SPRING READS - posted 5.1.2025

I no longer work at Literati Bookstore, as of mid-March, but, I am still reading constantly and writing reviews of those books. I so appreciate having discovered my enjoyment in writing book reviews, as well as the access to books new and old during my 5 years as a bookseller and sideline buyer/merchandiser at Literati. Here's some special reads I have o share with you, available at Literati Bookstore.

The Many Lives of Anne Frank - Ruth Franklin

The collective history of Anne Frank has only been known through her diary. Now, through meticulous research, Anne's life before the Nazi takeover of the Netherlands, the Frank family's year of hiding in the Annex and subsequent discovery, and their short lives and deaths in Belsen-Belsen is detailed in this biography of the infamous Anne Frank. But, Ruth Franklin's book goes beyond "The Diary of Anne Frank." Through documents from Holocaust survivors who were with Anne in the camps including childhood friends, the people who shared the Annex with the Franks, and the Dutch friends who kept their hiding place secret, Franklin garnered as accurate an account as possible of Anne Frank's short life . . . and beyond. Miraculously, the Dutch friend who protected the family was able to save Anne's notebooks. When Anne's father and only family member who survived the Holocaust, Otto Frank, returned to Amsterdam, she handed Anne's writings over to him. The second half of Franklin's book delves into Otto Franks dedicating his life to editing Anne's diaries and notes, while painfully dealing with the writers, playwrights, actors, and directors who fought with each other and Otto as they questioned his adaptations and their own interpretations of the Anne Frank story that was eventually brought to stage and screen. We'll never know if Anne would have approved all this, but we do know she hoped to become a respected writer and world traveler. The world found Anne through her diary. Ruth Franklin's book shows all the ways her writing was perceived and treated.

Heartwood - Amity Gaige

The Maine wilderness on the Appalachian Trail is the backdrop for this spellbinding novel about a lost female hiker, Valerie, whose search, led by Maine State Game Warden Beverly, becomes national news. Lost after being forced off the trail by a young deranged man obsessed about a secret government training site in the nearby woods who thinks he's protecting the female hiker from harm, the weakened Valerie pours her thoughts into letters to her mother as she grows weaker by the day from the elements and lack of food and supplies. In tandem with Valerie's story is Lena, an elderly woman living in a retirement community in Connecticut, who happens to become friends with the young man through an online nature chatroom. Lena turns into an armchair detective as she begins to put two and two together that her nameless chatroom friend might know where to find Valerie. The race against time by the search team and the back-stories that eventually collide makes this suspense story a real page-turner and a testament to Gaige's writing talents.

The Correspondent - Virginia Evans 

This rather precious story unfolds in the form of correspondences between a retired, divorced, mother & grandmother in her 70s, Sybil Van Antwerp, and all the people in her life, new and old. The entire novel is presented through these letters, where, through our reading of the letters, we begin to understand Ms. Van Antwerp's story and struggles. Through the letters the reader also finds empathy for this character, as her deepest darkest secret comes to light and a discovery of acceptance and joy moves in.

The River Is Waiting - Wally Lamb

A tender but utterly heart-wrenching story that takes the reader deep inside the U.S. penal system - an unveiling that cannot be made up, much less imagined. Wally Lamb has never failed to get to the core of human frailty and fragility. This, his 7th novel about a young father and the tragic accident that upends his life, will hit you hard but the knowing is worth the pain your heart will feel, and the tiny sense of relief that comes with forgiveness.

Home of the American Circus - Allison Larkin

Few and far between books have moved me as deeply as this novel that forced me to look back at my childhood. This is a work of fiction about the emotional abuse and abandonment of the parents and siblings a young woman and her young niece suffered from. The story's depiction of the utter lack of love during early childhood and beyond struck home for me, as it will, most likely, for other readers. The title of the book refers to the birthplace of the Amerian circus, where the story takes place and where an elephant was as abused and disregarded by its owner as the novel's protagonists. Thankfully . . . the outcome in the novel will grab readers hearts.