Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Jamie Ford

When we think about the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, we tend to think about the way that affected those families. This story is about how the ripples of that displacement shaped the life of young Henry Lee.

The Penderwicks

Jeanne Birdsall

I’m eager to read more about my new friends the Penderwicks, their friend Jeffrey, and the lovable dog, Hound.

Straight Man

Richard Russo

Just about as funny as you can be in dealing with academic politics, marriage, friendship, development gone amok and all the other complications of modern life.

The Return of Captain John Emmett

Elizabeth Speller

When confronted with the raw numbers of dead, the volume of destruction, the disruption to ordinary life, there is no doubt that war is a brutal, destructive, and dehumanizing process. But it is in particular stories that we see the true cost of each life lost and the ripples extending outward from that loss. In The Return of Captain John Emmett, Elizabeth Speller tells such a tale about the aftermath of WWI. After his military service has ended, John Emmett is found dead, an apparent suicide. His grieving sister Mary calls on Laurence Bartram, an old schoolmate, to help her understand what has happened. With scraps of poetry and some scribbled notes, Bartram sets out to reconstruct the events leading up to Emmett's death. As he delves into these tenuous connections, he realizes that others involved with Emmett have also died violently. Speller's compelling novel lets us discover that there are seldom easy answers, few happy endings, and no good wars.
—in Publishers Weekly Galley Talk: Week of 5/16/11

Girl in Hyacinth Blue

Susan Vreeland

This story gives "provenance" human faces as you follow the painting backwards to Vermeer's brush.

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