Goodnight Moon, Goodnight June

“What is childhood without stories? And how will children fall in love with stories without bookstores? You can't get that from a computer.” 

Fans of You've Got Mail can unite over this one.

Goodnight June is the story of a woman's journey to save her aunt's beloved bookstore against all odds.  June returns to her childhood city of Seattle after many years away to close the estate of her aunt. She returns to Bluebird Books, her aunt's bookstore with the green curtains reminiscent of Goodnight Moon. But does the connection to this classic book stop at the curtains? This is the story of our love of books and literature; the fictional account of how Goodnight Moon came to be. 

As she prepares to sell the property, June discovers letters of correspondence between her aunt and Margaret Wise Brown, beloved children's author. It is not accident that these letters are hidden with clues from book to book. They are meant to be seen by her. 

Margaret Wise Brown scribbled her stories on scraps of paper; the remnants of her dreams at night. It is not too far of a stretch to imagine this sacred friendship between June's aunt and Brown. Their comforting words of support to one another are the classic exchange of support and affection amongst life-long friends. Suddenly selling the bookstore and returning to a thankless job in New York City isn't such an easy decision after all. There are discoveries to be made.

The secrets of these friends come unraveled before June's eyes and lead her to a truth that she has knowingly avoided for many years. Could these letters be the key to saving the bookstore? Are there more mysteries hidden in the well-loved pages of books shelved throughout the store? 

                                           Will the sun set on Bluebird Books as well?

“We're each given one life, and it's our job to make it useful, beautiful, and fulfilling. There is no value in suffering through it, doing something we hate. There's no prize at the end for that kind of endurance. Just a spent life.” 

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

"Stories are people. I'm a story, you're a story...your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we're lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we're less alone."

Our story ping-pongs between the 1960's Italian Coast and present day Hollywood. Young Pasquale Tursi has taken over The Adequate View Hotel when a mysterious American actress, on the verge of success, arrives. Over the course of three days, the paths of many lives will change, in the smallest ways for the immediate future, but with repercussions that will span over the course of a lifetime.

Nearly 50 years later, an eager producer will make a pitch, an aging Hollywood staple will restore his faith, and a hopeful Italian man will fulfill a life-long quest. Walter creates a beautiful, real story about the choices we make and how they shape our lives. But most importantly, he gives us hope that it is never too late to chase a dream.

"Again, Pasquale felt the separate pulls of his mind and body-and right then, he honestly didn't know which way it would go. Would he stay in the boat? Or would he run up the path to the hotel and take her in his arms? And what would she do if he did? There was nothing explicit between them, nothing more than that slightly open door. And yet...what could be more alluring?

In that moment, Pasquale Tursi finally wrenched in two. His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about."

Made the journey from Arkansas, to NYC,
 to the NH seashore with me.

Even Oscar enjoyed it.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Nobel Laureate

Five years ago I pulled a book off a shelf in the sitting room of a volunteer home in Costa Rica. Over the course of my two week stay, I read Love in the Time of Cholera.

His work is beautiful and tragic. It is heart-stopping in both depth and beauty.

Perhaps it was the Latin American environment I read it in and my nostalgic way of being, but this book struck me as unlike anything I had ever read before.

When I read last month that he had passed away, I felt the urge to revisit his stories. A pile of books later, I am starting on my mission...novels, short stories, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin. A Colombian man with a close friendship to Cuba's Fidel Castro, a Nobel Laureate, a writer with a combination of realism and imagination, I'm not sure how he doesn't make for an interesting read.

Love in the Time of Cholera tells the story of a lifetime between a man and his wife, beginning at the end and working its way back to the start. It is the story of a distinguished Doctor, still practicing in his 80's, and his companionship with a wife over the course of several decades; of trials and triumphs, opportunities and wrong turns....

“He recognized her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: “Only God knows how much I loved you”

One Hundred Years of Solitude is the story of an isolated community with little contact to the outside world. It is a story that highlights the course of this community and its family's leadership throughout a century.

"Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction." 

His language is thick and rich. It is a poetic, beautiful prose that is becomes all-consuming endeavor to work your way through.

I would recommend his books to anyone with an interest in Latin American culture and any person who shares a deep love for language and for epic storytelling.

Check back as I make my way through this stories and life, in the memory of an incredible human being.

Beautiful Day? A Behind-the-Scenes Wedding Story Set on Nantucket. Need I say more?

Beautiful Day by Elin Hildebrand

Wedding season is almost upon us, and what better way to kick it off than with a good, old-fashioned wedding story about the....Maid of Honor, the Groom's mom, the best-friend Bridesmaid, the Bride's dad...and the dysfunction that a wedding party can hold!

This is not really a story about a wedding; it is story about life and love and the many milestones and bridges to cross along the way. All smushed into one fabulous-action packed wedding weekend.

What could possibly go wrong for a June wedding on Nantucket Island? 

This book will take you on a rollercoaster of the days leading up to the wedding. The love-sick couple,  Jenna and Stuart, the scorned and bitter Maid of Honor, the divorced and then reunited Groom's parents. It serves to ask and answer the question of what love means, what commitment means, and what $100,000 wedding might include...

And tying it all together is the notebook...a book filled with all of the suggestions for a wedding constructed by the bride's mother before she passed away years before.

I got a kick out of the Southern groom's family and the Northern bride's family. Margot, the maid of honor, will slowly become your favorite character, and you will find yourself rooting for her in the end. Stuart's mother will transform from an interference to a woman of strength and dignity.

Do I recommend this to my soon-to-be brides or will I be responsible for a tailspin into wedding anxiety? I debated this throughout much of the book, but have to conclude it's a "worth it" read. But if my bride friends and their mothers are skeptical...Hildebrand has many wonderful summer-reads, all set on Nantucket, to choose from.

My favorites are:

The Blue Bistro
Summer People (my first Hildebrand read)
The Beach Club

You can also download the short story The Surfing Lesson, which directly ties in with Beautiful Day, as an ebook introduction to her writing.

Enjoy!

Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

 Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

"Lisette took a deep breath and stood up.

When your cup is empty, you do not mourn what is gone.

Because if you do, you will miss the opportunity to fill it again."

Lost Lake is a story of changing endings. It is the journey of  a misfit bunch of summer visitors finding life and happiness again.

Each character is in a different stage of grief: fresh and raw; teeming from within, resting quietly for years within a heart; and accepting the course of life, ready to move on.

After losing her beloved husband years ago, Eby is ready to sell and move on from 40 years of running a shabby-chic vacation retreat. But then her niece Kate arrives, fresh off her grief of losing a husband and letting a mother-in-law take over. Eby has always experienced family as an endless need: for time, for money, for taking and not giving back. Until there's Kate.

As word slowly spreads that Lost Lake will be selling, the other characters arrive.

Selma, hesitant to use her last charm to snag her eighth husband; Bullahdeen, elderly, fiesty, and ready to fight for Lost Lake. Bullahdeen overcame her own projected path years ago when given paper and pen. Quiet Jack, desperate to finally claim the mute Lisette as his own. And Wes, who has been hiding a dark secret since his childhood summer sent by Kate's side, followed by the fire that destroyed his family and took his brother's life.

They will all come together in hopes of showing Eby what Lost Lake means to them. But Uncle Lazo already has his verbal agreement and lawyer on hand, is it too late to change Eby's mind?

There is magic woven into this book, as in all of Allen's stories.

"I taught literature for nearly forty years. The books I read when I was twenty completely changed when I read them when I was sixty-. You know why? Because the endings changed. After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end. That's what's happening here."

This is Allen's first novel back after battling a breast cancer diagnosis last year and the personal growth and experience shows in her pages. I have read all of her novels, and awaited this new arrival patiently. Lost Lake has the wisdom of the ages, something that can only be written by someone who has lived a lifetime and has overcome a battle of their own. Allen is magic, and not just in her words, she adds a mysticism to her stories that is believable and engrossing. I can't wait to see what she does next.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

"How did you get started?" I venture.

"I was one of his customers," she says..."I was paying for a book one day-I remember this so clearly-when Mr. Penumbra looked me in the eye and said...Rosemary, why do you love books so much?"

"And I said, "Well I don't know...So then I said, "Well, actually, I love books because books are my best friends.' Then he smiled-he has a wonderful smile-and he walked over and got on that ladder, and climbed higher than I'd ever seen him climb."

And with that, a journey through books will begin.

Clay Jannon has taken a job at a mysterious bookstore: one that stays open through all hours of the night, with strange, curious patrons on a secret mission through the over-stretching, tightly stacked shelves.

It doesn't take long before Clay realizes he has stumbled upon something secretive and incredible. Using his connections at google, he finds a way to uncover the pattern of the volumes borrowed from the bookstore. 

But in doing so, has he jeopardized the safety of this underground book ring, the ancient Unbroken Spine?

Then, suddenly, Penumbra has vanished from Seattle. 


This is an exciting, fun read full of mysterious happenings. Perfect for any book-lover.

Return To Blogging: Return to Tradd Street by Karen White

There is no better setting for a spooky ghost story than the rickety old floorboards of an old Charleston home. So stir up your sweet tea and get your rocking chair ready on the front porch: Return to Tradd Street delivers all that sweet, sticky Southern stuff.

This is the first book series I have read since the days of The Chronicles of Narnia and A Wrinkle in Time. I would suggest starting at the beginning with The House on Tradd Street. I reviewed the Tradd Street series by Karen White in my post A Year in Books.

Melanie Middleton, realtor extraordinaire, has been living in her historic Tradd Street home since inheriting it from a man she'd only met once. Melanie communicates with those beyond the grave and helps to bring them peace by solving their unfinished business. (think Ghost Whisperer here)

Melanie is awakened in the night by sounds of a crying baby, and it is not long until something jolting is unearthed from the foundation of the old home. Now Melanie is working against the clock to solve another mystery.

Between Melanie's scrambled love-life, unsettled ghosts, the beautiful Charleston setting, and handsome author Jack, this is a great story.

Disclaimer: You may find yourself booking a trip to Charleston in the near future.