Tag Archives: marriage

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

03 Wednesday May 2023

Posted by in Fiction, Historical Fiction, United States

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This was sadder than I expected, but I enjoyed this family saga of four sisters growing up near Chicago. 

“This sumptuous family saga is one of those rare novels whose singular characters are so beautifully rendered, it’s as if they’re your best friends, and you’re grateful to be in their orbit. Napolitano’s homage to Little Women, albeit set in late-20thcentury Chicago, will prompt you to slow down as you read, never wanting the book to end. When it does, prepare for tears.”—Oprah Quarterly

Hello Beautiful will make you weep buckets because you come to care so deeply about the characters and their fates. . . . [Napolitano] compels us to contemplate the complex tapestry of family love that can, despite grief and loss, still knit us together. She helps us see ourselves—and each other—whole.”—The Washington Post

“Radiant and brilliantly crafted . . . Napolitano’s [work] resists the easy satisfactions of the sentimental and never settles for simple answers to emotional predicaments faced by her characters.”—The New York Times Book Review

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Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny

29 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Fiction, Humor

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This book really made me laugh. Graham and Audra are a married couple living in New York with their son. There’s not too much more to the plot than that, as they navigate their son’s needs and interact with Graham’s first wife, Audra’s friends, and the origami club their son joins. What I loved about this book is the humor, much of it related to Audra, who is one of the most unique characters I have encountered in a while.

“Audra Daltry is a singular creation—a character so funny, so appealing, so sure that she can change the world for her family that she will jump right off the page and take up permanent residence in your heart. Standard Deviation is a marvel.” —Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life 

“Warmhearted… Dishes up amusing riffs on marriage, misfits, and finicky eaters, plus some wonderfully on-target descriptions… Explores the complexities and ambivalences that color even our most central relationships… This book is about a marriage under stress—though Heiny keeps it bubbly, evoking the smart, stylish wit of Laurie Colwin, Nora Ephron, and Maria Semple… [She] clearly has what it takes to join the elite coterie of witty social satirists who turn out smart, lively charmers.” —Heller McAlpin, NPR

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The Rules Do Not Apply: a Memoir by Ariel Levy

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in 20th century, Biography

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When 38-year-old New Yorker writer Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.  Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life – reinventing work, marriage, family, pregnancy, sex and divorce for herself from the ground up and  then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed.

“Every deep feeling a human is capable of will be shaken loose by this profound book. Ariel Levy has taken grief and made art out of it.”—David Sedaris

“A great memoir is not a trip through someone else’s life but a series of long looks into your own.  Ariel Levy’s book – grieving, hopeful, painful, funny – is that.” – Amy Bloom

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The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict

31 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Biographical fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction

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The Big Library Read (BLR) @ OverDrive announces the winning title!  The Other Einstein will be available for unlimited access on the OverDrive-powered website between June 12-26, 2017. And, of course, you can pick up a copy at your library:

“Mileva “Mitza” Marić has always been a little different from other girls. Rather than thinking about marriage, she’s studying physics with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.”

“In her compelling novel… Benedict makes a strong case that the brilliant woman behind [Albert Einstein] was integral to his success, and creates a rich historical portrait in the process.” – Publishers Weekly

“Benedict’s debut novel carefully traces Mileva’s life-from studious schoolgirl to bereaved mother-with attention paid to the conflicts between personal goals and social conventions. An intriguing… re-imagining of one of the strongest intellectual partnerships of the 19th century.” – Kirkus

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You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

22 Monday Jun 2015

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Set in Manhattan with some side trips to the Boston area, the first third of this book is slow-paced and the characters are vague.  However, the reader will soon discover that as the details are filled in, all is not perfect in the life of the main character, Grace Sachs, a family therapist, who thinks she has a perfect marriage. Suddenly there is a murder, a mystery and a missing husband! You will read this book in a “New York minute”!

“This excellent literary mystery [unfolds] with authentic detail in a rarified contemporary Manhattan. . . intriguing and beautiful.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Korelitz does not disappoint as she chronicles the emotional unraveling of her heroine in this gripping saga…A cut above your average who-is-this-stranger-in-my-marriage-bed novel, “You Should Have Known” transforms itself at certain moments from a highly effective thriller into a nuanced novel of family, heritage, identity, and nurture.”—The Boston Globe
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My Father’s Wives by Mike Greenberg

11 Monday May 2015

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9780062325860_p0_v4_s114x166 A light and engaging “romance novel” or possibly “chick lit” written by one of the very male co-hosts of ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” sports talk-radio show.  Greenberg’s main character, Jonathan Sweetwater, who is bothered by his lack of a relationship with his late father and distraught by his own troubled marriage decides to track down and interview his father’s six wives including his own mother in hopes of finding answers to the questions about his past.

“Turns out Greenberg knows a lot more than sports. He knows about men–the holes we dig ourselves into and the mess we make trying to pull ourselves out.” (Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You)
On the surface, My Father’s Wives appears to be an examination of relationships. Fathers and sons. Husbands and wives. It is that for sure. But it’s also so much more…Fully realized characters, deft pacing and spot-on dialogue.” (Associated Press)
“Greenberg imbues his second novel with an autobiographical sense of purpose and undeniable honesty . . . A highly enjoyable walk through Jonathan’s foggy past, tumultuous present, and imagined future. Fans of Joshua Henkin and Emma Straub will enjoy Greenberg’s wry, unflinching domestic fiction.” (Booklist)

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Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

08 Tuesday Apr 2014

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I think this may be my all time favorite book.  I delight to recommend this book to any who haven’t read it yet.  There is little action, but you learn that it really is the very smallest of things in daily living that are the most important things that matter most in life.

From Library Journal:

“Stegner published his first novel 50 years ago. Since then he has won both a Pulitzer Prize (for Angle of Repose, 1971) and the National Book Award (for The Spectator Bird, 1976). His latest effort, an exploration into the mysteries of friendship, deserves similar accolades. With a quiet but strong hand, he traces the bond that develops between Charity and Sid Lang and Sally and Larry Morgan from their first meeting in 1937 through their eventual separation to their final get-together in 1972 when Charity is dying of cancer and is determined “to do it right,” no matter what anyone else thinks. It seems only appropriate that Charity bring them together since she has been the driving force behind the relationship. As we discover now, her bull-headedness has had its price. This is a wonderfully rich, warm, and affecting book. Highly recommended.”  David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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