Monthly Archives: January 2026

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

Posted by in Fiction, United States

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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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