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The second book of Elena Ferrante's four Neapolitan novels (which should be read in order) takes up as Lina (Elena's brilliant friend) marries the apparently mild-mannered Stefano. Lina learns that he must do as the powerful hated Solara brothers request to be successful in business. This infuriates her so much that she rejects Stefano and he beats her the first night of their honeymoon...

I have been looking forward to reading this because I found Kate Atkinson's last book Life After Life so admirable. I was not disappointed. Life After Life tells the story of the Todd family, particularly Ursula, born in 1910, with a focus on her life in London during World War II. The book was notable for the Groundhog Day method of storytelling;...

This book was JacquiWine's choice for "a book that deserves a wider audience"  at Reading Matters and I wholeheartedly agree. Dorothy Baker wrote Young Man with a Horn (made into a movie with Kirk Douglas) in 1938. This 1962 book about twin sisters was based on her own daughters, according to her husband. The novel is narrated first by Cassandra as she drives to the family...

For several years Tony has been raving about this book and the other two in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novel series and there is a fourth about to come out. I'm very happy to have three more to go. Lila is introduced to us when the narrator Elena receives a phone call from Lila's son who says she had disappeared two weeks previously. At age sixty-six Lila took all traces of her...

After the grimly intense, beautifully written After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, I was ready for a cream puff of a book. George’s Grand Tour, reviewed by Reading Matters, fit the bill. Two elderly neighbors plan to follow the route of a previous Tour de France in a car. George can only do this because his hovering daughter will be incommunicado in Peru for two months. A monkey wrench...