This is one of those rare novels that I read on two levels seemingly at the same time:

--First, I was captivated with the plot, as sad and tragic as it is. Those pages almost turned themselves.

--Second, I was mesmerized following the story that was lurking in the shadows underneath it, almost like a ghostly spirit: "David Copperfield," by Charles Dickens. This is a somewhat daring modern-day retelling of that Dickens classic, and ferreting out the similarities and differences became a kind of literary parlor game I played while I was reading. (Check the Wikipedia article on "Demon Copperhead" to find out—in case you can't figure it out—a character list that corresponds to the character list in "David Copperfield.")

In anticipation of reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver for my book club, I (re)read "David Copperfield" first. While this is not a prerequisite for reading "Demon Copperhead," I highly recommend it. You'll get so much more out of Kingsolver's novel if you do. (That said, both are VERY long novels, so this is a big commitment.) Both David and Demon are orphans, and when I read Dickens's novel, I wondered what would have happened to David if he had lived in our times with a social services safety net to help him. Well, now I know. And the answer is that it's not much better.

This is the story of a boy named Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon Copperhead because of his red hair and feisty attitude, who lives in the mountains of southwestern Virginia in Lee County, deep in Appalachia. People are poor, but they look out for one another—until that is sometimes just too hard to do. Demon, whose father died before Demon's birth, is born to an addictive, single teenaged mother, who lives in a small, rented trailer. She soon marries a meanspirited, abusive man. When Demon's mom dies of a drug overdose, he is left on his own. Kindhearted neighbors help some, but Demon becomes a ward of the commonwealth, cared for by foster families who are paid for their efforts. He gets moved around—a lot. His problems are myriad, including child labor, underperforming schools, bullies, and rarely having enough to eat. Eventually, he connects with his paternal grandmother, who takes a firm interest in his future, until Demon utterly disappoints her. What follows is Demon's horrifying descent into opiate addiction. While David Copperfield is at the mercy of a harsh, unforgiving Victorian society, Demon Copperhead is at the mercy of a harsh, unforgiving world of drug abuse—from meth to opiates.

This is a tragic, dark, and distressing story—so much so that it was difficult to keep reading it at times. (Tears in my eyes will do that!) My heart broke for Demon, all the more so because while this may be a fictional tale, it is all too true to life. And that makes it all the more heartbreaking and emotionally searing.

The ending? Of course, it's happy. Just like "David Copperfield." Whew! Take solace in that.

One last thought: The only downside to reading "David Copperfield" first is that I knew what would happen next in this book. Kingsolver has done a brilliant job of mimicking the classic novel but with a modern twist that is highly original, as well as heartbreaking, compelling, and monumental because it rings so true to life.

This book, while an emotionally tough read, is a remarkable literary achievement.

This may be the perfect summer novel. It's a multilayered mystery about a missing 13-year-old girl at a summer camp nestled deep in the Adirondacks and wrapped around a horrifying domestic drama. And secrets! So many secrets being closely guarded by so many people.

But it's more than that—a lot more. It's also a deftly written and intricate novel with vibrant characters whose very different stories about their troubles and worries and their quests for happiness and purpose in life are just as important as the underlying mystery.

Written by Liz Moore, the novel is told by multiple characters in alternating chapters that bounce around in time but in a way that is easy to follow and adeptly advances the story. From the moment Louise Donnadieu, the 23-year-old camp counselor at Camp Emerson, realizes that Barbara Van Laar is missing from her bunk in the early morning hours of an August day in 1975, the story is a whirlwind that sucks in the reader. The campers are taught on the first day that the forest around them is dangerous. If they are ever lost and alone, they are instructed (over and over again) to sit down and yell.

The camp is owned by a fabulously wealthy family, Peter and Alice Van Laar, whose son, Bear, went missing from the camp 14 years ago in 1961 when he was only eight years old. And Barbara, a troubled, angry teen, is their daughter, so this is no ordinary situation. We soon learn that all is not right in the Van Laar mansion located on the hill above the camp with shocking, appalling revelations about troubled Alice, who has never recovered from Bear's abduction, as well as deceitful Peter.

This truly is a character-driven novel with deep backstories and a richly descriptive narrative for each of them. From the awkward camper, Tracy Jewell, whose only friend is Barbara to the spoiled rich boy John Paul McLellan, who is toying with Louise to T.J. Hewitt, the no-nonsense woman who runs the camp to Lee Towson, the good-looking prep chef with a dark past to Judyta Luptack, a rookie police investigator who is the first female investigator in the state and the only woman on this large team that is hunting for Barbara. Add to this mix Jacob Sluiter, a notorious killer who haunted the area a decade ago and escaped from prison three weeks ago.

And the ending? It's perfect. It's a two-part ending: One gave me the shivers, while the other made me smile.

Oh, this is the best love story! Bonus points: It's witty, intelligent, and funny, too.

Written by Curtis Sittenfeld, this is a rom-com novel with a clever plot: It's 2018. Sally Milz is a longtime writer for "The Night Owls," a not-so-subtle spoof of "Saturday Night Live" complete with a Loren Michaels-type character. Sally is 36, divorced, and somewhat bitter about love and romance. She has noticed a trend over the years. Gorgeous, talented female celebrities who serve as guest hosts often fall for male writers who have only average looks, but it never happens the other way around. She is so unnerved by this that she writes a skit for the show about it, which is so funny it goes wildly viral.

Meanwhile, the guest host and musical guest one week is Noah Brewster, a hugely successful pop singer who is incredibly good-looking, wealthy, and talented. And while he has reputation for dating models, he's also kind and thoughtful—a good human being. And guess what? Noah falls for Sally. Big time. But she doesn't trust it. Why would someone like Noah Brewster date HER? Sally says something stupid, and it ends rather abruptly. Fast forward two years. It's July 2020 and the country is hunkered down for the coronavirus pandemic. Sally has moved to her childhood home in Kansas City and taken up residence with her much loved 81-year-old stepfather, Jerry, and his dog, Sugar. Out of the blue, Noah emails her. The sparks fly…and you'll have to read the book to find out what happens next.

While Noah is a little too perfect, Sally is a little too whiny and untrusting, and the plot is a little too predictable, it's easy to forgive all that. It's a romantic comedy, after all! This is an entertaining and humorous novel that will lift you out of real life in a delightful, fun way. Read it and enjoy.

This is a heartbreaking and wrenching novel.

Written by Ian McEwan, this is the story of Edward and Florence, whom we meet on their wedding night in their hotel suite as they are being served a dinner of roast beef by two waiters. It's the summer of 1962 in Great Britain, specifically Chesil Beach, a shingle barrier beach in Dorset. Edward and Florence are both virgins and anxious—for totally different reasons—about what is about to happen in the adjacent room once the roast beef is cleared away and the waiters have departed. Edward is excited, looking forward to having sex for the first time, but Florence is frightened beyond reason. The short novel—just 200 pages—is focused on this tumultuous wedding night with frequent flashbacks to their respective childhoods, how they met, and their formal courtship. Both have recently graduated from college, and they believe that the only way they will be considered adults is to marry. So they do—even though they don't know each other well.

The flashbacks are the best part of the novel, while the wedding night bedroom scene, written in excruciating detail, is almost painful to read as we realize the incompatibility of these young lovers. Florence is frigid, naïve, and terrified. Edward is fumbling and insecure. And they feel so much pressure because it is their wedding night.

The decisions they make and the actions they take on this fateful evening will reverberate for years to come. The ending is surprising, but it's the only ending that makes sense.

While the writing is excellent and the tone is perfect, the story—short and tightly wound—is just so heartbreaking and without redemption that it's a tough one to like. I do admire the novel as a literary accomplishment, but it's not a book I will treasure.

Who among us hasn't thought that our family story would be perfect for a novel? Claire Messud has written that novel about her family. This bighearted, cosmopolitan family saga begins in 1940 at the start of World War II and continues for three generations until 2010.

While the names have been changed (for the most part) and the intimate conversations, fierce arguments, private thoughts, and hopeful dreams have been embellished with this novelist's rich imagination, the bones of the story are based on fact. And those facts take us around the world—from Algeria to Australia to Argentina, from New England to England, from Canada to France. It's all over the map—literally.

We first meet Gaston and Lucienne Cassar, a couple who married with a huge age difference—she is13 years older than he is—and were utterly devoted to one another through a life that no one would describe as easy. They are French, but they think of their home as Algiers. Gaston is the French naval attaché and diplomat and so the family moves a lot. They have two children, François (the author's father) and Denise. François is a brilliant academic with a troubled and miserable marriage to Barbara, a Canadian, while fragile, tightly-wound Denise never marries and suffers multiple bouts of depression. François, who is irascible, a heavy smoker, and an alcoholic, and Barbara have two children, Loulou and Chloe (Chloe being the fictional version of the author).

The final chapter—the epilogue—takes us back to 1927 when a secret about Gaston and Lucienne—often hinted at during the novel, but never revealed—is shockingly exposed. And it's a big one!

There is no plot, per se, but rather a rich, profound, and dramatic narrative about the lives of these people as the years pass and their relationships with each other become more complex and tangled—and more secrets are revealed.

More subtle is the nod to Shakespeare's "As You Like It." Both the title of the book and the idea that a human life has seven ages come from the play—and there are seven sections in the book that mirror this.

This book by James McBride is a masterpiece of genius, a story about the bonds of community, the grace of diversity, and the blessings of caring for one another.

That said, it is not an easy book to read, especially in the beginning. There are a lot of characters. There is a lot of action. And it's easy to get confused to the point of giving up. Don't! It is so worth plowing through that bit of literary chaos until the novel becomes a joy to read. And face it, literary chaos is James McBride's signature!

The cast of characters is long and disparate—from wealthy to poor, from Jewish to Black, from disabled to able-bodied, from conniving to innocent, from prejudiced to clueless, from old to young. When taken together, they form a community—a poor one named Chicken Hill, which is part of Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

This is the gist of the primary story, which takes place primarily in the 1920s and 1930s: Moshe Ludlow, a young Jew with ambitions to own a musical theater hall, marries Chona, a beautiful young woman who walks with a distinct limp that was caused by polio. Chona's father started the local shul, and her parents own the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Chona takes over the store, which never makes a profit because she gives away groceries for free to those in need. Everyone loves Chona. She and Moshe can't have children, and eventually they take in a 12-year-old Black orphan nicknamed Dodo, who is deaf. Dodo would do anything for Chona. When the authorities are searching for him to forcibly remove him and place him in a horrific institution for the feeble-minded, Chona and Moshe—and the rest of the community of Chicken Hill, especially Nate Timblin, a Black janitor at Moshe's theater—hide Dodo to keep him safe. One day something horrific happens to Chona, and when Dodo tries to rescue her, he gets caught up in the authorities' net.

Meanwhile, the novel is filled to the brim with many (many!) other stories of the motley crew of people living in Chicken Hill—stories that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. There are humorous stories, tender stories, heartbreaking stories, uplifting stories, frightening stories, and confounding stories. They are all stories about life, how we get along with each other and how we don't get along. And in the end, they merge in a brilliantly creative way that is guaranteed to make you smile or tear up—or both.

Bonus: Do take the time to read the acknowledgements at the end. McBride explains the inspiration for the novel, and it is poignant, affectionate, and superb.

This is a perceptive, emotionally powerful novel about the agonies of change, the depths of our humanity, and the transformative power of love. And the ending? It hit me like a thunderbolt.

Masterfully written by Carys Davies, this is the story of The Rev. John Ferguson and his new wife, Mary. Although they are in their 40s, they only recently wed. The novel takes place in the wilds of Scotland in 1843 when two big events in the history of that country collide: The Great Disruption in the Scottish Church when more than 400 ministers, including the fictional John Ferguson, rebelled against the traditional Presbyterian church and broke away to form the new Free Church. In the process they gave up a way to earn a living, having to now start a new church from nothing. In addition, wealthy Scottish landowners who owned vast swaths of rural lands were forcibly evicting and displacing the longstanding residents so they could use the land for sheep. This was called the Clearances.

When John is unable to make a living as a minister, he accepts a one-time job to travel to a remote island in the far north of Scotland to evict the last remaining resident there. It's a long and arduous journey by boat, and John is greatly troubled with seasickness and fear of the water. Complicating matters, the man who lives on the island speaks only the old language, called Norn, and does not understand English. Traveling with minimal possessions, along with a gun and ammunition, John lands on the island. He finds a dilapidated cottage in which to live, and goes out exploring. He has a terrible accident, but his life is saved by the man, who is named Ivar. He is big, smelly, and quiet. And Ivar is not used to sharing his world with anyone else.

Now John is in a terrible conundrum: He must clear out Ivar, evicting him from the only home he has ever known. How can he do it? What always seemed to be a difficult task now seems impossible. Meanwhile, Ivar, who has lived in solitude for years, must integrate his life with another human being and try to understand all the confusion and joy that he feels. The power of the story is in the friendship John and Ivar form even though they can't communicate well in words.

Bonus: John valiantly attempts to learn Ivar's language, and Welsh author Carys Davies magnificently brings some of the strange words to life, including in a glossary at the end. A language and culture lost to time have a bit of a resurgence in this creative story.

This is a polished and eloquent novel with a most unexpected ending that I never saw coming.

Wow. Just that…wow. This is an unflinching, emotionally complex, and brilliantly perceptive collection of 15 short stories by Irish writer Louise Kennedy.

All take place in small towns and villages in Ireland with beautiful, lyrical descriptions of the countryside and depictions of characters with ordinary lives—from hardscrabble to heartbreaking and rough to resilient.

A few of my favorites:
• "What the Birds Heard": Doireann has escaped to the sea in the far north of Ireland, fleeing her husband, Paul, and her tiresome marriage. They have been trying to have a baby. No luck. Now the love is lost. Living alone and painting, Doireann meets a local workman, the rough and stoic Tim Gallagher. What happens between them is a bit of a surprise.

• "Once a Upon a Pair of Wheels": Even if it was an accident, Aidan did something horrific years ago—so horrific, he was sentenced to prison for it. Now he is out and working as a landscaper. A new client is Niamh, his former girlfriend, who is married, has a child, and is a successful (and wealthy) attorney. Is he working for her or stalking her?

• "Brittle Things": Ciara and Dan have a four-year-old son Ferdia. He'll be five next week. Ferdia doesn't speak, and he gets angry easily. Only breadsticks will calm him down. Ciara knows something is greatly amiss, but Dan is in denial. How they come to realize their little boy needs more help than they can provide is the heart of this story.

• "Sparing the Heather": Mairead is unhappily married to Brendan and having an affair with Hugh, who was recently hired as the gun club's gamekeeper. He leads a big hunt with participants from all over. Nearby, the Garda is camped out in tents, searching for a body from a long-ago murder. For weeks, they have been combing the moor, crossing back and forth. Interestingly, Mairead knows something…something big.

Like many short stories, these start and stop suddenly, so it can take a few pages to "get into it," and many of the endings are abrupt, leaving the reader to figure out what happens. For me, this is part of the enchantment of the short story format because it makes me think and search for insight, but I know it can be frustrating for some readers.

Why did the Civil War happen? How did it start? I'm not talking about who fired the first shots at and from Fort Sumter off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, although that is an important and fascinating part of this book. I'm talking about the actions, misdeeds, speeches, blatant lies, intrigues, fears, and distrust between Northerners and Southerners that set in motion this tragic, bloody war.

The answers are in this book by Erik Larson, and some of it reminds me of our current divisive and polarized political climate. There is a warning here: As George Santayana wrote in 1905, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This highly readable history book takes a deep dive into the stories of people, places, and events from November 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected as our 16th president to April 1861 with the surrender of Fort Sumter.

It dramatically zeroes in on the causes of the Civil War as depicted in the major and minor players, as well as the effect of specific events, including the Union occupying and arming Fort Sumter along with its hero commander Major Robert Anderson, the secession of Southern states one by one, the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, and the almost criminal inaction and ineptitude of Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, to do anything to stop the South from secession and tamp down the incensed and angry rhetoric. Most important of all is the role slavery played in this war—from Northern repugnance to Southern insistence it was all about "state's rights."

Do read the introduction, a note to readers that is titled "Dark Magic." It is Larson's prescient thoughts about being well into the research for this book about the saga of Fort Sumter as he watched on television the Capitol assault on January 6, 2021. He writes, "I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged."

One clever ploy: Each section of the book is introduced with a pertinent part of "The Code Duello," which in its entirety is a detailed explanation of the code of honor for a duel. The creative effect is to change the Civil War into a national duel, which it seemingly was as it was cloaked—at least in the early months—in chivalry's code of honor.

This is a multigenerational saga about a Chinese-American family that will take you from the 1950s rice paddies in the southern basin of China's Yangtze River to Mao's 1960s Cultural Revolution to 9/11 in New York City to the hot-shot San Francisco tech scene of the 2020s. It's a can't-put-it-down read that is part historical novel, part romance, and part coming-of-age tale.

Written by Rachel Khong, this is the story of May and Charles, two university students who aren't in love but join together to flee Mao's repressive China in the 1960s. After a few years in Hong Kong, they emigrate to the United States, where they get jobs as scientists working on the connection between DNA and genetic engineering. When the company changes hands, they move to Florida. May and Charles have one child, a daughter named Lily. She is a great disappointment to them. Lily loves art, but is not talented enough to be an artist herself. She floats around New York City, barely financially solvent, until she meets Matthew, a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed rich American. They fall in love and marry. They have a son named Nick. When Lily finds out something nefarious, unethical, and highly reprehensible that her mother did to Lily when Lily was just a little girl, and later to her infant son, she flees, swearing to never speak to her mother again.

This plot summary above is told in chronological order. The book is wildly different, beginning with Lily and Matthew's romance in 2000, continuing with Nick's coming-of-age story in the 2020s, and ending with May's incredible, eyepopping tale that begins in the 1950s. It is only at the very end that the three stories finally come together.

The three tales are very different, so different that the novel reads more like three novellas. Lily and Matthew's romance is a sweet, ChickLit tale. (Don't be fooled! The rest of the novel is not like that.) Nick's coming-of-age story drags on a bit too long, told in the naïve voice of a teenager/young adult. And finally, the crux of the novel—its real heart and soul—is told in May's astonishing life story.

Ingeniously plotted and written with insight and candor, this is a thoughtful novel about the choices we make with the life we are given. It is a story about family, race, and inheritance. It is a story about fortune—and that word's multiple senses of meaning. I found the novel to be intriguing and compelling as it examines what it means to be a "real" American, as well as a good human being.

Extraordinary. Brilliant. Masterful. Exceptional. Yes, I adored this book. It has to be THE most imaginative novel I have ever read.

The genius of the book is in the structure. Beginning in the 1600s in Puritan New England and extending for almost four centuries, the novel's stories are focused on the occupants of a little yellow house built deep in the north woods country of Western Massachusetts, first as a one room cottage and eventually expanded into four distinct sections. The house stays as the cast of characters living in it changes. Taken together, the tales offer a slice of American, as well as natural, history told in a way you've never read before.
   
Written by Daniel Mason, the book begins with two disgraced Puritan newlyweds fleeing into the forest, running as fast as they can from their outraged village. Chased by the elders, the young lovers manage to escape. The one-room yellow cottage is constructed. The years pass and others come to the house. Two women who are threatened by English soldiers, murder the men, one of whom had been eating an apple just before his untimely and violent death. An apple seed in his intestine eventually develops into a sapling and then a tree with apples that are the most sweet and delicious anyone has ever had. The property becomes an apple orchard. And so the story continues with each subsequent family living in the house. Their unlikely tales are filled with love, passion, heartbreak, betrayal, violence…and otherworldly spirits.

And the point of it all is clearly explained in the last chapter when a character named Nora thinks to herself: "…she has found that the only way to understand the world other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change."

The narrative is quite creative, including whole sections that are told through letters, poetry, musical ballads, journal entries, a true-crime detective story, an exposition on the (almost X-rated) sex life of beetles, and medical case notes. The fact that it works and remains a compelling read from start to finish—and doesn't disintegrate into a hodgepodge of confusion for the hapless reader—speaks volumes about Daniel Mason's writing abilities.

The ingenious plotting, the mesmerizing storytelling, and the sometimes bizarre but always fascinating cast of characters make this a novel for the ages. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's magical!

My only question is this: Why did it not win the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker, and the National Book Award? Because it really is a novel of that caliber.

This book has a narrow ideal audience: Menopausal women. Otherwise, you might not get the jokes.

The opening chapters are bland, beach ChickLit—disappointing. But if you're part of the ideal audience, stick with it because the story morphs into something with a bit more depth, feeling, and humor, although at its core, this novel is still bland, beach ChickLit.

Written by Catherine Newman, this is the story of three generations of a family who share a beach house for one week in the summer on Cape Cod. The main character is Rachel, whom everyone calls Rocky, a 54-year-old mother of two (mostly) grown children: Jamie who brings Maya, his girlfriend of six years; and Willa, who has finished her junior year at Barnard. Their father, who is perfect in every way from the way he looks to the way he acts, is Nick. In addition, Rocky's elderly and frail parents, Mort and Alice, visit for two days.

Except for Nick and Willa, everyone has secrets, which (of course) are revealed during this week of close living. At times it's quite melodramatic, with Mort's revelation the most shocking of all. Meanwhile, Rocky is wrecked by menopause, and the emotions are roiling inside her as she wrestles with something (secret, of course) that she did years ago.

All the characters have one thing in common: They are dealing with change. Some of them embrace this with joy or anticipation, while others resist it with anger or sadness.

As I write this review, "Sandwich: A Novel," is a hardback bestseller on multiple lists, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. I find this remarkable. It's an OK book, but not a great one.

This is a love story. An epic love story about a modern marriage and the bonds that hold couples together and sometimes tear them apart. And what a doozie of a love story it is! This novel is about the stories we tell ourselves and each other and how those stories—true and exaggerated—shape who we are and the lives we live.

Masterfully written by Nathan Hill, this is the story of Elizabeth and Jack—from their meet-cute in 1993 as college students in Chicago to 16 years after they were married, struggling to preserve their relationship as the struggles of jobs, parenting, and real estate take over their daily existence. Their sex life is sputtering to a slow halt amidst the busy-ness so when two polyamorous suitors wheedle their way into Elizabeth and Jack's life, things get interesting and a bit intimidating.

While theirs appears to be a fun and somewhat intimate love story, there is so much more going on because Hill wrote this literary fiction novel from both points of view. More than a romance novel, this is a deep psychological study of Elizabeth and Jack and the forces—childhood difficulties and tragedies, unloving, abusive parents, daunting life experiences—that make them who they are now. We find out what Jack is thinking and doing and then what Elizabeth is thinking and doing—and at times, the two couldn't be more different.

This brilliant and introspective novel is richly imagined and expertly crafted. It made me laugh. It made me sad. It made me curious. But most of all, it made me happy I was reading it. And the ending? It is perfect. Just perfect.

That said, it is a long novel at 600 pages, and quite a few times, it gets bogged down. But keep plowing through that because it's worth it.

Bonus No. 1: Jack is an artistic photographer, and photos (purportedly) taken by him introduce each of the book's sections in a particularly poignant and meaningful way. Pay attention to these photos.

Bonus No. 2: This is more than fiction. Read this book and you will get a primer on several topics, including prairie fires, picky eaters, an introduction to art history, the science behind the placebo effect, the history of condensed milk, post-modern art, and the deepest dive you've probably ever read (at least in a novel) about how the Facebook algorithms work. There is even a bibliography at the end of the novel. Enjoy a bit of nonfiction with your novel at no extra charge!

This incredible book by Ann Patchett deserves to be named a Great American Novel. It has everything: an engrossing, multilayered storyline, deeply developed and vivid characters, and embedded literary themes. It's a ten-star book in a five-star world.

Taking place over two summers—1988 and 2020—this is the story of Lara, a 57-year-old happily married mother of three grown daughters—Emily, Maisie, and Nell—who lives on a cherry farm in Northern Michigan. It's the summer of 2020, and her three unmarried daughters have come home to live during the pandemic. Emily wants to take over the cherry farm someday. Maisie is a veterinary student, and Nell is an aspiring actress. Because the pandemic is raging, Lara and her husband, Joe, are unable to hire the usual number of cherry pickers, so the massive workload falls to the family.

While the four women are picking cherries day in and day out, Lara tells her daughters about the summer of 1988 when she played the role of the tragic heroine Emily in "Our Town" at the Tom Lake summer theater in rural Michigan. It is a story filled with love, romance, heartbreak, and wonder. And her girls are riveted because it was during that summer their mother dated Peter Duke, who later became a famous TV and movie star. It's also the summer that Lara and Joe met. (And the best parts of the story are those Lara imparts only to the reader and not her daughters or husband.)

It's a tender and nostalgic novel about romantic love—young love and married love—and the older-age thoughts of what could have been…if only that had happened. It's a novel about the choices we make when we are young and the impact those choices have on our destiny for decades to come. It's a novel about beauty and suffering.

And the ending: It's heartbreaking and perfect. Just like "Our Town."

This is an homage to Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" that not only pays tribute to the iconic American play set in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, but also goes one step further. Patchett has masterfully interwoven the themes of "Our Town" into "Tom Lake" with subtle plot points from the play that follow throughout the novel. Brilliant!

Tip: OK, this is more than a tip. This is strong advice. Take a couple of hours and read "Our Town: A Play in Three Acts" before you read "Tom Lake." Even if you have seen the play or vaguely recall reading it in seventh grade, read it again so it's fresh in your mind. There are many references and allusions to "Our Town" in the novel, and you will get so much more out of it if you read the play first.

Ann Patchett has cemented her place in my heart as one of my favorite novelists. She is truly an American treasure.

Ooooh! This is delicious ChickLit and a compelling page-turner with a multilayered plot line, well-developed characters, and (of course!) big secrets. Really, really big secrets from two husbands.

Written by Liane Moriarty, this is the story of three women living in Sydney, Australia, who barely know each other when the book begins but whose stories intertwine in surprising and heartbreaking ways:
• Cecilia Fitzpatrick is the happily married mother of three girls, Isabel, Esther, and Polly. Her husband, John-Paul, is successful and very (very!) good looking. Cecilia is the mastermind of organization, running her household and a lucrative Tupperware business. One day when John-Paul is on a business trip in New York City, she finds a sealed letter he wrote years ago addressed to her. On the front of the envelope it says: "To be opened only in the event of my death." Of course, she opens it even though John-Paul is alive and well. And life will never ever be the same again.

• Tess O'Leary is married to Will, and along with her cousin/best friend Felicity the three run a successful marketing/advertising company in Melbourne. Tess and Will have a six-year-old boy named Liam. Life is wonderful until one evening when Will and Felicity confront Tess with a shocking tale. She flees with Liam to her mother's home in Sydney.

• Rachel Crowley is a widowed grandmother, who dotes on her only grandchild, two-year-old Jacob. She and her husband had two children, but their daughter, Janie, was brutally murdered when she was 17, and Rachel has never recovered or stopped grieving. The case was never solved. Now her son and daughter-in-law are moving to New York, which will leave a giant hole in Rachel's heart when they take little Jacob with them. Rachel harbors a deep-seated anger that is nearly destroying her, especially because she thinks she knows who murdered her daughter.

The writing is light and breezy—just like ChickLit should be—until the major twists and turns in the plot give a real jolt and turn it into a kind of thriller. This is where it gets serious, and Liane Moriarty proves her writing chops as she tackles difficult topics, including marital infidelity, moral responsibilities, and troublesome ethical questions. Themes of betrayal, guilt, grief, and eventual forgiveness are laced throughout the novel.

This is a book that forces the reader to think, to put herself in the place of the characters and answer the almost unanswerable questions with which they are living.

Bonus: There are many spot-on pieces of life advice sprinkled throughout the novel.

This literary collection of short stories by Maggie Shipstead should win an award for diversity of settings. The 10 stories take place on a Montana dude ranch, a Midwestern college, Paris, a small California town off the Pacific Coast Highway, the backroads of Eastern Europe, an Olympic Village, the economy section of an airplane, a small Irish village overlooking the North Atlantic, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, and a secluded mansion on an unfinished, uninhabited ski resort.

And each story is as diverse as the settings with fresh characters and surprising plots. They all share a common theme: the dynamics of sexual power.

Some of my favorites:
• "The Cowboy Tango" is the story of the consequences and heartbreak of unrequited love.

• "Angel Lust" is the story of a thrice-married man who takes his two teenage daughters with him to clean out his deceased father's home where the angst and anguish of all three of their lives comes to the forefront.

• "La Moretta" takes place in 1974 and tells the story of newlyweds Bill and Lyla while they are on a two-month honeymoon on the backroads of Eastern Europe. The plot devices are brilliant, and the ending is shocking. I think this is the best of all 10 stories.

While each of the stories is edgy and in its own way idiosyncratic, each is also a study of human nature in a mundane place and time—until suddenly the mundane becomes bizarre, tragic, shocking, or outlandish. None is to be taken lightly. While almost all of them are dark and somber, there are occasional elements of light and humor—very occasional.

This is an ideal collection for someone who enjoys and deeply appreciates the short story genre.

The writing. Oh, the writing. This is one of those books that demands to be reread—even if it's just a paragraph here and a page there. The writing is masterful, lyrical, and nearly poetic. And this is only one of the reasons this profound, haunting novel by Jayne Anne Phillips won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The book opens in 1874 when Eliza and her 12-year-old daughter are being driven in a wagon to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia. It is not only the men who fought in the Civil War who are suffering psychologically from the trauma it wreaked. How and why they are here is the heart and soul of this heartbreaking plot that jumps back and forth in time from 1864 to 1874 in a way that is seamless and brilliant—as in, this is the best possible way to tell the story. The plot is convoluted and to reveal anything else here would be revealing spoilers. Suffice it to say that there are several gut-punch plot twists/revelations that left me almost breathless they were so stunning.

In addition to the ingenious, multilayered plot and good old-fashioned storytelling, the characters, who are doing what it takes to survive in unimaginably difficult circumstances, make this emotionally searing novel special. They feel like real people—from their actions and dialogue to the descriptions of their clothing.

While it took a few chapters to get fully immersed in the story, once I did, I was captivated…totally mesmerized. Sometimes I would look up from the page and wonder where I was. This is literary fiction at its finest.

Fifty states. Fifty essays. Fifty writers. Sew it all together, and you have a portrait of the United States, but it's not one that would be endorsed by any state chamber of commerce. This is an unvarnished, true-to-life, sometimes full of praise, sometimes denigrating, and occasionally disturbing portrait of each of the 50 states—and it's a must-read.

During the Great Depression, the WPA initiated the American Guide Series of the Federal Writers' Project. More than 6,000 writers and researchers wrote a 500-page book about each of the then-48 states. This is not that kind of book. The editors, Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, announce their intentions at the beginning, looking for something that is broad-minded and good-hearted, as well as bold, intimate, and funny. They wanted their writers to provide personal anecdotes and strange characters and hidden truths. It is to be a road trip in book form.

While they mostly succeeded, the essays for some states are far superior than others, primarily because the writers told personal stories that felt universal and included information and descriptions unique to that state, making it stand out.

Here are my state essay superlatives that, please note, describe the essay—not the state of the state:
• The top five best:
1. Louisiana
2. South Carolina
3. Florida
4. Pennsylvania
5. Rhode Island

• Most Humorous (as in LOL Funny!): Illinois (with South Carolina a close second)
• Most Ingenious: New York
• Most Poignant: New Mexico
• Most Interesting Facts: Michigan
• Most Poetically Lyrical Writing: Idaho
• Most Nostalgic: New Jersey
• Most Disturbing (Read with Caution): California
• The Weirdest: New Hampshire (with Oregon a close second)
• The Saddest: Mississippi
• Most Boring: Kentucky

The secret sauce is the list of writers. There are several Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners, an Academy Award-winning writer, journalists, playwrights, poets, musicians, college professors, and B-list actors. Some of the authors' names are easily recognizable: Anthony Bourdain, Susan Choi, Anthony Doerr, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Joshua Ferris, Jonathan Franzen, Cristina Henríquez, Tony Horwitz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lydia Millet, Susan Orlean, George Packer, Ann Patchett, and Jayne Anne Phillips.

Each state essay begins with a list of facts and figures, including the capital, origin of the name, motto, state flower, and population by race and age. At the end of the book, look for a list of tables that will make geography geeks swoon: population shifts, mean time to commute to work, unemployment rate, military recruitment rate, gasoline consumption, breastfeeding rate, toothlessness rate, and many more.

Bonus: The "Afterword" is a conversation with novelist/short story writer Edward P. Jones about Washington, D.C.

The end of the book is an extensive glossary of the 50 states by numbers, including population statistics that will make your head spin—rates of bankruptcy filing, travel time to work, military recruitment rate, population claiming no religion, roller coasters and drive-in movie theaters, toothlessness, obesity, alcohol consumption, and lots more.

Amor Towles is one of my favorite authors, and it was a delight after 12 years to reread this, his first novel, for my book club. While the plot is compelling, the magic of the book is in the enthralling characters.

The story takes place over one year—1938—opening on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1937 when best friends Katey Kontent (pronounced like the lovely feeling of contentedness) and Evelyn Ross pool their pennies and go to a downtrodden jazz club in Greenwich Village to ring in the new year. There they meet the handsome, rich banker Theodore "Tinker" Grey, who will forever change their lives. Both Katey and Eve are savvy, sassy, and sexy—but on Katey it comes off as smart and sophisticated and on Eve as reckless and brash. Meanwhile, Tinker is harboring a dark secret, one that he only reveals when he's caught.

The three become inseparable pals, doing everything together until one fateful night when they are in a car crash. Guilt and honor combine, and Tinker takes care of the injured Eve until they suddenly become a couple, leaving Katey as a third wheel. But don't count her out just yet. Ambitious Katey is intelligent, resourceful, and willing to take a chance, making 1938 a very good year for her as this poor girl travels in high society and holds her own among the rich and famous.

The prologue takes place in 1966 when a married Katey is at the Museum of Modern Art attending a gala opening of photographic portraits that were taken in the late 1930s on the New York City subways. She is accompanied by her unnamed husband. The prologue gives away some significant plot developments yet to come, but it is done in such a way that makes the book that much more enticing to read.

Masterfully written with remarkable characters, delightful dialogue, and an endearing plot, this charming and imaginative novel is a literary gift.

Bonus No. 1: The title of the book comes from a school writing exercise penned by a young George Washington titled "Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation." The entire document is printed in the appendix. In my opinion, the first and the last rules are bookends for this novel.

Bonus No. 2: Eve's story continues in Amor Towles's latest book of short stories and one novella: "Table for Two: Fictions."

This is billed as a "thrilling page-turner": A married father of three children goes missing. Is he dead? If he is dead, was it an accident or murder? Was he kidnapped? Did he skip town with a possible paramour? If you, like me, choose to read this book thinking it's a mystery or thriller, you'll be confused at first…and then disappointed.

It's not a thriller. Or a mystery.

Instead, it's an intelligent treatise on the nature of happiness, a thoughtful, empathetic discourse on the difficulty of human communication and personal interaction and the bias against those who have trouble expressing themselves, and a probe about how much (or little) we know about our immediate family, the people with whom we are supposed to be the closest.

Taking place in June 2020 in a Northern Virginia suburb outside Washington, D.C.—so a few months after the Covid pandemic started and lockdown began—this is the story of Adam Parson and Hannah Park and their three children: John and Mia, who are college-age twins, and 14-year-old Eugene, who is not only autistic, but also has Angelman syndrome, leaving him unable to verbally communicate. Adam is a stay-at-home dad, who spends hours and hours with Eugene, working with him in therapy. On the morning Adam disappeared, he and Eugene had been in a park overlooking the Potomac River. Something happened to greatly upset Eugene, who ran home without his father, something he had never done. Adam never came home. Eugene is the only one who knows what happened to his dad, but he can't communicate.

This story is sidetracked early on as Mia, in whose somewhat annoying/know-it-all first person voice the book is narrated, rambles on and on and on about many other things than the mystery at hand. Perhaps author Angie Kim is trying to mimic a 20-year-old's voice, but some of the sentences are so digressive and longwinded at more than 150 words, that it's hard to keep up as the reader.

I found the plot disjointed, the characters one-sided, and too many of the plot's little twists and turns not believable. The prose was often hyped-up, as if on steroids. While parts of the novel were riveting, most of it was just exhausting to read.

And the mystery of Adam's disappearance? It's resolved in a most unsatisfactory way—that is, if you thought this was a mystery/thriller novel in the first place. It's all about expectations. And that's rather amusing, considering the premise of the novel's treatise on happiness is all about expectations.

I know I'm in the minority. So many professional and reader reviews raved about this book. Kirkus even gave it a starred review. But it just didn't work for me.