I’ve lived in small towns and capital cities and gone to school on four continents, so I love books in which the location is practically a character in the story. When moving, I struggle to put down roots and feel legitimate in my new home. Writing about old homes helps. While living in New England, I wrote my Jana Bibi trilogy, set in India. Now in New York state, I’m setting a new novel in my native New Hampshire. I’ve been a Jill of all Trades: teaching, software, editing, fact-checking, social science research, and, most happily, fiction-writing. I’m also an amateur musician and an avid foreign language buff.
This book made me fall in love with the southern African country of Botswana as well as with Mma Ramotswe, the intrepid lady who starts a company to help people solve their problems. Her advice isn’t conventional, but it works! If a client’s husband has stolen an expensive auto, why not steal it back and return it to the rightful owner? I’m told that Alexander McCall Smith accurately depicts much about Botswana; he also celebrates decency, courage, empathy, and good humor. Happily, there are many more books in the series. They’re addictive.
Precious Ramotswe, a cheerful woman of traditional build, is the founder of Botswana's first and only ladies' detective agency. Here is a gentle interpretation of the detective role: solving her cases through her innate wisdom and understanding of human nature, she 'helps people with problems in their lives'. With a tone that is as elegant as that which is unfailingly used by his protagonist, Alexander McCall Smith tenderly unfolds a picture of life in Gaborone with a mastery of comic understatement and an evident sympathy for his subjects and their milieu. In the background of all this is Botswana, a…
Grace under pressure! That’s what the main character, Count Rostov, illustrates all the way through this wonderful book, from the leisurely beginning through the riveting plot to the satisfying surprise ending. Along the way, the history of the Soviet Union unfolds. It makes you wonder. Could you craft a meaningful life in a dingy attic room, while a hostile political regime reigns outside? Could you plot your escape? And could you simultaneously live in the moment, enjoying the pleasures of food, drink, and conversation? The threads of Rostov’s past and present intertwine…while his future is still open.
The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series
From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I love Rumer Godden’s novels, but I’m even fonder of her memoirs, especially this one. Writing with her sister, Jon, she describes life in Naryangang (then in British India, now in Bangla Desh) during and shortly after World War 1. The large household, the bazaar, the diversity of people, the bright sun and the monsoon rains, the wealth and the poverty, the danger of rabid dogs, the holidays in hill stations…I grew up in India forty years after Jon and Rumer Godden, but in many ways, their experiences bring back my own childhood.
Wow! I felt intimately connected to the family depicted in this turbulent but big-hearted saga. I rooted for them at every turn, from their humble beginnings in Korea through their struggles as immigrants in Japan. The world changes dramatically from 1910 to 1989, but despite tragedy, they hold tight to their values of loyalty, hard work, independence, and honesty. Inspiring.
* The million-copy bestseller* * National Book Award finalist * * One of the New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2017 * * Selected for Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club *
'This is a captivating book... Min Jin Lee's novel takes us through four generations and each character's search for identity and success. It's a powerful story about resilience and compassion' BARACK OBAMA.
Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja…
A witchy paranormal cozy mystery told through the eyes of a fiercely clever (and undeniably fabulous) feline familiar.
I’m Juno. Snow-white fur, sharp-witted, and currently stuck working magical animal control in the enchanted town of Crimson Cove. My witch, Zandra Crypt, and I only came here to find her missing…
Harold Fry sets off on the spur of the moment to trek across England, believing he can save a former colleague with terminal cancer. But that’s not all that needs saving. Rachel Joyce’s distinctive voice makes me feel as if she’s sitting next to me, telling the story, and from time to time both of us burst out laughing. But this heartwarming novel also made me consider how poignant life is, how we make wrong turns, and how sometimes we feel the urgent need to make up for past mistakes.
'Impossible to put down' TIMES 'Life-affirming delight. A comic pleasure' WOMAN AND HOME 'Profoundly moving' RICHARD MADELEY
OVER 4 MILLION COPIES SOLD. SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOVIE STARRING JIM BROADBENT AND PENELOPE WILTON ____________________
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other.
He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life.
Scottish-born Janet Laird (Jana to her friends) inherits her grandfather’s house in an Indian hill station and moves in with her loyal housekeeper and savvy parrot. Her own home, at last! But when the town is threatened by a government dam, Jana has to help to attract tourists and put it on the map. She hangs out her fortune-telling shingle—and Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes is born. Will the ploy work? Readers all over the world responded to the novel’s humor, drama, and Bollywood-style high spirits.
“Rowdy” Randy Cox, a woman staring down the barrel of retirement, is a curmudgeonly blue-collar butch lesbian who has been single for twenty years and is trying to date again.
At the end of a long, exhausting shift, Randy finds her supervisor, Bryant, pinned and near death at the warehouse…
Haunted by her choices, including marrying an abusive con man, thirty-five-year-old Elizabeth has been unable to speak for two years. She is further devastated when she learns an old boyfriend has died. Nothing in her life…
