From Margaret Mezzacapo
Author: Anna Quindlen
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
Here’s a collection of vignettes dealing with various aspects of everyday life as experienced by Ms. Quindlen. If you enjoy reading people’s blogs, you’ll like this book.
From Jackie Cantwell
Author: Geneen Roth
Lost and found: unexpected revelations about food and money
Well-known author Geneen Roth was another victim of Bernie Madoff’s investment scheme. What may differentiate her from other victims is her ability to lay bare her deep-seated, once subconscious beliefs about money and share these hard-earned truths with the reader. Her father’s entire family was killed in the Holocaust. Since he felt that God failed him and his family, he trusted no one and his life was dedicated to accumulating wealth and material things. As a young woman, Geneen was torn between wanting independence and depending on her father’s largesse for all her expenses. Geneen draws the parallel between our relationship with our fathers, our money, our choice of mates, and even our relationship with food. She encourages us to see if how we’re actually handling our finances jibes with our concern for the environment, our values, and our responsibilities to our families. She warns us that being willfully ignorant of our relationship with money, as she once was, can have dire consequences to our very souls.
From Margaret Mezzacapo
And I Shall Have Some Peace There
Author: Margaret Roach
I finished And I Shall Have Some Peace There by Margaret Roach. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be, “My, Margaret, how you do go on.”
Ms. Roach waxes metaphysical to the extent that I just wanted to ask her to get to the point. I read this one first because, as a gardener, I had read her columns in Newsday. Glad I read it, but it really could have been condensed.
From Rosemarie Jerome
Author: Stacia M Brown
Accidents of Providence
Rachel Lockyer is on trial for murdering her illegitimate infant. In 1649 England, if convicted, the sentence is death. The investigator, Thomas Bartwain, who charged her with murder, is questioning the legal process. Rachel is not speaking in her own defense and the young prosecutor wants to make an example of her in this very public trial. This is a story of forbidden love, guilt and innocence, and the peculiarities and brutality of the 17th century legal system.
From Andrea Kalinowski
Author: Samuel Richardson
Pamela
Pamela is the story of a virtuous young woman in household employ. The young master is enamored of her charms and beseeches her to allow him her favors. She resists him mightily and so she wins his hand in marriage. Shamela by Henry Fielding is his satirical response to Richardson’s virtuous protagonist. He did not believe that Richardson’s character truly acted in that fashion and so he turned everything Richardson had penned on its head. Fielding made the main character a loose woman and the opposite of every virtue Richardson had given Pamela was contained in Shamela. Shamela was a scheming, devious woman who ensnared her master. Pamela embodied all that was good in womankind and Shamela was all the vices in womankind. As entertaining a read then, as it is today.
From Rosemarie Jerome
Author: Stacia M Brown
Accidents of providence
Rachel Lockyer is on trial for murdering her illegitimate infant. In 1649 England, if convicted the sentence is death. The investigator, Thomas Bartwain, who charged her with murder, is questioning the legal process. Rachel is not speaking in her own defense. The young prosecutor wants to make an example of her in this very public trial. This is a story of forbidden love, guilt and innocence, and the peculiarities and brutality of the 17th century legal system.
From Michelle Lauer-Bader
Author: Cheryl Jarvis
The Necklace
This is a fascinating story. The first question most people will ask is how can 13 women share anything? But it quickly becomes apparent that the necklace is only the means to get us to think about what do we really need and how can we make others happy. Most of us cannot afford a necklace like this, even if we share the cost. But we can think about the rampant consumerism that exists in America and what we can do about it. This would be a good book discussion selection.
From Susan Martin
author: Stockett, Kathryn
The Help
A very powerful commentary on racial inequality in the South during the 1960′s. This is a page-turner and is also very entertaining despite the subject matter. I’ll look forward to seeing the movie version.
From Rebecca Segers
author: Winner, Lauren F.
Girl Meets God
”Girl Meets God” is the memoir of a young woman who is the product of a Jewish/Christian marriage, but raised a Reformed Jew. As she grows into her teens, she is drawn ever more deeply into her faith and as a college student at Columbia, she converts to Orthodox Judaism (this is necessary as her Judaism has been passed down patrilineally and is thus not accepted according to Orthodox Jewish standards). Notwithstanding her deep commitment to the faith of her father(s), she finds herself drawn even more fully to Jesus and ultimately commits to Christianity, converting yet again while studying at Oxford University in England. An incredibly bright and articulate woman, Lauren is still sorting out her connections to her past and her deepening Christian identity. At times witty, clever, midrashic and thoughtful or all at once, this moving memoir is sure to make the reader ponder his or her own faith journey and perhaps strengthen it as well.
From Charlene Muhr
author: Ephron, Nora
I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman
Well known for her successful screenplays, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail, Nora Ephron has written a short collection of fifteen essays on her slant on aging in I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman. Although Ephron’s intended audience is the pre- and post- menopausal woman, women of all ages will find it humorous and will be able to relate to the essay dealing with maintenance. Ephron concentrates on the routine, the status quo maintenance – the hair dye, the highlights, the face creams, the body lotions, the mani’s and pedi’s, the removal of unwanted hair, all things to do to just stay more or less even. Another essay – I Hate My Purse deals with all the problems of selection, cost, and items lost in the bag, oozing creams, and the infamous Kelley bag. Other essays in the collection deal with marriage, divorce, parenting, cooking, and Manhattan apartments. An entertaining read!
