Everyday I Write the Book - It'll help you figure out what to read.

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

For the bookstore’s upcoming literary fiction book club meeting, we chose The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater, historical fiction from an author more famous for her YA fantasy novels. It takes place at a fictional luxury hotel in West Virginia in the 1940s, which was used to house Axis diplomats in the US while the government negotiated for a swap for American diplomats in Germany and Japan. The staff of the hotel, known for their impeccable service and devotion to their guests, found themselves in the position of serving the enemy, with no end in sight. This is a great premise

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

WIFEHOUSE by Sonia Walger

Add another book to the mom-in-midlife-crisis club: Wifehouse by Sonia Walger. Annie and Hector have been married for 15 years and live in a farmhouse in a rural part of Connecticut. When Hector, an actor, leaves for a few months to film a movie abroad, Annie finds herself romantically involved with a twentysomething French tutor named Thierry. But this book goes well beyond that, exploring who Annie was before she met Hector, and how her

I’LL COME TO YOU by Rebecca Kauffman

In Rebecca Kauffman’s I’ll Come To You, she displays her great skill in connecting disparate lives into a loose, coherent whole. The cast of characters here includes a middle aged woman, newly divorced from the husband who didn’t give her a reason why he left; a couple facing an Alzheimer’s crisis; and a young couple pregnant after years of trying. The novel tracks this extended family for a year or so in the 90s, exploring

GIRL’S GIRL by Sonia Feldman

Girl’s Girl is a fever dream of a book by Sonia Feldman about three teenage girls spending a hot summer in suburban Ohio. Nothing really happens, yet everything happens, in this novel about female friendship, first love, the intensity of summertime, mother-daughter relationships and growing up with a smartphone. When two of the friends kiss one night, it upends the bonds between the friends and further complicates the already complex politics that develop among groups

THE OTHER WES MOORE by Wes Moore

For our recent Memoir Book Club at the store, we read The Other Wes Moore, a memoir by Maryland Governor Wes Moore about his childhood and career. Moore, who lived in Maryland in his early years before moving to the Bronx and then eventually back to Baltimore, lost his father as a young child and grew up with a single mother. Despite some early challenges with school and a brush with police, he straightened himself

THE GOOD PARTS by Evann Normandin

The Good Parts by Evann Normandin is a debut novel about a couple – Rose and Landon – who meet in college in Vermont and fall in love. When the book opens, we learn that many years later, Rose has moved to Edinburgh and taken a pill that allows her to erase her memory and start over with a clean slate. She has cut ties with Landon, who, still in love with Rose, follows her

THE END OF NORMAL by Stephanie Madoff Mack

I love a good memoir, and I saw The End Of Normal listed in someone’s Instagram post of their favorite memoirs, so I decided to pick it up. It’s by Stephanie Madoff Mack, the widow of Bernie Madoff’s son Mark, who killed himself two years after his father’s arrest for perpetrating the most damaging financial fraud scheme in history. In the book, she talks about how she and Mark met, marrying into the ultra-wealthy Madoff

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK by Chris Whitaker

Oh man, where to start with this one… Chris Whitaker’s beloved All The Colors Of The Dark is the story of Patch, a one-eyed boy growing up in rural Missouri in the 70s, who saves a classmate from being kidnapped on the way to school one morning. This act of bravery changes the trajectory of many lives in his small town and sets him off on a lifetime of yearning and seeking the truth about

KIN by Tayari Jones

Kin by Tayari Jones is a novel about two women, Vernice and Annie, who grew up as “cradle friends” in a small town in Louisiana in the 1950s. Both are motherless (Vernice’s mother was killed by her father, Annie’s mother abandoned her as an infant), and as they grow up, they become each other’s sister. After high school, Vernice goes to college while Annie moves to Memphis in search of her mother. Kin follows their

THE YAHOO BOYS by Carlos Barragán

Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers by Carlos Barragán is a disturbing book that stemmed from the author’s attempts to find the Nigerian man who had conned his well-educated, confident Spanish mother online for months. Barragán sets out to understand how these “Yahoo Boys”, so named because they develop so many online identities, prey on lonely white Americans, and why those Americans fall for the ruse. He interviews several

FINDING GRACE by Loretta Rothschild

[Warning: spoilers ahead!] I picked up Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild based on glowing online reviews that described it as a cross between a literary romance and a psychological thriller. Tom and Honor, a wealthy couple living in London, go to Paris to celebrate Christmas with their young daughter. While there, they experience a tragedy that affects their relationship and lives forever. However, aside from this shocking early twist, the rest of the book played

THE FOURSOME by Christina Baker Kline

The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline is a fictionalized recounting of the life of Sarah Yates, one of the two sisters who married famous conjoined twins Cheng and Eng in mid-1880s North Carolina. What could convince a woman to marry a man with whom she could never be alone, signing up for a lifetime of sharing her husband not only with his brother, but with her own sister? Kline does a great job of getting

YOU WITH THE SAD EYES by Christina Applegate

I chose You With The Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate as the June memoir book club pick for Wonderland Books because I had heard great things about it, and it delivered. Applegate, an actor known best for her roles on Married… With Children and Dead To Me, has faced a lot of challenges in her life despite her onscreen success. She and her mother were abandoned by her father when she was a baby. She

THE BURNING SIDE by Sarah Damoff

Earlier this year, I read a debut novel called The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff. I loved this book about grief, forgiveness and parenthood, told through the prism of a marriage plagued by addiction. I was very excited to read Damoff’s new book, The Burning Side, which is also a family drama about a marriage in crisis. In The Burning Side, April, Leo and their two small children are forced to move out of their

GOOD PEOPLE by Patmina Sabit

Good People by Patmina Sabit is a powerful story about an Afghan family living in Northern Virginia. The Sharafs are successful and wealthy (after a rough start as immigrants), but their daughter Zorah pushes back against her confining, traditional upbringing. When she goes against her parents’ wishes, there are tragic consequences for her and the family. This book is narrated entirely by people outside the Sharafs – friends, neighbors, police, school officials – like a