Books

“I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman” is a collection of essays about the experience of growing older by Nora Ephron. She is best known for her movie scripts for romantic comedies like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally.”

As Ephron reflected on her aging body, she decided to use humor and lighthearted cynicism to reveal her observations. She applied her dry sense of humor to soften the edges of the emotional and physical aches and pains emerging as she got older. It is a light read about a serious topic and a welcome addition to Ephron’s collection of books in light of her death in 2012. Read More

“The Goldfinch” is described by author Stephen King as, “a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind.” The author, Donna Tartt took 12 years to write this book. She took her time to create authentic and complex characters that bring the book’s primary theme of loss to life. Read More

“Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder,” is the latest book by Arianna Huffington. Arianna was born in Greece. She moved to England as a teenager and graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Economics. The mother of two teenage daughters, she also happens to be the well-known co-founder and editor in chief of Huffington Post and the author of 13 books. Read More

“Orphan Train” is a fascinating story of friendship between women from two generations. According to a New York Times review, the book is “A revelation of the universal yearning for belonging, for family, for acceptance and, ultimately, the journeys we must all make to find them.” Read More

Just a few years ago, it would have been inconceivable to imagine a world without paper books. Not only were paper books superior to their electronic counterparts in terms of resolution and brightness, but there was also an intangible quality to paper that many people preferred on a subconscious level. Read More

“The Luminaries” is a Booker-Prize winning book by Eleanor Catton. This intriguing book is described as a “fiendishly clever ghost story and gripping page turner and a thrilling novelistic achievement.” The New York Times praised it saying the author had created a “parody of a 19th-century novel, and in so doing created a novel for the 21^st, something utterly new.” This week, I wanted to select a book that would offer an engaging modern story with escapism, adventure and an entertaining look at human complexity. The Luminaries fits this description perfectly. Read More

“Love in the Time of Cholera” is a book by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, a Colombian novelist, screenwriter and journalist. His writing style has been referred to as “magical realism,” because he uses elements of fantasy to explain and enhance real life experiences. Most of his books express a theme of human solitude.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1982 for a book called “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which enchanted and intrigued me. Marquez is a stunning writer who pulls readers into his stories in a sensory way. He understands relationships. Sometimes you feel as though you walking alongside the characters, experiencing their lives with intensity and realism. Read More

Khaled Hosseini is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. His new novel “And the Mountains Echoed” is about love, betrayal and how families take care of one another. It explores how the choices we make can have an impact across generations. Read More

“The Paris Architect” is the debut novel of American author Charles Belfoure. His own personal interest with historical preservation inspired a fascinating fictional book about World War II. It is full of characters who demonstrate the spectrum of human emotion that is revealed times of political conflict.

The book is set in Nazi occupied France and tells the story of Lucien, a struggling architect, who, like many people in Paris, was not all that sympathetic to the Jews. He was Read More

“The Valley of Amazement” is a novel by Amy Tan, a New York Times bestselling author with magical writing skills. Ms Tan was born in the United States to immigrant Chinese parents and her writing often tries to penetrate the unique cultural impact of her parents’ homeland. Read More