Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley is a great writer who I have not read lately, so picked this up and was not disappointed.

From Westchester Libraries:
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their twenties. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer's evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: she is at the hospital. Zach is dead.
In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn't afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.
Late in the Day explores the complex webs at the center of our most intimate relationships, to expose how, beneath the seemingly dependable arrangements we make for our lives, lie infinite alternate configurations. Ingeniously moving between past and present and through the intricacies of her characters' thoughts and interactions, Tessa Hadley once again "crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural" (Washington Post).

Wreck by Catherine Newman

I like this author very much and I appreciate this book a lot but I think I read it at the wrong time.  Illness concerns abound! 

Taking a step away from that, I have to say that I love the way she depicts family life - you can really relate as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter, and as a woman.  Newman has a knack of talking about things that you can identify with. It's uncanny.

But the plotline of the book was upsetting for me at this particular point in my life. I should pick it up again in a few months.  It's short and an easy read.  

The characters are the same as in her other book I read last year, Sandwich.

Euphoria by Lily King

 

I loved the Lily King books that I have read over the past couple of years, so picked this up. It got excellent reviews when it came out and I recall intending to read it.

But it did not quite draw me in as I wanted it to. I certainly learned a lot about anthropologists and their science. 

I read it during a rough week for me, so that may have contributed. I probably needed a more uplifting book at that point.

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

 

Straight from Amazon, but they say it well. What they don't say is that the ending is very ambiguous but perfect I think.

December 1962: In a village deep in the English countryside, two neighboring couples begin the day. Local doctor Eric Parry commences his rounds in the village while his pregnant wife, Irene, wanders the rooms of their old house, mulling over the space that has grown between the two of them.

On the farm nearby lives Irene’s mirror image: witty but troubled Rita Simmons is also expecting. She spends her days trying on the idea of being a farmer’s wife, but her head still swims with images of a raucous past that her husband, Bill, prefers to forget.

When Rita and Irene meet across the bare field between their houses, a clock starts. There is still affection in both their homes; neither marriage has yet to be abandoned. But when the ordinary cold of December gives way—ushering in violent blizzards of the harshest winter in living memory—so do the secret resentments harbored in all four lives.

An exquisite, page-turning examination of relationships, The Land in Winter is a masterclass in storytelling—proof yet again that Andrew Miller is one of the most dazzling chroniclers of the human heart.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

I enjoyed this book very much.  It's the kind of family saga that keeps me interested and engaged. The characters are unique, for sure. Especially Cal with his incongruous legs, and Becky, his wife, with her spiritual powers to contact and conjure the dead, helping those grieving to manage their grief a bit better.

Maggie: Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee

This was a delightful book, dealing with serious life events, but told through a voice that is similar to an author like Nora Ephron. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! 

Condensed from Amazon:

"A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie.

A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak—it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.

This book follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her body’s new inhabitant. She turns her children’s bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture—and to maybe save herself in the process.

...Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy."

Heart the Lover by Lily King

I was so happy to hear that Lily King had a new book out and now I am so happy that I got to read it. She is now a "favorite" of mine. I love how she writes about writing and writers in such a personal manner. 

Her characters are drawn beautifully and honestly.

The ending was a tear-jerker, but beautiful.