“Three Days in June” by Anne Tyler

About This Book:

A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter’s wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers.

-From Penguin Random House Website  

 

 

My Thoughts After Reading:

Given its page length and synopsis, I prepared for a simple, somewhat fluffy, novel largely centered around wedding woes.  Boy was I wrong!  It is a “slice of life” story about self-forgiveness, second chances and changing family dynamics.

Tyler’s writing is concise but engaging.  Every scene is written with intention and has an impact on the story. Three Days in June is character driven and reflective.  Not much happens in the three days we spend with Gail, Max and Debbie (and don’t forget the cat!) and yet, so much is felt, speculated and decided upon.

If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts, you know how much I love “real” characters.  Don’t get me wrong – good vs. evil type books are amazing, too. But real life isn’t nearly so black and white. Authors, like Tyler, that write within the messy middle have such a talent for honest storytelling.

This is my first Anne Tyler novel. With 20+ novels other novels to choose from, it won’t be my last.

If you are looking for more recommendations, her twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1989.

-Michelle 

“Tilt” by Emma Pattee

About This Book:

Set over the course of a single day, an electrifying debut novel from “a powerful new literary voice” (Vogue) following one woman’s journey across a transformed city, carrying the weight of her past and a fervent hope for the future.

Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen.

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk.

Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life.

A propulsive debut, Tilt is a primal scream of a novel about the disappointments and desires we all carry, and what each of us will do for the people we love.

– From Simon & Schuster Website

My Thoughts After Reading:

I liked so much about Tilt, I don’t know where to start.

Firstly, I love books where the narrator is talking directly to you. I have always felt more connected to these stories.  In Tilt’s case, our narrator – 9 month pregnant Annie – is speaking to her unborn child.  It has the same, if not a more powerful, effect.

For a debut novel, Pattee was able to expertly weave a fictional tale that felt dangerously accurate.  When/if this anticipated earthquake hits, the devastation her characters face will be made real.  The large and small consequences of the disaster are so visceral.

Tilt will have you turning pages well into the night.  You’ll be sobbing at the heartbreaking bits, laughing out loud at Annie’s inner monologue, examining your past and future choices and questioning your own humanity in face of disaster.  What would you do if you were Annie? As a mother and wife, the fierce portrayal of maternal instinct coupled with the tribulations and triumphs of marriage were spot on.

I’ve seen some other reviewers who were disappointed in the abrupt ending.  At 240 pages, could the book have been longer?  Absolutely. However, in Pattee’s defense, I think she made this choice on purpose.  The book centers on the accumulation of choices and the crushing weight of uncertainty so it makes sense to me that the ending left a lot unknown. 

-Michelle

“Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains” by Bethany Brookshire

About This Book:

An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world

A squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don’t expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It’s no longer an animal. It’s a pest.

At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It’s not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us. It’s about what calling an animal a pest says about people, how we live, and what we want. It’s a story about human nature, and how we categorize the animals in our midst, including bears and coyotes, sparrows and snakes. Pet or pest? In many cases, it’s entirely a question of perspective.

Bethany Brookshire’s deeply researched and entirely entertaining book will show readers what there is to venerate in vermin, and help them appreciate how these animals have clawed their way to success as we did everything we could to ensure their failure. In the process, we will learn how the pests that annoy us tell us far more about humanity than they do about the animals themselves. 

– From Harper Collins Website

My Thoughts After Reading:

I am a fiction reader or so I always thought. But here I am recommending my second nonfiction read on this blog.

Pests, I imagine, is going to make me annoying in social situations. In a month’s time, I’ve already casually dropped anecdotes from the book three times—1. to my neighbor attempting to protect his cedar siding from a persistent woodpecker; 2. to my sister-in-law preemptively plotting a garden thieving chipmunks’ demise; and 3. to my husband preparing for Wisconsin’s spring turkey season. It will be a book I recommend any time “pests” come up in conversation.

While we have a physical copy of Pests in our collection, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook read by Courtney Patterson (available with your library card on Hoopla). Listening, I felt like I was back in a college lecture hall (not snoring but absorbing each word). 

This book is meticulously researched – you’ll learn about specific species, natural history, cultural differences and more. And yet, it is also incredibly accessible – you’ll be laughing at Brookshire’s quips and mini stories throughout.

What I liked most was the examination of double standards. Why is it acceptable to kill thousands of invasive pythons in the everglades but killing thousands of stray cats in the suburbs is unimaginable? Both are a human-caused problem. Both are considered pets sometimes. Both are killing native wildlife.   Full transparency—I still don’t like the idea of culling cats (I love cats!) but I enjoy how this book makes me question my assumptions and reactions.

In just under 300 pages, Brookshire will change your perspective on “pests”.

– Michelle 

“The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love” by India Holton

About This Book:

Rival ornithologists hunt through England for a rare magical bird in this historical-fantasy rom-com reminiscent of Indiana Jones but with manners, tea, and helicopter parasols.

Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, stealing both her bird and her imagination like a villain. Albeit a handsome and charming villain, but that’s beside the point. As someone highly educated in the ruthless discipline of ornithology, Beth knows trouble when she sees it, and she is determined to keep her distance from Devon.

For his part, Devon has never been more smitten than when he first set eyes on Professor Beth Pickering. She’s so pretty, so polite, so capable of bringing down a fiery, deadly bird using only her wits. In other words, an angel. Devon understands he must not get close to her, however, since they’re professional rivals.

When a competition to become Birder of the Year by capturing an endangered caladrius bird is announced, Beth and Devon are forced to team up to have any chance of winning. Now keeping their distance becomes a question of one bed or two. But they must take the risk, because fowl play is afoot, and they can’t trust anyone else—for all may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology.

– From Penguin Random House Website 

My Thoughts After Reading:

By Jove! This was a 5-star read for me. But, it’s worth noting that this book might not be for everyone. The Ornithologist’s Field Guild to Love is a historical fantasy and a romantic comedy. Holton brilliantly crosses genres but if you are a diehard fan of one or the other, you may be frustrated with her approach.

Holton’s writing is unique and exaggerated with charming prose and tongue-in-cheek humor on every page.  It took me a few pages to reorient my brain to her style.  Once I did, I was immersed and loving every minute.  This book made me smile ear-to-ear; it is a ROMP.  

The romance between our two rivals is a chef’s kiss and the distinct characteristics of the colorful supporting cast had me rolling.

As a birder, the magical birds were definitely a favorite. Holton perfectly poked fun at and appreciated the actual field of Ornithology.

While it is a standalone novel, The Ornithologist’s Field Guild to Love is part of the “Love’s Academic” series by Holton.  The next book, “The Geographer’s Map to Romance”, is being released this April – I can’t wait to continue in this world of magical, romantic academia! 

– Michelle 

“The Heiress” by Rachel Hawkins

About This Book:

THERE’S NOTHING AS GOOD AS THE RICH GONE BAD.

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, his uncle’s death pulls Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but the legacy of Ruby is inescapable.

And as Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.

– From MacMillan Publishers Website

 

My Thoughts After Reading:

I should start by saying: I am a scaredy cat. I can’t watch “scary” movies without having nightmares so I always assumed the thriller/suspense genre was not for me.

The Heiress, dubbed a gothic thriller, proved me wrong! I could not put down this addictive page turner.

The story is told from three distinct viewpoints: Camden, adoptive son of Ruby McTavish; Jules, Camden’s wife; and letters from Ruby McTavish. The letters from Ruby stole the show for me.  Ruby is one of those likeably unlikeable characters.  If you liked The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, you’ll like this darker version as Ruby reveals the unfortunate fates of each of her four husbands.  

This book has some classic thriller tropes: unreliable narrators, numerous twists, multiple deaths, greedy relatives, a creepy house, victim revenge and more. All kept me engaged and entertained in the mystery.    

Will I be picking up a Stephen King novel any time soon? Probably not. But, I did read two more thrillers/mysteries: The Fury (Alex Michaelides) and Listen for the Lie (Amy Tintera), and had a great time with both!  Lesson learned: don’t be afraid to read outside your comfort zone!

– Michelle 

“The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern” by Lynda Cohen Loigman

About This Book:

On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.

As a teenager growing up in 1920’s Brooklyn, Augusta’s role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta’s mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta can’t help but be drawn to Esther’s curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon’s customers her own advice—unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions.

As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther’s enchantments forever.

Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it’s too late?

From MacMillan Publishers Website 

My Thoughts After Reading:

So many adjectives can describe this gem of a book: engaging, charming, captivating and more!

The dual timeline narration is executed flawlessly – moving between the 1980s and 1920s. Being transported back forth between a retired living community where the residents still like teenagers (1980s) and a family-owned pharmacy with a homeopathic, no nonsense aunt living upstairs and a gangster living down the street (1920s) was an absolute delight.  With incredibly likeable and witty characters, this story was satisfying from start to finish.

While it is a light read, Loigman sneaks in powerful messages and underlining themes.  How women are overlooked in the medical field – both as providers and patients. How life at 80 can be just as beautiful and fulfilling as life at 20. How our past shapes our future. I wanted to annotate numerous lines in this one! I imagine every reader will be inspired by Augusta in different ways.  

One thing to note: this book is marketed as magical realism.  Don’t let that sway your decision to read or not read.  As someone who loves magical realism, it is not the focus here.  Nevertheless, it is a magical book!

– Michelle

“The Serviceberry” by Robin Wall Kimmerer

About This Book:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?

Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

From Simon & Schuster website

My Thoughts After Reading:

Even as a fiction reader, I devoured this nonfiction read in two sittings.  The Serviceberry is incredibly well written – full of interesting facts, heartwarming stories and approachable alternatives.  While this book can be read at any time of year, it feels timely to read during “gift giving” season. 

Kimmerer introduces us to a gift economy where there is value in reciprocity and relationships nourish the well-being of a whole community.  I was worried a critic of our scarcity-based economy might come off as “preachy” or evoke feelings of shame/guilt.  I felt neither of these while reading. In fact, I am inspired to find ways to operate within a gift economy in my own life – something that, if you read this book, you’ll discover is attainable for each of us. 

She argues that gift economies are everywhere.  It is our job to pay attention and to name them as such. For example, Kimmerer writes “Public libraries seem to me a powerful example of the way that gift economies can coexist with market economies, at a larger scale.”  As if we needed another reason to love our local library. 

This short, powerful book should be on everyone’s to-be-read list!

– Michelle 

“I Hope This Find You Well” by Natalie Sue

About This Book:

In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues’ private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favor, convince HR she’s Supershops material, and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers’ private worlds and realizes they are each keeping secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. 

This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes along with it.

From HarperCollins Publishers’ website 

My Thoughts After Reading:

Two words: humor and heart! This book is packed with laugh-out-loud moments as well as multiple opportunities to sigh ‘aw’ – both hilarious and deeply touching.

This is a character-driven novel with Jolene as the star. She is a perfectly imperfect, witty and observant narrator. At one point, Jolene shares “This kind of moment is so unreal that a small chuckle escapes me. As much as a breakdown is terrible, it is also a wondrous thing to behold.” This line encapsulates how I felt the majority of the book. I Hope This Finds You Well is outlandish and exaggerated in all the best ways. Anyone who has ever had coworkers (nearly everyone!) will relate to something or someone in this book.

As a debut author, Natalie Sue knocked it out of the park in terms of storytelling: clear beginning, tension-building middle, and satisfying end. Her book could be the spokesperson for the phase “you never know what someone else is going through.” We spend so much of our time at our work places – the human connections we make or lack are integral to our work experience. I Hope This Finds You Well is a reminder to be kind, stop gossiping, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

– Michelle 

“Ink Blood Sister Scribe” by Emma Törzs

About This Book:

In this spellbinding debut novel, two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family’s library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection–a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal, and the pursuit of magic and power.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements–books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.

All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries . . .

From HarperCollins Publishers’ website

My Thoughts After Reading:

For October, it seemed fitting to showcase a witchy novel. Ink Blood Sister Scribe doesn’t use the term ‘witch’ but the book bleeds magic, literally — spells are created by writing magical books with one’s blood.  Ink Blood Sister Scribe blends all my favorite elements of urban fantasy and dark academia into a spellbinding magical thriller filled with suspense and twists. 

Through lush and immersive world building, it was easy to get lost in the book but also easy to follow. The author deviates from the genres’ predictable ‘norms’ giving us a truly unique novel with likeable, intriguing characters.  Ester, Joanna, Nick and Collins are the perfect, unorthodox group of misfit heroes when they finally get together.  Collins, technically a secondary character, stole the show (well, book) for me. I was disappointed he didn’t get his own point of view. 

While Ink Blood Sister Scribe is a standalone novel, the world and characters built by Törzs deserve another novel (or two!)—perhaps focusing on Collins?

– Michelle

“The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County” Claire Swinarski

About This Book:

Armed with a Crock-Pot and a pile of recipes, a grandmother, her granddaughter, and a mysterious young man work to bring a community together in this uplifting novel for readers of The Chicken Sisters.

Esther Larson has been cooking for funerals in the Northwoods of Wisconsin for seventy years. Known locally as the “funeral ladies,” she and her cohort have worked hard to keep the mourners of Ellerie County fed—it is her firm belief that there is very little a warm casserole and a piece of cherry pie can’t fix. But, after falling for an internet scam that puts her home at risk, the proud Larson family matriarch is the one in need of help these days.

Iris, Esther’s whip-smart Gen Z granddaughter, would do anything for her family and her community. As she watches her friends and family move out of their lakeside town onto bigger and better things, Iris wonders why she feels so left behind in the place she is desperate to make her home. But when Cooper Welsh shows up, she finally starts to feel like she’s found the missing piece of her puzzle.

Cooper is dealing with becoming a legal guardian to his younger half-sister after his beloved stepmother dies. While their celebrity-chef father is focused on his booming career and top-ranked television show, Cooper is still hurting from a public tragedy he witnessed last year as a paramedic and finding it hard to cope. With Iris in the gorgeous Ellerie County, though, he hopes he might finally find the home he’s been looking for.

It doesn’t seem like a community cookbook could possibly solve their problems, especially one where casseroles have their own section and cream of chicken soup mix is the most frequently used ingredient. But when you mix the can-do spirit of Midwestern grandmothers with the stubborn hope of a boy raised by food plus a dash of long-awaited forgiveness—things might just turn out okay.

From HaperCollins Publishers’ website

My Thoughts After Reading:

In many ways, The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County is a love letter to life in Wisconsin. The author does a wonderful job capturing our beloved badger state’s culture: raving about Culvers and Kwik Trip, never skipping happy hour, finding solace in the woods, welcoming loons back to the lake, and more. Much of this book’s charm comes from understanding lake life quirks and Midwest hospitality. This would certainly be lost on non-Midwest readers.  But, lucky for you (a presumed patron of the Town Hall Library and thus, Wisconsin resident), I think you’ll really enjoy this aspect of the book. 

Similarly, I believe you’ll relate to many of the characters; they are real people with real problems. I know a real-life version of every character portrayed in this book, with the exception of a celebrity chef – can’t say I know anyone with that kind of culinary clout.  The chapters featuring the entire cast of funeral ladies ended up being my favorite pages to read.  Given the title, I felt they deserved more dedicated page time. 

This is a heartwarming and often humorous read that does tackle heavy issues including PTSD, grief, family dysfunction and domestic abuse. I admired the sensitive way Swinarski handled the serious topics including the romance between Iris and the troubled Cooper. Their storyline was unconventional, yet more realistic, when compared to your typical small-town romance tropes.

In under 300 pages, Swinarski delivers a surprisingly complex story bursting with love, community, hope… and pie.

– Michelle