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“Hot House Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire”
by
Margot Berwin
First of all, any novel with a title as sexy as this one is worth a read, and this one lives up to the heat in its title. Plus even though the sum total of my knowledge and interest in plants could fit in a Dixie cup, I was so enthralled by this book that about halfway into it I found myself Googling the plants and flowers in the story (so not me). Lila, the main character, works in advertising, which everyone thinks is glamorous, but her life is not. Her journey into the world of plants and love and adventure starts with a Bird of Paradise and the nine plants of desire (they are real plants-I googled them, remember) that are hidden in a secret room in a New York Laundromat. If you know something about tropical plants and their habitats, you’ll really love this book, and if you don’t you’ll learn everything you’ll ever need to know about their myths and their magic. |
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by
Jamie Ford
In the 1980s a hotel in Seattle was being renovated when the owners uncovered possessions belonging to Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during WWII. These possessions had gone unclaimed for decades. The author, Ford, puts this real historical event at the heart of this really lovely love story. Henry, a retired widower, spots a parasol amongst the abandoned possessions and it carries him back to his childhood and his first love, a Japanese American girl. The story shifts from Henry’s childhood and America in the 1940s to Henry in the late 1980s as he uses the possessions to discover what happened to his first love and her family. The novel will give you lots to talk about, including the nature of patriotism then and now, but after I finished it I couldn’t help thinking about what would be the one possession in my life that, like the parasol in the story, might trigger such bittersweet memories of love and loss and family. |
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“Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father’s Story of Love and Madness’
by
Michael Greenberg
This is a heart-breaking and gut-wrenching memoir (so my one non-fiction pick this month). It’s about the summer the author’s fifteen year old daughter, Sally, “was struck mad.’ I read this in one sitting (you could too–trust me) and I had to call my college-age children immediately when I finished. The author approaches metal illness and its effects on a family without any sugar-coating, but he writes so lyrically and with such compassion I think any book club would find lots to talk about from this book.
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“Home Repair”
by
Liz Rosenberg
During a garage sale Eve’s second husband, Chuck, literally chucks their marriage out the window when, during a garage sale, he walks out on her. Eve so didn’t see it coming, and now she has to deal with two teenage children and a house and heart in disrepair. This novel is full of men and women and children a lot like us, and it’s a novel full of big and little surprises. If you’re book club has enjoyed AnneTyler or Elizabeth Berg’s novels, I think you’ll really enjoy this novel too.
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