Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857) Trans. Alan Russell Penguin, 1987 SPOILERS ABOUND (not only for this novel, but for Anna Karenina, too) If you've been following along, you might recall my brief and unsatisfactory meeting with Emma Bovary, about twenty years ago: a passing acquaintance, which offered only a brief glimpse of the
Myla Goldberg's Wickett's Remedy Bond Street-Random House (2005) Myla Goldberg's Bee Season turned me into a total book-nag; I nagged every reader I knew about reading it when I had finished it myself. I loved everything about it, from the first page to the back cover, with the author's black-'n'-white-striped
Louise Doughty’s A Novel in a Year (2007) Pocket Books - Simon & Schuster 2008 Feeling indecisive about where to jump in with Louise Doughty's fiction (news about her appearance at the festival this year brought her work to my attention), I gravitated towards her one non-fiction book. If you're
Kate Pullinger's Weird Sister (1999) McArthur & Company, 2000 I've had this book on my shelves for ages. Which I feel doubly guilty about because it was a gift from a bookish friend. But not a gift of a book she especially loved, but one that she hadn't read; she
Louise Penny's Still Life Headline, 2005 Some of you might recall my eye-rolling, woulda-been-snarky-if-I-wasn't-so-darned-Canadian letter to The Public Library late-spring this year. I offer this post to balance the scales, for there is another staff member there whom I actually look forward to seeing behind the counter. She started a conversation
