A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr (1980)

25 Wednesday Feb 2026

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Not a new book, but one that is a deliberate, well written, a simple story about a World War I veteran who decides to accept a month in the Yorkshire countryside restoring a recently discovered medieval mural of the apocalypse.  Enjoy 135 pages of a gem of a novel.

And Colin Firth stars in the movie version.

Protagonist Tom Birkin is a broken man. Haunted by his experiences in the trenches of World War I and recovering from a divorce, Birkin accepts a job restoring a medieval mural of the apocalypse in a church located in a remote corner of Yorkshire. It is here, however, that Birkin, though alone with only an interpretation of the world’s end for company, learns to live again. Carr’s small gem of a novel was first published in 1980. – Library Journal

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The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds (2025)

18 Wednesday Feb 2026

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Read for Novels at Night Book Club at the Weston Library January 2026 – “A Gem of a Novel”

In the 1920s, a young Englishman travels to southern France in hopes of writing an article on a reclusive painter. As he tries to learn about this imposing, tumultuous figure, he also forms a connection with the artist’s niece. This is a beautifully written novel full of scenes and senses you can feel, smell, and taste.

“The Artist and the Feast is an intoxicating tale of creativity, possession and freedom told by the alternate voices of a young English writer and a French woman who have been drawn into the orbit of a celebrated but reclusive artist. As they circle around him during one hot summer in Provence, both his secrets and theirs slowly come into the light. This is a compelling, beautifully textured and impressively assured debut about the risks we take to get what we want, a novel which asks questions about all those who are painted over by history.”–Joanna Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Whalebone Theatre

“The Artist and the Feast is a lush, impressive debut; the writing is rich and sensuous, especially in descriptions of food, the landscape and the act of creation. Lucy Steeds, a graduate of the Faber Academy, is one to watch.”–The Times, Best Historical Fiction of 2025

“The stifling Provence landscape and the visceral nature of creating and consuming art are evoked beautifully . . . Steeds command of language is dexterous and powerful . . . a hugely accomplished portrait of ambition and self-fulfillment.”–Observer

“A sultry, headily perfumed portrait of monstrous male egos and oppressed overlooked women . . . The Artist and the Feast uncovers its secrets by stealth.”--Telegraph

“A furiously romantic, sun-drenched mystery about the violent power of good art. The Artist and the Feast will leave you yearning in every sense of the word.”–Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize finalist and author of The Safekeep

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The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy

13 Friday Feb 2026

Posted by in Fiction, Humor, murder, United States

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My good reader friend from Colorado just put down this book and called me up to rave about this title. Surprisingly I hadn’t heard of it, nor was it in the Minuteman system anywhere! If you liked The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime years ago, this character also is trying to do the right thing but struggles with the limited pieces of this modern world as best he can with often very humorous outcomes. Minuteman now owns copies.

“I can’t rave enough about this novel. The Sideways Life of Denny Voss is simply magical, a heart-wrenching, unconventional tale that moved me from laughter to tears. Denny is a true original, an authentically portrayed protagonist who leaps off the page. His story is irresistible. I want to know him. I want to be his friend. And even though the feel-good ending was perfect, I didn’t want his story to end.” ―Patricia Wood, PhD in disability studies, author of Lottery

“Original, deftly crafted, and told with author Holly Kennedy’s distinctive and narrative driven storytelling style…Unreservedly recommended.” ―Midwest Book Review

“The Sideways Life of Denny Voss will be a modern classic. Kennedy’s Denny is not idealized. Instead, he is fully revealed, with a clarity not seen in the pages of a novel since Carson McCullers wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. His story is a meditation on justice, bigotry, gun violence, and equity. Read it, perhaps as I did, all night, in one sitting, then look deep into your own community―and into your own heart.” ―Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

“The Sideways Life of Denny Voss is a coming-of-age story that ticks all my boxes. Beautifully written, authentic characters that will tug at your heart, and the kind of story that will keep you turning the pages long after lights out. It’s the best novel I’ve read in a very long time. Don’t miss this one!” ―Lesley Kagen, New York Times bestselling author of Whistling in the Dark and Every Now and Then

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The Sound of a Thousand Stars by Rachel Robbin

09 Monday Feb 2026

Posted by in 20th century, crimes against, Fiction, Historical Fiction

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A 2024 debut novel featuring the greatest physicists of our time – Bohr, Feynman, and Oppenheimer – all working secretly at Los Alamos but the story centers upon two young Jewish people who fall in love while facing the gripping emotional and ethical choices of their work and life’s greater meaning.  

“Realistically evokes the constant worry and guilt felt by those on the home front during wartime.”—Historical Novel Society

“From its first page, this novel delivers a keenly intimate, precise account of a watershed moment in our world history. Not only is The Sound of a Thousand Stars a great achievement of historical depth, it proves how selfless and vital love becomes when we find ourselves at the end of the world. Robbins has given us an elegy that rings clear, strong, and true.”—Amy Jo Burns, author of Mercury“

The Sound of A Thousand Stars declassifies the human emotions at the core of one of the 20th century’s most fraught scientific projects. Asking questions of complicity and sacrifice that reverberate today, this beautifully written novel considers the costs of scientific advancement, the value of an individual life, and the thrilling knife’s edge of being in love. A feat of a book.”—Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House and Maddalena and the Dark

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Making the best of what’s left: when we’re too old to get the chairs reupholstered (2025) by Judith Viorst

30 Friday Jan 2026

Posted by in Humor, meaning of life, Non-fiction, United States

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Author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Viorst has written books bringing us wisdom with humor for every decade of her life.  Now she is in her nineties!

“The great humorist, poet, and observer of life passages turns her attention to the ‘Final Fifth’ of life. . . . We should all be in such fine form in our 10th decade. Viorst is as charming, and smart, as ever.” ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Judith Viorst has chronicled our century with wit, wisdom and an unflinching eye for the agonies and absurdities of ordinary family life. Now in her nineties, and in the shadow of her husband’s recent death, she offers an exhilarating meditation on final chapters: how to grasp the richness and grace that remains, even as much slips away.” — Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Memorial Days and March

“Writer and poet Viorst may be in what she calls the ‘Final Fifth of Life,’ but she’s every bit as witty and observant as she always was. . . . Readers of a similar age will be nodding along and be reminded to be grateful for the time they have left.” ― Booklist (starred review)

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Bad Bad Girl: a Novel by Gish Jen

23 Friday Jan 2026

Posted by in Biographical fiction, Fiction

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“Trigger warning for any daughter who has ever had a fraught relationship with their mother: Bad Bad Girl may prompt a flood of feelings not felt since adolescence. . . . A heart-piercingly personal work that also imparts universal truths about the immigrant experience—and what it is to be a daughter, a mother and a woman. . . . Suffused with love and a desire to finally understand. . . . How rich this book is, and how humane. . . . A marvel.” —Los Angeles Times

“Astute and revelatory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

 “As portraits of tough mother-daughter relationships go, it’s as moving as they come.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

 “Heartbreaking and stunning.” —Library Journal (starred)

 “A uniquely faceted, cross-cultural mother-daughter drama of anguish, fracture, determination, humor, loyalty, and love. . . . Ravishingly vivid.” —Booklist (starred)

“Reading Bad Bad Girl, I felt a deep ache for mothers and daughters divided by culture and silence. Gish Jen writes tenderly about a woman carrying old China in her bones while raising a child in America. This story shows how quiet courage can be, and how a ‘bad girl’ is often just a woman who refuses to vanish. Many will find comfort and recognition in these pages.” —Xinran Xue, author of The Good Women of China

 “Standout. . . . What makes Bad Bad Girl a pleasure is the deft plotting and the sympathetic portraits of the main characters, even when they’re behaving their worst. It’s one of the best tales of mother-daughter relationships you’ll encounter.” —BookPage (starred)

“Singular. . . . Extraordinary. . . . Strikingly authentic. . . . Both deeply personal and universally resonant. . . . This book is imperative for anyone interested in immigrant experiences, the complexities of family, and the art of writing personal history.” —Shelf Awareness (starred)

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Finding Margaret Fuller: a Novel by Allison Pataki

14 Wednesday Jan 2026

Posted by in Biographical fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction, History, romance, Travel

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“What a woman! What a story! Whether exploring Margaret’s remarkable friendships or delving into her crucial legacy as a journalist, writer, and feminist, Finding Margaret Fuller promises to transform every reader it touches—much like Margaret Fuller herself.”—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Personal Librarian

“Pataki’s star-studded and gripping account is full of lush details about the life of an overlooked contributor to Transcendentalism and women’s rights. This is one to savor.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Pataki’s sweepingly urgent, inspiring novel about the astonishing life of Margaret Fuller . . . An invigorating fictional portrait of a brilliant woman.”—Booklist (starred review)

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Heart the Lover by Lily King (2025)

05 Monday Jan 2026

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This was such a delight to read and curl up with that I reread her earlier Lovers & Writers all over again!

“Might be her best book yet . . . It stands as one of the most emotionally devastating and soulfully wise novels I have ever read . . . Like all of King’s fiction, Heart The Lover is literary without pretension, emotional without maudlin sentimentality . . . heartrending, swoonily romantic, rigorously clear-sighted.”—Priscilla Gilman, Boston Globe

“[T]his affecting novel…questions whether a person can inhabit any moment other than the present.”—New Yorker

“King’s swoony story of love and literature, of paths taken and not taken, of the past selves we never truly leave behind, is quietly robust and nearly impossible to put down.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Intensely moving . . . The structure of Heart the Lover is so ingenious, its emotional charge so compelling . . . [A] great triangular love story . . . about screwing up, wising up, finding yourself and realizing what you may have lost in the process.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“[Y]oung and intense and foolishly stubborn, this love triangle takes a redemptive turn that feels grounded, believable and quite beautiful. Jordan is a wonderful protagonist—funny, despairing, self-deprecating, lonely and determined to write novels. This is a satisfying, emotionally rich tearjerker, a book that just may make you sob out loud.”—Bookpage (starred review)

“King is a genius at writing love stories . . . Her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, as nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears. That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Daughters of the Bamboo Grove : From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins by Barbara Demick (2025)

26 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by in case studies, History, Non-fiction

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NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy (Amazon)

“Demick relays this nightmarish tale in elegant, empathetic prose. It’s a tour de force.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“This appalling exposé . . . tells [vulnerable families’] stories with amazing levels of detail, nuance, empathy, and grace.”—Booklist, starred review

“Evocative . . . Demick, a longtime foreign correspondent, tells this story with insight and sensitivity . . . a moving story of fortitude and emotional growth.”—BookPage, starred review

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Atmosphere: a Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2025)

19 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by in 20th century, adventure, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Travel, United States

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Selected for the Novels at Night book club at the Weston Library on January 6, 2025! Read it and join the conversation.

“A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, People, Good Housekeeping, them, Marie Claire, Book Riot, Library Journal, Chicago Public Library, She Reads”- Amazon

#1 NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER• GOOD MORNING AMERICABOOK CLUB PICK • From the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Sixcomes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. – Amazon

“Thrilling . . . heartbreaking . . . uplifting . . . the fast-paced, emotionally charged story of one ambitious young woman, finding both her voice and her passion.”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Women

“NASA? Space missions? The ’80s? This is a collection of all the things I love.”—Andy Weir, author of Project Hail Maryand The Martian

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