Time To Fall In Love With Books

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

Time to Fall in Love With Books

Summer is officially over and now it’s the season to fall in love with books. This month’s Book Report takes us to three different eras from the past with books that have flown under the radar.

If you just can’t let go of summer, Suzanne Rindell’s sweet Summer Fridays will keep the summer vibe going. The novel takes place in 1999 New York City, when AOL was the hot thing. 

Sawyer works as an assistant at a publishing house and is planning a wedding to her live-in college boyfriend Charles who is beginning his career as a lawyer. She is not so much planning a wedding as allowing her future mother-in-law to completely take over the wedding planning.

Charles is working long hours with his attractive colleague Kendra. This doesn’t really bother Sawyer until Kendra’s boyfriend Nick sends her an email insinuating that Charles and Kendra are having an affair.

Nick and Sawyer strike up an online email friendship, which leads to Nick joining Sawyer on her summer Friday lunches in a local park. Sawyer and Nick have a platonic relationship, but could it be more? Does Sawyer have more in common with Nick than Charles? You’ll have to read Summer Fridays to find out. Fans of the movie You’ve Got Mail will be delighted.

I liked the New York City setting here, and the characters are interesting. I read Suzanne Rindell’s historical novel The Other Typist and loved it, and Summer Fridays is very different from that book but just as wonderful.

Madeline Martin takes the reader to WWII England in The Booklover’s Library. In Nottingham, England, Emma is a young widow with a seven year-old daughter Olivia. The war against Germany is just ramping up, and Emma is having a difficult time finding a job, as widows and married women are discouraged from working. 

While Emma is able to secure a position at the Booklover’s Library in a chemist shop, she must hide the fact that she has a child. They live in an apartment building, and we meet some of the other tenants, including a grumpy older man and an older widow who is willing to care for Olivia part-time.

As Germany begins to bomb England, a program begins where people are encouraged to send their children to the countryside becasue it is thought they will be safer from the bombing that is happening in the cities. 

Since Emma must work at her job to support herself and Olivia, she makes the difficult decision to send Olivia to the countryside to a family she doesn’t know. Olivia sends Emma letters begging to come home, and Emma struggles with the decision she made.

Martin does an incredible job putting readers in the shoes of Emma. As we read, we wonder what would we have done in Emma’s place. The author also paints such a vivid picture of life during war in England. 

The author did a great deal of research into the lending libraries found in chemists shops at this time. I was fascinated by Emma’s job and found myself wanting to learn even more about them than I found in the Author’s Notes at the end of the book. If you liked historical fiction, The Booklover’s Library is one you will definitely want to read.

For the Nonfiction fan, Scott G. Shea’s All the Leaves Are Brown shares the true story of the rise and fall of the 1960’s super group The Mamas and The Papas. 

Shea traces the beginnings of the group, starting with a detailed biography of the group’s leader and songwriter John Phillips. We follow John’s story from his childhood as the son of a military man, through his troubled teen years, and his love of music.

Along the way, John (who was already married) falls in love with a much younger Michelle Gilliam, and eventually they end up with Canadian folk singer Denny Doherty and the vivacious and amazing singer Cass Elliot to become the Mamas and the Papas.

Shea shares the ups and downs, the love triangles, the rampant drug use (that part just astonished me- so many drugs!), the talent, and the incredible music they made during the last part of the 1960s. The Monterey Pop Festival that John Phillips created with others is described in great detail and I found that very interesting. 

After reading All the Leaves Are Brown,  I immediately put on a Mamas and Papas playlist and wow, they were fantastic. This one is for fans of 1960’s music, Fleetwood Mac, and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones & the Six.

Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell- A

Published by Dutton

Trade paperback, $18, 432 pages

The Booklover’s Library by Madeline Martin- A

Published by Hanover Square Press

Trade paperback, $18.99, 432 pages

All the Leaves Are Brown by Scott G. Shea- A-

Published by Backbeat

Hardcover, $32.95, 422 pages

New in Paperback- The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

Published by Berkley ISBN 9780425268421

Trade paperback, $16, 368 pages

The timing for Suzanne Rindell's The Other Typist couldn't be better. Set in the 1920's in Prohibition New York City, it it the perfect companion for those who enjoyed Baz Lurhmann's spectacular film of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby.

As the title character in The Other Typist, Odalie Lazare is the female equivalent of Jay Gatsby. She  mysteriously shows up one day to apply as a typist at a police precinct. It is a job that men reluctantly allow women to fill, as they are not as good as typists as the women.

The other main character in the novel is Rose Baker, as unassuming and plain as Odalie is vivacious and beautiful. She grew up in an orphanage and had a boring, lonely life until Odalie walked into her life.

"On that particular day, she entered very calmly and quietly, but I knew; it was like the eye of a hurricane. She was the dark epicenter of something we didn't quite understand yet, the place where hot and cold mixed dangerously, and around her everything would change."

Rose becomes enchanted by Odalie and is thrilled when Odalie befriends her. Odalie takes Rose to wild parties in hidden speakeasies, lends her gorgeous clothes and even invites Rose to move into her fancy Park Avenue apartment with her.

Soon a spider's web encompasses Rose. Seduced by the fanciful lifestyle and believing that Odalie thinks of her as a sister, Rose nevertheless has nagging suspicions about Odalie. She catches Odalie telling different stories about her past, and when they run into a man who claims to know Odalie by a different name, things start to unravel.

The story is told by Rose, who is writing this from some sort of institution. Something bad has clearly happened, and Rose is unspooling the turn of events from her point of view. The mystery of what has occurred is not immediately evident, we must wait (im)patiently for Rose to complete her story.

The Other Typist seduces the reader just as surely as Odalie seduces Rose. Rindell weaves her story, keeping us turning the pages with her fascinating characters and cat-and-mouse plot. The setting of a 1920s NYC police precinct feels fresh, and who knew that women worked as typists there back then?

I found it interesting that when one of the women became pregnant, she continued to work well into her pregnancy, even when she was clearly showing. It never occurred to me that women were allowed to be seen outside of their home obviously pregnant, let alone continue to work back then. But I guess if a family depends on a women's income, she'd have to work.

The end of the story is literally jaw-dropping. I read the last few pages several times, and I'm still not sure that I completely know what happened. It has been called a mashup of The Great Gatsby and The Talented Mr. Ripley, but I also think that the many people who liked Gone Girl will like this book, although I think The Other Typist is much better. It is the best literary mystery of the year, and it didn't surprise me to find that it is an Amy Einhorn imprint. No one finds better debut novelists that Amy Einhorn.

rating 5 of 5

Suzanne Rindell's website is here.

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
Published by Amy Einhorn Books  ISBN 9780399161469
Hardcover, $26.95, 368 pages

The timing for Suzanne Rindell's The Other Typist couldn't be better. Set in the 1920's in Prohibition New York City, it it the perfect companion for those who enjoyed Baz Lurhmann's spectacular film of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby.

As the title character in The Other Typist, Odalie Lazare is the female equivalent of Jay Gatsby. She  mysteriously shows up one day to apply as a typist at a police precinct. It is a job that men reluctantly allow women to fill, as they are not as good as typists as the women.

The other main character in the novel is Rose Baker, as unassuming and plain as Odalie is vivacious and beautiful. She grew up in an orphanage and had a boring, lonely life until Odalie walked into her life.

"On that particular day, she entered very calmly and quietly, but I knew; it was like the eye of a hurricane. She was the dark epicenter of something we didn't quite understand yet, the place where hot and cold mixed dangerously, and around her everything would change."

Rose becomes enchanted by Odalie and is thrilled when Odalie befriends her. Odalie takes Rose to wild parties in hidden speakeasies, lends her gorgeous clothes and even invites Rose to move into her fancy Park Avenue apartment with her.

Soon a spider's web encompasses Rose. Seduced by the fanciful lifestyle and believing that Odalie thinks of her as a sister, Rose nevertheless has nagging suspicions about Odalie. She catches Odalie telling different stories about her past, and when they run into a man who claims to know Odalie by a different name, things start to unravel.

The story is told by Rose, who is writing this from some sort of institution. Something bad has clearly happened, and Rose is unspooling the turn of events from her point of view. The mystery of what has occurred is not immediately evident, we must wait (im)patiently for Rose to complete her story.

The Other Typist seduces the reader just as surely as Odalie seduces Rose. Rindell weaves her story, keeping us turning the pages with her fascinating characters and cat-and-mouse plot. The setting of a 1920s NYC police precinct feels fresh, and who knew that women worked as typists there back then?

I found it interesting that when one of the women became pregnant, she continued to work well into her pregnancy, even when she was clearly showing. It never occurred to me that women were allowed to be seen outside of their home obviously pregnant, let alone continue to work back then. But I guess if a family depends on a women's income, she'd have to work.

The end of the story is literally jaw-dropping. I read the last few pages several times, and I'm still not sure that I completely know what happened. It has been called a mashup of The Great Gatsby and The Talented Mr. Ripley, but I also think that the many people who liked Gone Girl will like this book, although I think The Other Typist is much better. It is the best literary mystery of the year, and it didn't surprise me to find that it is an Amy Einhorn imprint. No one finds better debut novelists that Amy Einhorn.

rating 5 of 5

Suzanne Rindell's website is here.