The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

 

I am not sure where I heard about this book, but I am glad that I did!  Really interesting and compelling read! By the way, it's a COVID novel, but a very different one. Description:

A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman--in this electric novel of secrets, connection, and community.

And from Amazon:

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant.

During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla’s and Theo’s families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker peace, past and present collide with startling consequences.

Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city,

The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely. 

The characters were so diverse and so deep.  I just loved them all and loved the way the author put the story together while giving all the different characters lots of printtime! Sometimes I would feel like Porter was diverging from the main storyline, but I enjoyed that!

The Washington Post wrote an excellent review of this book.  I agree with everything they say and she's now an author I will be watching!

Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey

This was a very enjoyable book and I learned so much in reading it.  I didn't know much about Peggy Guggenheim except that she was part of that family and that she has an art museum in Venice that was closed the day we were there. :-( 

She was quite an interesting person who lived during a very interesting time! I didn't know her father died on the Titanic, that she was quite a siren who had affairs with many men, and that the love of her life seems to have been Samuel Beckett. Oh, there was so much to learn!

The sad thing about the book is the fate of the author, who died of cancer before she finished it. The book was completed by another author who spoke so highly of Godfrey.

This book made me want to read and learn more about this era.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

From NY Times:

"The book follows a retired English woman who has lost her husband and, many years before, her young son. Her small, closed-fist of a life could easily have petered out quietly in her living room. Instead, she goes to Ibiza on an adventure that we will not spoil here, except to say that it involves telepathy."

I enjoyed this book and found the ideas thought-provoking and compelling. I did not, however, enjoy this as much as The Midnight Library. It's not fair to compare, really, but that book captured my attention more than this one.

Mainly, I listened on my walks, and it is an excellent audiobook. The reader sounds like Maggie Smith.  Very British with perfect diction.