Fans of Jane Austen will love Elizabeth Taylor.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont has all the nuanced observations of high society along with a bit of icy wit. Mrs Palfrey is sharp as a tack and in pretty good form for an old bird. But she’s widowed, running out of funds (not too badly), and does not want to impose on her daughter or nephew by moving in with them (unimaginable). Instead on a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, she arrives at the Claremont Hotel, which is where many an old codger end up who have financial means and do not need hospital care. It’s a seniors home without the nurses.

The group quietly accepts her, or perhaps she quietly accepts them. Everyone cues like cattle for the dining room to open. And they are mostly stiff upper lipped, formerly wealthy Brits, with opinions.

Mrs Palfrey quickly finds herself telling a fib about her nephew coming to visit. Then it becomes a bit of a gossipy playing card with the other ladies who do have visitors. Everyone is quite nosy in this novel. Well, dear Mrs Palfrey finds herself having a bit of a tumble one day while out on a walk. A young writer named Ludo helps her up and delivers her home. It’s an unlikely friendship but Mrs Palfrey asks if Ludo might pop in for a drink at the Claremont so she can pass him off as the nephew who’s been too busy to visit.

Well, it’s all funny in a Jane Austen way from there. I won’t spoil it.

This is a quaint read, and in some ways reminds me of The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

Summary: Esther Greenwood is working as an intern for a fashion magazine in New York. It’s 1953. Her day-to-day routine involves writing magazine pieces, doing research, and mostly attending various fashion events and getting free drinks. It’s darkly funny. There’s no Devil Wears Prada character but the first part of the novel has that energy. The second half is more Girl, Interrupted. Esther’s internship ends and she returns to her sleepy little town. The Bell Jar was published in 1963 so in many ways the second half of the novel is a horrifying look at how mental health was treated. And it’s a sad read when you see what Esther goes through, and also know that Plath committed suicide weeks after the publication of this novel.

There were twelve of us at the hotel.

We had all won a fashion magazine contest, by writing essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs, and as prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets and passes to fashion shows and hair stylings at a famous expensive salon and chances to meet successful people in the field of our desire and advice about what to do with our particular complexions.

I still have the make-up kit they gave me.

page 3

I enjoyed this book a lot. It’s a novel that captures a distinct time. Very Mad Men, 1950s society and culture. And yet so many things remain the same. This is Sylvia Plath’s only novel so it’s worth the read.

From the author of Daisy Jones & the Six comes a rock & roll novel about Malibu in the 80s.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is a master at the documentary, Rolling Stone style novel. The characters feel so real. It’s like taking a deep dive into a Rolling Stone cover piece or a feature in Vanity Fair or Seventeen.

Basically an amazing summer read. A bit of trashy gossip with a lot of spirit.

Former fan of Sweet Valley High? This is the adult version.

Welcome to Malibu, August 1983. The novel starts with some stats about raging wildfires in this part of the world. So throughout the novel, you’re waiting for the place to burn to the ground.

The setup is that it’s the day of Nina Riva’s infamous end-of-summer party. The novel is in two parts. 7 am to 7 pm; then 7 pm to 7 am. Nina is the eldest of 4 siblings, maybe more. Her dad is the rockstar Mick Riva, who left their mom early on in his career. He had a lot of affairs. The kids have been raised by their mom and are incredibly close to each other. Nina is a model. Jay is a superstar surfer. Hub is a renowned surf photographer. Kit is the baby, at 20, who is probably the best surfer of them all, if anyone would pay attention.

The novel reveals the various family secrets and culminates in the wild, out of control party. By the time you’re reading about the party, you can feel the slight sun burn, the sand between your toes, the spray from the surf.

This is 24 hours in the life of the Riva family, and it will give you the most amazing buzz.

Absolutely charming novel about a young girl who joins her father on his sales trips. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road meets Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies.

For 7-year-old M, the world has a clear set of guiding principles to which her father D prescribes. D is a travelling salesman and M convinces him to take her along on his routes, selling various hardware supplies and meeting other salesman who specialize in hats or perfumes. The novel is set in Chile during the Pinochet era, but this is not immediately clear to the reader as the story is told, with innocence, from M’s perspective.

Maria Jose Ferrada captures this time through a child’s eyes. She takes the reader through the charming stages of a father-daughter relationship on the road, and then the experiences that shatter their trust and safety. It’s a simple novel about the complex ways our world can fall apart. It’s about the certainty of how things are, which we latch onto as children yet have to give up as adults.

I loved this little book.

Perfect for fans of Kerouac, who don’t mind a softer touch to the road-trip story. Fans of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time will like the quiet innocence and quirky thoughts of this 7-year-old protagonist. And fans of Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Julia Alvarez will like the familiar feel of Latin American storytelling.

Souvankham Thammavongsa is an amazing writer! This is her fiction debut and each story is a small gem, a rough-cut gem, that is worth attention.

Each story presents a character struggling in some way to setting in Canada. Some are children, some adults, and they all face disappointments, emotional power struggles, and sparks of joy. These are immigrants from Lao and as forgettable as they may be to others—they are bus drivers, nail salon workers, worm pickers—they are unforgettable in these stories.

These are stories about finding your way, and standing your ground.

…At school the next day, my brother and I took out our candies at lunch and displayed them on a table like we were street vendors, telling our friends we went Chick-A-Chee where the houses were gigantic. Our friends had kept to their buildings or to the houses next door or hadn’t gone out at all, so they had only little gum balls or one or two tiny chocolate bars. We had bags and bags of chips, whole chocolate bars, and packs of gum—and there was more waiting for us at home.

page 82, Chick-a-chee!

There is so much praise for this book. All I can say is, yes, yes, yes. Look at who blurbed the book. If you like these authors, you’ll like this collection:

Helen Oyeyemi, author of Gingerbread and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Motherhood

Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing (one of my Vancouver Sun Book Club reads)

Sharon Bala, author of The Boat People (also on my to-read list)