On the Bookshelf
Book Recommendation
The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean by Susan Casey The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean, by best-selling science journalist Susan Casey, is shockingly fascinating. Much of it is so unlikely as to seem completely fictional. Just about everything in this book was unknown to me, from the depth of the…
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The Sea House by Esther Freud Once in a while you come upon a novel you fall so deeply in love with that it becomes a lifetime favorites. This novel became that for me. I’d never heard of Esther Freud, and was shocked I hadn’t. For one thing, she wrote the novel that became one of…
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Book Recommendation
Those People Behind Us, by Mary Camarillo In recommending books, I focus primarily on novels that relate in some way to social issues, particularly the environment, and have a strong sense of place. Mary Camarillo’s novel touches on all three. It’s a joy to read—astute, wry, propulsive—and has much to say about our modern social and political…
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The best novels for immersing yourself in nature
I’ve always been drawn to novels of place – novels that plunge you into a world you’venever been before. As a child the novels that made indelible impressions on meincluded The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, A Tale of Two Cities byCharles Dickens, and Heidi, by Johanna Spryi. As an adult I’ve…
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Heroes of the Frontier, a novel by Dave Eggers
Heroes of the Frontier, by Dave Eggers, is deeply philosophical, deeply felt, and deeply funny. The novel centers on a woman who escapes to Alaska with her two children and makes her way across the state in a beat-up rented recreational vehicle they call the Chateau. If you’ve ever gone camping, you’ll adore all the…
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Orient, a novel by Christopher Bollen
Orient, a novel by Christopher Bollen, is truly atmospheric, a literary work in the guise of a thriller, that kept me completely riveted https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062329950/orient/. The novel is set on Long Island, the rural tip of the North Fork in the hamlet of Orient. It’s an area I know, though nothing as well as I’d like,…
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Music Lover? You’ll Love These Novels
Authors and Books That Have Inspired Me
Eleanor Frances Lattimore: Fair Bay Like a painter using a few delicate brush strokes, Lattimore creates in this children’s book a rich, imagistic world from few words, illustrating the principal that less can truly be more. This is the first book I fell in love with. It made me a reader and instilled in…
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Novels That Ask, What’s At Stake in Starting Over?
One of the themes that I explore in my novel Play for Me is second chances and the disruption we face when searching for our authentic selves. The following novels focus on women who break out of the mold of expectation. They do so to discover their true passion, which could be a second chance…
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