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Best new paperbacks:
The BookPage monthly feature for reading groups
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October paperback releases offer good choices for reading groups
REVIEWS BY JULIE HALE
In the follow-up to her best-selling, critically acclaimed novel Bee Season, Goldberg offers a charming historical narrative that proves she's more than a one-hit wonder. Set in Boston in the early 1900s, the book features heroine Lydia Kilkenny, a smart, working-class Irish-American who puts in long days as a shopgirl. Lydia's life takes a turn for the better when she marries Henry Wickett, a medical student. Henry has a side project—finding cures for hypochondriacal complaints—but he dies from influenza just as his work is getting off the ground. After his death, Lydia becomes involved in battling the nationwide influenza epidemic. Meanwhile, Henry's former business associate discovers his special antidote, Wickett's Remedy, and amasses a fortune thanks to Henry's hard work. Goldberg augments the main storyline with newspaper articles and letters from the era that lend an air of authenticity to the story, and in Lydia she has created an intelligent and spunky leading lady. Anchor's paperback edition of the book features extra material from Goldberg, including new scenes that weren't in the hardcover version—yet another reason to read this moving, multilayered and original novel. A reading group guide is available at www.readinggroupcenter.com.
By Myla Goldberg Anchor, $14 384 pages ISBN 1400078121
At the center of Horn's impressive second novel is down-on-his-luck, freshly divorced, super-intelligent Benjamin Ziskind, a researcher for TV game shows. Benjamin, who is blind, nevertheless manages to steal a valuable Marc Chagall painting from the Museum of Hebraic Art in New Jersey. The picture is one that he remembers fondly from childhood, because his parents owned a copy of it. After he nabs the painting, the narrative splits into various threads, moving back and forth between the past and the present, and switching locales. The reader gets a glimpse into Benjamin's family history in passages that focus on his father's tour of duty in Vietnam, and the background of the painting itself is recounted. The author brings Chagall to life in scenes that take place at a Jewish boys' school in Russia, where he taught art in the 1920s. Yiddish folk tales are also part of the narrative, as Horn—a Hebrew and Yiddish scholar at Harvard University—explores myth and religion in the novel. In addition to these richly developed themes, she adds touches of romance and mystery to the storyline. Her plot was inspired by a real-life art theft that occurred in 2001. From that nugget of truth she has produced an engaging and appealing book. A reading group guide is included in the book.
By Dara Horn Norton, $13.95 320 pages ISBN 0393329062
This timely, sophisticated novel tells the story of parents Jennifer and Thom, and what happens to their marriage when work and romance take a backseat to raising children. Jennifer's life changes the most when the kids arrive, as she chooses to give up a successful career in antiques to become a full-time mom. Her two children, toddler Max and five-year-old Georgia, are almost more than she can handle when Thom leaves the country for three months on a business trip. Alone with the kids in New York, Jennifer is left to deal with her meddlesome mother-in-law and with the suspicion that Thom might be having an affair. But she gets support from friends who are in the same boat (known as Stay At Home Moms, or SAHMs), including Angela, a business executive who is fired from her job after she goes on maternity leave, and Sven, a gay swimming teacher who, along with his boyfriend, is raising an adopted Chinese girl. In their own individual ways, each of these sharply drawn, memorable characters faces the same challenge—how to strike the right balance between love and work, between personal ambition and the demands of family. Funny and sympathetic, Scheibe writes insightfully about these issues, balancing weighty emotional matters with heavy doses of humor and portraying the ups and downs of motherhood and marriage in a way that's sure to charm readers. A reading group guide is included in the book.
By Amy Scheibe Picador, $14 320 pages ISBN 0312425627 Has your club recently read an excellent book that sparked good group discussion? If so, BookPage would like to hear about it. Contact us at reading@bookpage.com with a description of the book and the reasons for your recommendation. We'll pass the top choices along to our readers.
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Wickett's Remedy
The World to Come
What Do You Do All Day?