It is the rare book that causes a reader to laugh out loud, to cry with an aching heart and to finish the last page with a sigh of relief. Amy Tan’s newest novel, The Valley of Amazement, is a whopping 600 pages, but it is filled with adventure and […]

I understand the appeal of remodeling Jane Austen’s greatest works into modern form. I will admit that I enjoyed Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding immensely and can’t help but love the movie Clueless. Not everyone, however, can recreate an Austen novel within appropriate accuracy. And unfortunately, Joanna Trollope’s Sense […]

I have never been one for short stories. I love falling in love with characters; I smile when they capture my heart, moving through the ups and downs of life that I experience myself. I like reading 300-plus pages, completely lost in the imagination of a world I couldn’t have […]

The Mount Holyoke College common read last year was The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I cannot say I was altogether enchanted by The Namesake, but it was intriguing, quick and a great way to discuss differences and identities with First-years during Orientation. The massive build-up for Lahiri’s newest novel, The […]

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver My original encounter with Lionel Shriver’s work was on an excellent bus ride home from New York last summer reading The Post-Birthday World. The novel is about how our slightest actions can bring absolutely different results to our lives.  Shriver’s newest novel, Big Brother, keeps […]

Elizabeth Berg’s newest novel is about great change in a person’s life. Tapestry of Fortunes is the journey of Berg’s protagonist, Cece, a woman in the middle of what appears to be a mid-life crisis, still reeling from the loss of her best friend to cancer. The novel is an […]