Thirty-eight-year-old Anna Fox lives alone in an upscale Manhattan home in New York. She spends her days and nights spying on her neighbors, while imbibing a lot of Merlot.  We soon learn why. She’s agoraphobic and has not left her house in almost a year. When not peering out her window, she’s watching black and white movies of the Hitchcock sort. There’s certainly a nod to Hithcock’s Rear Window in the setting and plot of the novel. But to the reader’s delight, the author cleverly creates a … [Read more...] about The Woman in the Window

I simply had to read Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened. Here’s 6 reasons I really liked it (by the way, I might have called the book, KEEP GOING!):
1) She’s not running for office anymore, so I felt she was more relatable and authentic.
2) I loved the chapter where she simply gives us all the the details of what a typical day for her is like, including what she reads, eats, drinks, meditates on, breathing exercises, kisses for Bill, and beauty regimen.
3) She’s super well read, and I … [Read more...] about What Happened

Manhattan Beach, written by Jennifer Egan, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” is loosely based on the life of one the first female divers for the naval yards in New York City during WWII. It’s a captivating tale and one that highlights how truly hard it was for women to be allowed to do jobs outside “female cultural norms” at that time. Imagine donning a “diving suit” weighing 200 pounds. It was a dangerous and difficult feat, to say the least, but vital to the … [Read more...] about Manhattan Beach

Have you noticed how many books these days are really a bunch of riffs on life? You know, a collection of blogs or short articles with titles such as “When I Meditate” or “I Can’t Get That Penis out of My Mind.” Stuff like that. (You for sure want to know which book has that penis title in it.) I like the idea of writing a book this way. Seems a hell of a lot easier than actually stringing together a coherent, thematically interesting book from page 1 to 300. I’m pretty sure this will be the … [Read more...] about Would Everybody Please Stop?

This is a wonderful and thrilling story of how one man always had a dream of going to Antartica.  As a child who was bullied everyday on the bus by his schoolmates, Andrew found refuge in the hundreds of copies of National Geographic magazines he read as a child. Within the pages of the magazine he imagines himself traveling the world and dreams of working for the magazine one day.  Excommunicated from the Mormon Church and disowned by his family for being gay, Andrew eventually gets his dream … [Read more...] about The Black Penguin

Liane Moriarty keeps your interest as 9 strangers encounter each other at an upscale wellness spa in Australia.  Quick, fun read. … [Read more...] about Nine Perfect Strangers

Interesting book about figuring out your personality and the impact our view of personality has on our relationships at home and at work. … [Read more...] about Reading People

Fantastic writing and a touching story--clever, witty, laugh-outloud funny. … [Read more...] about Calypso

Ooh.  This is just too good to put into words.  Her husband said: “I love it because it faithfully reflects the woman I have loved for so long.” Barack adds he may be a bit biased, but added, “She also happens to be brilliant, funny, wise—one of a kind.  This book tells her quintessentially American story.”  Here are some of the adjectives I wrote down as I read her remarkable memoir: transparent, accessible, real, vulnerable, inspiring, smart, incredibly well-written, and moving. I could go on, … [Read more...] about Becoming