the series features a Shakespeare play, a Charles Dickens novel, and a contemporary artist. In "Summer," we have "A Winter’s Tale," "David Copperfield," and Italian filmmaker Lorenza Mazzetti. Yes, it’s an intellectual book about summer!

This final book in the seasonal quartet is far less political than "Autumn" (Brexit) and "Spring" (immigrants who are detained illegally) and more focused on the human psyche with characters so vivid, complex, and real that they just pop off the page.

The writing is exquisite, and it was this more than anything else, that kept me turning the pages. This book is a literary delight.