What’s in Your Beach Bag?
I’m getting ready for two weeks at the beach and one of the many joys of such a trip is the time spent by water’s edge underneath the umbrella lost in a good read. Here’s what I’m taking:
You Think It, I’ll Say Itby Curtis Sittenfeld
Sittenfeld’s modernist version of Pride and Prejudice (Eligible)was a masterpiece of cleverness and fun so I am anxious to read her new collection of short stories. The flap says, “Throughout the ten stories, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.
Still Meby JoJo Moyes
This is the third book in the series about Louisa Clark the young woman who becomes the caregiver for a paraplegic in Me Before You(a movie with Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin), only to fall in love with him. It’s a great love story and if you don’t go through a box of tissues before it’s over, who are you?
The Death of Mrs. Westawayby Ruth Ware
Although I was a little disappointed with her last book (The Lying Game), The Woman in Cabin 10was a terrifically crafted mystery, so I’m still in for the latest work, about a young woman who receives a letter about a sizeable inheritance from a grandmother; this can’t be because her grandparents have all been dead for years but Harriet, down on her luck and in financial straits, decides to pose as the missing granddaughter.
Us Against Youby Fredrik Backman
I love everything Backman has written, particularly Beartown,about the community in a small town in Sweden in which loyalty, love and alliances shift over the rise of the town’s hockey team. Backman has continued characters before ( a minor character in My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorrybecomes the titular protagonist in Britte-Marie Was Here), but this newest work is a direct sequel to Beartown.
How Hard Can it Be?By Allison Pearson
Another sequel, this one to Pearson’s 2002 I Don’t Know How She Does It,a delightfully funny book about a woman trying to achieve the unachievable work-life balance. Kate Reddy, a hedge fund manager and mother of two battles the absurdities of trying to make it all work. Kate is 49 now, her children are teenagers (monsters) and her husband has quit his job to work on himself so Kate, who left her job at the end of the first book, has to re-enter the work force.
The Knowledgeby Martha Grimes
Grimes is one of my favorite mystery authors. Her continuing character of Richard Jury, a detective superintendent for Scotland Yard, returns here to solve a crime involving an art heist. The title refers to the extensive knowledge of the streets, bridges and highways that London cabbies must possess and the test they must pass to be licensed.
Red Clocksby Leni Zumas
A dystopian novel in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale, “abortion is once again illegal in America, in vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo.” Wow. Typing this is making me re-think my readiness to read this book. It sounds alarmingly like the vision of the Trumpers and Pencers.
Tangerineby Christine Mangan
The story takes place in Tangier where Alice Shipley is now living with her new husband. In this exotic locale, she doesn’t expect to see anyone she knows and so is surprised when her former roommate, Lucy Mason, to whom she has not spoken in more than a year, shows up. Initially, Alice is happy to have a friend in an alien place, but gradually she starts to feel controlled by Lucy. . .and then Alice’s husband goes missing.
