false 157146 4 1 female Cambridge 578949 0060798912 9780060798918 78 <![CDATA[The Way Life Should Be]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/578949.The_Way_Life_Should_Be 3.51 248 One day at work, Angela clicks on a tiny advertisement in the corner of her computer screen - "Do Soulmates Exist?" - and finds herself at a dating website, where she stumbles upon "MaineCatch," a thirty-five-year-old sailing instructor with ice-blue eyes. To her great surprise, she strikes up a dizzying correspondence with MaineCatch - yet as her online relationship progresses, life in the real world takes a nosedive. Interpreting this confluence of events as a sign, Angela impulsively decides to risk it all and move to Maine. But things don't work out quite as she expected. Far from everything familiar, and with little to return to, Angela begins to rebuild her life from the ground up, moving into a tiny cottage and finding work at a local coffee shop. To make friends and make ends meet, she leads a cooking class, slowly discovering the pleasures and secrets of her new small community, and - perhaps - a way to connect her heritage to a future she is only beginning to envision.
The Way Life Should Be is about the search for the right relationship and the right life, the difficulty of finding true love, and the yearning for the home that food represents. Laced with recipes and humor, wisdom and wit, it is at once a clear-eyed portrait of Maine, a compassionate look at modern life and love, and a compelling work of literary fiction that explores the gulf between the way life is and the way we want it to be.]]> 157146 3.58 455 141 2007 6322601 0688177247 9780688177249 28 <![CDATA[Bird in Hand]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1247758876m/6322601.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1247758876s/6322601.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6322601.Bird_in_Hand 3.39 77 It was an accident. It was dark, it was raining, Alison had only had two drinks. And the other car ran the stop sign. But Alison finds herself trapped under the crushing weight of grief and guilt, feeling increasingly estranged from her husband...
Charlie, who has his own burdens. He's in a job he doesn't love so that Alison can stay at home with the kids (and why isn't she more grateful for that?); he has a house in the suburbs and a long commute to and from the city. And the only thing he can focus on these days is his secret, sudden affair with...
Claire, Alison's best friend. Bold where Alison is reserved, vibrant where Alison is cautious, Claire has just had her first novel published, a thinly veiled retelling of her childhood in North Carolina. But even in the whirlwind of publication, Claire can't stop wondering if she should leave her husband...
Ben, an ambitious architect who is brilliant, kind, and meticulous. And who wants nothing more than a baby, or two — exactly the kind of life that Charlie and Alison seem to have...
In each of her novels, Christina Baker Kline has explored how people tell the stories of their lives and what those stories reveal about who they are. As they set out on their individual journeys, Alison, Charlie, Claire, and Ben explore the idea—each in his or her own way — that every moment of loss contains within it the possibility of a new life. Alternating through these four intertwined perspectives, Bird in Hand is a searing novel about friendship, love, marriage, loss, and the choices we make that irrevocably alter everything we believe to be true.]]> 157146 3.58 455 141 2009 578950 0060995130 9780060995133 4 <![CDATA[Sweet Water]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1244213294m/578950.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1244213294s/578950.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/578950.Sweet_Water 3.78 27 157146 3.58 455 141 1993 312400 0688151078 9780688151072 9 <![CDATA[Desire Lines]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173662928m/312400.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173662928s/312400.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/312400.Desire_Lines 3.60 25 Desire Lines is a taut, penetrating new novel filled with psychological suspense, sensitivity, and emotional complexity by the critically acclaimed author of Sweet Water.
On the night of her high school graduation in 1986, Kathryn Campbell's best friend, Jennifer, vanished without a trace. It's been ten years since then, but Kathryn still feels the conspicuous void in her life - and the nagging, guilty sense that she has failed her friend.
When a divorce sends Kathryn reeling back to the Maine town where she grew up, the young journalist finds herself face-to-face with her past. At twenty-eight, she's been living for far too long on memories and questions; now she needs to take a hard look at her own life at the same time that she is delving into the mystery of what happened to her friend.
As she explores the seemingly random series of events that led up to Jennifer's disappearance, a pattern slowly begins to take shape. All the puzzle pieces are at her fingertips - it's a matter of whether Kathryn can put them together in a way that makes sense. As she faces her own fear and grief, she is finally able to come to terms with the ways in which the loss of her friend has shaped her life and the lives of those who knew her. In the process, Kathryn realizes that if she is ever going to understand the circumstances of Jennifer's disappearance, she is going to have to expose herself to the same risks and dangers. Ultimately, Kathryn's quest to find out the truth becomes a quest to save her own life as she races against time to keep Jennifer's fate from becoming hers.]]> 157146 3.58 455 141 1999 1107772 0385333021 9780385333023 4 <![CDATA[Child of Mine: Original Essays on Becoming a Mother]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223631438m/1107772.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223631438s/1107772.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1107772.Child_of_Mine_Original_Essays_on_Becoming_a_Mother 3.94 17 Child of Mine is a book of original essays that reveal the many faces of motherhood, and which explore the amazing variety of feelings and changes that women go through in the first year of maternity.

The essays--by writers including Susan Cheever, Mona Simpson, Sarah Bird, Naomi Wolf, Meg Wolitzer, and many more--address a wide range of concerns, from changes in your marriage to delivery experiences to body image, to the mother/child bond, to ambivalence about breastfeeding. We see an African-American mother who's conflicted about hiring a Jamaican baby-sitter; we see an urban working mom who's delighted to be back to her job after maternity leave; we see a mother's nightmare journey through a year of her son's colic. And we see the adoption experience with all its ups and downs.

Covering an amazing breadth of experience, readers will recognize themselves as they discover that other mothers have felt the same emotions, cried the same tears, thrilled to similar milestones, and suffered the same indignities and heartaches in that challenging first year of motherhood.

]]> 157146 3.58 455 141 1997 592141 1580051766 9781580051767 5 <![CDATA[Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176088544m/592141.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176088544s/592141.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/592141.Always_Too_Soon_Voices_of_Support_for_Those_Who_Have_Lost_Both_Parents 4.46 13 Always Too Soon provides a range of intimate conversations with those — famous and not — who have lost both parents, providing readers with a source of comfort and inspiration as they learn to negotiate their new place in the world. Contributors include Hope Edelman, Geraldine Ferraro, Dennis Franz, Barbara Ehrenreich, Yogi Berra, Rosanne Cash, and Ice-T, as well as those who lost parents to the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center bombings, drunk driving, and more.</div></div>]]> 165954 4.33 18 5 157146 3.58 455 141 2006 2698139 1580052460 9781580052467 4 <![CDATA[About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2698139.About_Face_Women_Write_About_What_They_See_When_They_Look_in_the_Mirror 3.91 11 In About Face, twenty-five writers tackle this question, each using the same simple framework of an opening paragraph that objectively considers what they see when they look in the mirror. Each writer then details an experience that transpired, in one way or another, because of the face they live with: a feature that belies a woman's heritage, a scar that serves as a daily reminder of a childhood tragedy, an unwanted change due to sun exposure or smoking or drinking.
Since we live our entire lives behind our faces, About Face presents a challenge: to consider exploring our experiences from a vantage point we simply don't have access to. This collection uncovers surprising outcomes and truly unique observations about internal experiences as witnessed from the writers' external points of view.]]> 209864 3.76 17 5 157146 3.58 455 141 2008 578948 0312263848 9780312263843 0 <![CDATA[Room to Grow: Twenty-two Writers Encounter the Pleasures and Paradoxes of Rasing Young Children]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175969871m/578948.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175969871s/578948.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/578948.Room_to_Grow_Twenty_two_Writers_Encounter_the_Pleasures_and_Paradoxes_of_Rasing_Young_Children 5.00 2 Christina Baker Kline has crafted an outstanding collection that touches the core of modern parenthood. The writers share their experiences as parents of children between the ages of two and ten-the period when our children are young and wholly dependent, before they have established separate identities. Each of these entertaining and evocative essays focuses on one central issue about raising young children:
the complexities of being a stay-at-home dad
the urge to avoid making the same mistakes our parents did
birth order and sibling rivalry
giving our children a sense of racial identity.
Room to Grow is a kaleidoscope of the early years of childhood, revealing new patterns and yielding insights at each turn. A remarkable exploration of the parenting experience, Room to Grow eloquently discloses those priceless moments of joy and heartache, closeness and separation, wonder and exasperation, amazement and exhaustion that parents encounter every day with their young children.]]> 157146 3.58 455 141 1999 5941350 0747245940 9780747245940 0 <![CDATA[Sweet Water]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5941350.Sweet_Water 0.0 0 2726734 0.0 0 0 157146 3.58 455 141 1994