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Sophisticated entertainments from the author's shelf.
Since the publication of her groundbreaking comic novel Good in Bed, Jennifer Weiner's name has been synonymous with thoughtful fiction about modern relationships. In her latest bestseller, Best Friends Forever, she adds heady thrills and a brush with violence to an insightful story about the bonds between childhood friends. Here she shares three favorite reads.
By Katherine Dunn
"How to describe this book? It's a novel about an albino dwarf named Olympia, her lifelong love affair with her limbless brother Arturo, who forms his own cult of volutary amputees, and her quest to rescue her lovely (but with a little something extra) daughter Miranda from unspeakable peril. Huh -- maybe best not to describe it at all...just push it into your friend's hands and tell them they will not be sorry."
By Susan Isaacs
"Smart, sassy Jewish secretary in World War II-era New York City contracts desperate and hopeless crush on her matinee-idol, married boss...and, when he gets wasted and returns her affections, that's only when things start getting really interesting. Gripping, heady, romantic, and wonderfully written."
By Tabitha King
"Smart, savvy, self-aware heroine relocates to Maine, buys the town diner, finds herself caught in a steamy love triangle between the dependable, solid good guy and the roguish, troubled bad boy. Vivid descriptions, dark secrets, and a bittersweet resolution make this a book I love to re-read, and to recommend."
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"The moral and philosophical questions that Henry wrote up as fiction and William as science," Jean Strouse writes of her subject's more famous brothers, "Alice simply lived." It took a biographer of sensitivity and brilliance to give that "simply" the profundity it deserves, and the resulting book, now reissued in the peerless NYRB Classics series, is one of the richest life stories you'll ever read.
The world of Jane Austen's fiction has long been an imaginative playground for writers and readers of a certain stripe. Shannon Hale's Austenland wittily took the next step, setting comic romance in a faux-Pemberly resort for the Darcy-smitten. Her latest returns for more Regency fun, but with a twist: does murder stalk Pembrook Park?
Childlike retreat? Arts and crafts challenge? Frugal and eco-friendly living option? The notion of the "tiny house" has the surprising potential to fire the imagination. In this exuberant volume of sketches, plans, and commentary, the artist Derek Diedricksen shares his infectious enthusiasm for the idea of the micro-mansion.
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