Over Spring Break I read
A Mercy (Toni Morrison), the April selection for our Reading Group. It is phenomenal. Morrison at her best (and the woman is 78!!). She is a masterful storyteller and the varied voices of her powerful characters are haunting. I am definitely planning on reading this one again and, in fact, might go back and reread
Beloved while I'm at it. This month we are reading Jhumpa Lahiri's latest short story collection,
Unaccustomed Earth. I've held off reading it until now so can't wait! I liked Kara MClaren's
On the Divinity of Second Chances so much I passed it along to friend Tobi who just texted the other day to tell me how much she is enjoying it. A really neat story about a family in which every member is at a major crossroads. Plus there's a whole marital therapy through tango lessons thing going on that is awesome. I recently reviewed Giulia Melucci's
memoir,
I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti for bookreporter.com. I read it in one sitting and dog-eared a bunch of recipes I can't wait to try. Good beach book! Also looking to be a summer bestseller is Colson Whitehead's
Sag Harbor, the coming of age story of a young black teenager learning to balance his Manhattan existence during the school year with his summers spent at Sag Harbor, a beach enclave of African-American professionals. Deanna liked
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. She found the eleven year old heroine, Flavia de Luce, a budding chemist with a passion for poison, to be refreshingly unusual. Winner of the Crime Writers' Assoc. Debut Dagger Award. I read a publisher excerpt of the new paperback novel
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Sarah Rainone) and immediately put it on my summer reading list. Precious Ramotswe is back in Alexander McCall Smith's
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. (and the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is now an HBO original series). I'm curious about Daniel Goleman's new book
Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. Goleman has a huge following of fans from his earlier
Emotional Intelligence. A new paperback for the travel shelves is
Narrow Dog to Indian River, Terry Darlington's memoir subtitled "How a Man, A Woman, A Dog & Their Narrowboat Conquered the Atlantic Intracoastal". Promises to be a funny read.
The Billionaire's Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace will please oenophiles as he traces the history of a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux. Quite a few local book groups were looking forward to the May 5 release of
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows) in paperback. It was very popular in hardback and I think will be a hot seller this summer. May 5th is also the release date for
The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan's latest Percy Jackson novel. Sarah has been counting the days and I want to send out a
BIG THANK YOU to Rob Dougherty at
Clinton Book Shop in Clinton, New Jersey, for helping me get my hands on a signed copy for her.
Our family enjoyed an incredibly relaxing, laid back spring break on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra.. off the beaten path (two planes, a taxi then a ferry) and a bit rustic but gorgeous beaches, friendly locals, great snorkeling... I could go on and on and on.. it was really cool. Click on the link below to find out more about Casita Tropical, the best little guesthouse in town! 
DON'T PANIC! By the time this gets to you there will still be a few shopping days left before Mother's Day (Sunday, May 10th). I'm going to make life even easier by giving you a few suggestions for the special women in your life!
