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THE MANY LIVES OF MAMA LOVE by Lara Love Hardin

The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin was the pick for the first Wonderland Books Memoir Book Club. It’s the story of Lara Love Hardin, a mother of four living in an affluent Northern California suburb. who hid a drug addiction from her family and neighbors. To pay for her habit, she stole from people around her, using neighbors’ credit cards and taking money from people’s houses. When she and her husband were eventually caught, they went to prison and ultimately faced thirty-two felony charges. Hardin’s memoir covers her plea deal, her time in prison and her

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THE MANY LIVES OF MAMA LOVE by Lara Love Hardin

The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin was the pick for the first Wonderland Books Memoir Book Club. It’s the story of Lara Love Hardin, a mother of four living in an affluent Northern California suburb. who hid a drug addiction from her family and neighbors. To pay for her habit, she stole from people around her, using neighbors’ credit cards and taking money from people’s houses. When she and her husband

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THE RESERVATION by Rebecca Kauffman

I adored Rebecca Kauffman’s novel Chorus, and was very excited to see that she has a new novel out. The Reservation is a compelling mix of mystery, kaleidoscopic character study and workplace drama. On the day that John Grisham is to attend a dinner at an upscale restaurant in a Midwestern college town, 22 ribeye steaks go missing from the kitchen, and the restaurant’s owner, Orsa, spends the day trying to figure out who stole

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ISOLA by Allegra Goodman

Isola by Allegra Goodman is historical fiction (based on a real person) about a noblewoman named Marguerite who lived in France in the 16th century. She is orphaned and left under the care of a guardian who treats her cruelly, siphons away her fortune, and forces her to join hin as he sails to the New World (Canada). Ultimately, he maroons her on a bleak, uninhabited island, where she is forced to fend for herself.

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ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Natan Last

Crossword puzzle fans – this one is for you. Natan Last’s Across The Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle is an entertaining look at crossword puzzles, a pastime that has grown in popularity in recent decades, exploding especially after the pandemic. Last, a constructor and constructing instructor, explores the history and roots of the crossword puzzle, but what I found more interesting was the discussion of the puzzle as a social

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THE SAFEKEEP by Yael van der Wouden

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden is historical fiction set in 1960s Netherlands about a family who owns a large house in a small town. The siblings – Isabelle, Louis and Hendrick – lived in the house with their mother after WWII, and now that their mother has died, Isabelle lives there alone. She is a rigid, contained woman with few social interactions, and when she goes into town to see her brothers and

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THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O’Donoghue

One of our booksellers at Wonderland Books is constantly handselling The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, and when I asked her for a book rec that would grab me from the start, she handed it to me too. She wasn’t wrong. The Rachel Incident is about Rachel and her roommate James, who work together at a bookstore in Ireland. Rachel is about to graduate from university, and she develops a naive crush on one of

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THE BRIGHT YEARS by Sarah Damoff

Oh man. This book. The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff is the story of a Texas couple – Lily and Ryan – whose marriage is plagued by Ryan’s addiction to alcohol. Despite the love that they share, as well as Jet, the daughter they adore, Ryan’s addiction simply becomes too big to overcome, and he abandons the family. The Bright Years is a wrenching, beautiful book about so many things – grief, forgiveness, acceptance, addiction,

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THE COMPOUND by Aisling Rawle

The Compound by Aisling Rawle is a vaguely dystopian novel about Lily, a woman who competes in a reality TV show that is a mashup of Survivor, Big Brother and Love Island. It takes place in a compound located in a remote desert area where contestants win prizes by completing group and individual challenges, and they remain in the compound only if they wake up each morning next to a member of the opposite sex.

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THE MAD WIFE by Meagan Church

The Mad Wife by Meagan Church is historical fiction set in the 1950s about a housewife named Lulu who has just learned she is pregnant with her second child. The first half of the book nicely sets the scene of what it was like to be a suburban wife at that time: the expectations for women as far as motherly and wifely duties; the conformity within neighborhoods and the microscopic scrutiny from those around you;

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HOW TO READ A BOOK by Monica Wood

How To Read A Book by Monica Wood had been on my radar for a while, and I got it on audio and decided to pick it up this month. It’s a found-family book about three lonely people living in Portland, Maine – Frank, a 60-something widower whose wife was killed by a drunk driver; Violet, the 22 year-old who was driving the car; and Harriet, a 60-something widow who runs a book club at

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BEST OFFER WINS by Marisa Kashino

Marisa Kashino’s juggernaut thriller Best Offer Wins takes place right up the street from me in Bethesda, MD (home of Wonderland Books!). It’s about Margo, a woman who is desperate to land her dream house so that she and her husband can start a family. Unfortunately, they are facing an extremely competitive housing market, with houses going way over asking price and some never even being listed publicly. Margo decides that she will do whatever

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WRECK by Catherine Newman

If you read Sandwich by Catherine Newman, her popular 2024 novel about motherhood, family, the passage of time and how to let things – and people – go, then you know exactly what you are going to get with her latest novel Wreck, which picks up the same characters two years later. Rocky’s mother has died, and her two adult children are now relatively settled. Like in Sandwich, not a lot happens in Wreck, other

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A FINE LINE BETWEEN STUPID AND CLEVER by Rob Reiner

If you are a Spinal Tap fan, even a casual one, I highly recommend picking up Rob Reiner’s memoir about the making of the movie, A Fine Line Between Stupid And Clever. In retrospect, with its cult glory and eternally-quoted lines, This Is Spinal Tap makes perfect sense, but when Reiner and his trio of improvising heavy metal musicians (Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean) first came up with the idea for this mockumentary

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SOME BRIGHT NOWHERE by Ann Packer

This is going to sound like one of the saddest book in the world – and it is sad, for sure – but I liked Ann Packer’s new novel, Some Bright Nowhere, which is about a 60-something couple dealing with terminal illness. Eliot and Claire, married for decades with grown children, are facing the final stages of Claire’s terminal cancer. Eliot has settled into the caretaking role, after years of Claire’s treatments, recession, recurrence and

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AWAKE by Jen Hatmaker

Before I picked up the memoir Awake, I hadn’t heard of Jen Hatmaker, who was well-known as an evangelical Christian media personality who also had an HGTV show with her husband and five kids. Instead, I was interested in her book because of her story about leaving her marriage to a pastor upon learning of his affair with another woman. Her life completely crumbled the night she overheard him whispering on the phone from their

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Read in 2026

The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin

The Reservation by Rebecca Kauffman

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Across The Universe by Natan Last

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

The Compound by Aisling Rawle

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About Me

I have been blogging about books here at Everyday I Write the Book since 2006. I love to read, and I love to talk about books and what other people are reading.

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