5 Summer Reads
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
Jess, who leaves London under questionable circumstances, goes to Paris to stay in an apartment with her half-brother, Ben, but when she arrives, Ben is missing and all the residents of the apartment complex seem complicit in hiding his whereabouts. Jess sets out on a tangled journey to find him.
Prior to reading The Paris Apartment, I’d read Foley’s The Guest List and The Hunting Party. Though the settings and circumstances of the novels differ, they follow a formula where the suspects, with a short description of each, are listed in a line-up on the back cover, and the plotline alternates among the various characters whose point of view reveals deeper layers of the story. No great surprises in The Paris Apartment but I did find it entertaining and wanted to keep reading to find out what happened. 3 stars.
Write for Your Life by Anna Quindlen
In this short tome, New York Times bestselling author and journalist, Anna Quindlen, touts the benefits of writing for everyday people “who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.” With essays ranging from Anne Frank’s diary, to parallel writing for medical practitioners, to journaling, and even an essay ruing the loss of the handwritten letter, Quindlen sees writing as a path to self-discovery and a way of leaving a personal record through the written word.
Write for Your Life did not contain the author’s writing habits or instructions or where she gets her ideas as I’d hoped, and as a person who already writes everyday, some of the book hit me as preaching to the choir. Still, a worthwhile book to encourage “civilians” to write their stories. 3.5 stars.
When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash
An airplane crashes in the middle of the night on Oak Island, NC, and when Sheriff Winston Barnes arrives on the scene, he discovers there are no pilots or passengers, only the body of a murdered man. Told in alternating chapters between Winston, his daughter, Colleen, and Jay, the fourteen-year-old brother-in-law of the dead man, I’m immediately drawn into this story as Barnes investigates the case and uncovers the racism of the police personnel and people in his community.
I’ve enjoyed Cash’s three other books, and this one held my interest until the very end when, to me, it fell short in the summarizing of what happens to Sheriff Barnes rather than letting the reader see and experience it as the events unfold. 3.5 stars.
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons
With a narrator who reminded me of a Fredrik Bachman character, the curmudgeonly octogenarian, Eudora Honeysett, is tired of living and makes plans to go to Switzerland for a voluntary assisted death. Her decision gets complicated when she forms unexpected friendships with Rose Trewidney, her ten-year-old neighbor, and Stanley Marcham, another neighbor and recent widow. The story alternates present with past, revealing tragic loss and betrayal suffered by Eudora, and ultimately her courage. A sweet, delightful, ultimately uplifting book. 4 stars.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
A classic published in 1970, this is the true story of the 1949 to 1969 correspondence between New York writer and bibliophile, Helene Hanff, and London-based used bookseller, Frank Doel. A friendship develops between the two when Hanff, who can’t get good American editions, answers an advertisement to Marks and Co., Booksellers (whose address is the title) requesting certain books which are located and shipped by Doel. Told with humor and charm, the letters show Hanff’s American informality contrasting with Doel’s British politeness, revealing a twenty-year bond forged by the love of beautiful books and of the printed word. At only 97 pages, I read the book in a few hours, and would definitely read it again. 5 stars.