Novels
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The Scent of Water
The Scent of Water (1963) is, as the back cover promises, an enchanting book. How have I lived this long without ever even hearing of Elizabeth Goudge? Now that I have an acquaintance…
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The Seven Sisters
Candida Wilton, recently divorced, is starting her life over again. Instead of staying in sheltered, comfortable Suffolk where her husband, dean of a girls’ school, continues to enjoy respect and good-standing despite his…
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The Love Letters
Madeleine L’Engle’s The Love Letters (1967) weaves together two stories: one from today, and one from yesterday. Charlotte Napier, fleeing to her mentor (and mother-in-law) in Portugal to rethink her troubled marriage, comes…
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The Book of Merlyn
T.H. White wrote The Book of Merlyn as the fifth and final book in his Arthurian epic The Once and Future King, but he failed to convince his publisher to include it. I…
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Descent into Hell
The whole rise of ground therefore lay like a cape, a rounded headland of earth, thrust into an ocean of death. Men, the lords of that small earth, dominated it. The folklore of…
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The Place of the Lion
A man steps from a bedroom out to the landing and finds himself on a precipice. Looking down, he sees an endless chasm. Looking up, he sees a tiny circle of sky high…
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
After I closed A Thousand Splendid Suns , I sat speechless, trying to come to terms with what I’d just read. “This is the reason books exist,” I realized. By turns, this story…
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The Hunger Games
By turns, The Hunger Games reminded me of “The Most Dangerous Game,” Gladiator, Ender’s Game, and The Truman Show. “The Most Dangerous Game” involves a big game hunter preying on another man for…
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Brother, I’m Dying
Brother, I’m Dying chronicles the lives of two Haitian men. Bookmarks Magazine summarizes the tale this way: Edwidge Danticat’s father and uncle chose very different paths: the former struggled to make a new…
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