false 24893 0 0 44308 0345485866 9780345485861 68 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170258925m/44308.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170258925s/44308.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44308.Summer_Reading 2.60 205
Following her acclaimed novel The Doctor’s Daughter, award-winning author Hilma Wolitzer has now written a stirring tale about friendship, romance, inspiration, longing, and, especially, the love of good books. Summer Reading offers a seductive glimpse into the intersecting lives of three very different women.

Summer in the Hamptons means crowded beaches during the day and lavish parties in the evening, but Angela Graves, a retired English professor, prefers the company of Gabriel García Márquez and Charlotte Brontë. Her only steady social contacts are with the women in the reading groups she leads, among them, is wealthy Lissy Snyder, a beautiful newlywed who hosts the twice-monthly meetings of the Page Turners and takes pains to hide a reading disability and her emotional neediness. Hamptons local Michelle Cutty, Lissy’s housecleaner, eavesdrops on the group’s discussions–of books and gossip–when she’s not snooping through Lissy’s closets.

All three women secretly struggle with troubling personal issues that threaten the tenuous balance of their lives: Lissy, abandoned by her father in childhood, is now the unwilling stepmother of her husband’s hostile children; Michelle, resentful of the moneyed arrogance of the jet-setting, seasonal “invaders,” can’t secure a commitment from her fisherman boyfriend; and solitary, bookish Angela still bears the shameful memory of a disastrous love affair that took place long ago.

As Angela encourages the Page Turners to identify with the literary heroines of Trollope and Flaubert, the books–in fact, the act of reading itself–will influence the tough choices the women must make. Stunningly evocative and richly imagined, Summer Reading explores the meaning and consequences of living an authentic life.]]> 24893 2.92 443 102 2007 895233 034548584X 9780345485847 14 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179264381m/895233.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179264381s/895233.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/895233.The_Doctor_s_Daughter 3.26 112
One morning, Alice Brill awakes with a sudden awareness that something is wrong. There’s a hollowness in her chest, and a sensation of dread that she can’t identify or shake. Was it something she’s done, or forgotten to do? As she scours her mind for the source of her unease, she confronts an array of disturbing possibilities.

First, there is her marriage, a once vibrant relationship that now languishes stasis. Then there’s her idle, misdirected younger son, who always needs bailing out of some difficulty. Or perhaps Alice’s trepidation is caused by the loss of her career as an editor at a large publishing house, and the new path she’s paved for herself as a freelance book doctor. Or it might be the real doctor in her life: her father. Formerly one of New York’s top surgeons, he now rests in a nursing home, his mind gripped by dementia. And the Eden that was Alice’s childhood–the material benefits and reflected glory of being a successful doctor’s daughter, the romance of her parents’ famously perfect marriage–makes her own domestic life seem fatally flawed.

While struggling to find the root of her restlessness, Alice is buoyed by her discovery of a talented new writer, a man who works by day as a machinist in Michigan. Soon their interactions and feelings intensify, and Alice realizes that the mystery she’s been trying to solve lies not in the present, as she had assumed, but in the past–and in the secrets of a marriage that was never as perfect as it appeared.

Like the best works of Anne Tyler, Sue Miller, and Gail Godwin, The Doctor’s Daughter is private yet universal, luminous and revelatory–and marks the reemergence of a singular talent in American writing.
]]> 24893 2.92 443 102 2006 195588 0345487516 9780345487513 3 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172594604m/195588.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172594604s/195588.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195588.Hearts 3.04 23
Widowed at twenty-six, Linda is heading to California to start over, uncertain what the future holds. In the trunk of her car, she carries her husband’s amateur paintings, along with his ashes. Robin, her silent, angry teenage stepdaughter, about to be left with relatives she’s never met, carries a private stash of pot and some closely guarded secrets. But these two women, journeying on a road alongside drifters and dreamers, lovers and liars, will discover something they never expected to find–between them and inside their hearts.]]> 24893 2.92 443 102 1980 1278686 0374264228 9780374264222 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1278686.Silver 3.67 6 24893 2.92 443 102 1989 852545 0061180106 9780061180101 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/852545.Tunnel_of_Love 2.67 6 24893 2.92 443 102 1994 5741937 1602528632 9781602528635 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5741937.Summer_Reading_Library_Edition 3.00 4 24893 2.92 443 102 729191 3.62 24 6 2007 1278687 0374176566 9780374176563 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182455242m/1278687.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182455242s/1278687.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1278687.In_the_Palomar_Arms 3.33 3 </DIV>]]> 24893 2.92 443 102 1983 420256 0804105081 9780804105088 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/420256.In_the_Flesh 3.00 3 24893 2.92 443 102 1977 1214207 0374384568 9780374384562 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1214207.Wish_You_Were_Here 4.00 2 24893 2.92 443 102 1984 1269546 0374376255 9780374376253 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1269546.Toby_Lived_Here 3.50 2 24893 2.92 443 102 1978