Liz's Picks

One of our popular booksellers is a great fan of recommending backlist. Here are a few of her old and new favorites.

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France (Hardcover)

By Caroline Moorehead
$27.99
ISBN-13: 9780061650703
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper, 11/2011
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This is an inspiring book about the women in the Resistance in France in WW II.
It is an absolutely amazing achievement. Moorehead did extensive and meticulous research and the wove everything into a compelling narrative. She spoke with 8 or 9 women who were still alive in 2008, and she has provided updates on all 230 women who were taken to Auschwitz. What these women endured is often too hard to read about, but important to know. Some were as young as fifteen; they were so brave.

Maine (Hardcover)

By J. Courtney Sullivan
$25.95
ISBN-13: 9780307595126
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Knopf, 6/2011
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Three generations of an Irish American family spend some of each summer at their cottage in Cape Meddick, Maine.
Alice, the matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with; not very nice. We learn about the great tragedy of her youth and the source of her guilt. Four narrators go back and forth in time to fill us in on the history of this family. The Coconut Grove fire in Boston in 1942 figures in the story. Many familiar Maine landmarks appear; rich characterizations. Absorbing read.

The Lake Shore Limited (Paperback)

By Sue Miller
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780307276704
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage, 5/2011
A terrific novel about five people interacting around a play that one of them has written and that has a tie-in with 9/11. Miller’s characters are so real and her exploration of human behavior so right that it is amazing.
We see these interesting people with all their strength and weaknesses. The way Miller weaves in the plot and the characters in the play with the real people is brilliant. Miller has come a long way since her first novel “The Good Mother”.
To be savored!

Death Comes to Pemberley (Hardcover)

By P.D. James
$25.95
ISBN-13: 9780307959850
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Knopf, 12/2011
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What could be lovelier than P.D. James taking on Jane Austen, one of her favorite writers?

Six years after the ending of Pride and Prejudice, it is now 1803 and it is the day before the annual ball at Pemberley. Lydia Wickham arrives by chaise, upset and crying about Wickham having been murdered. And thus begins the mystery all the characters from Pride and Prejudice are here, even a mention of a couple from Emma.

The prose is perfect; read slowly to savor it.

The Paris Wife (Hardcover)

By Paula Mclain
$25.00
ISBN-13: 9780345521309
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Ballantine Books, 3/2011
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A fascinating novel of Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson and their years together in Paris in the 1920’s.
MClain did a lot of research, so that this novel has the ring of authenticity. She puts us there in that place and time, and we meet real people like Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklias; Ezra Pound and his wife who was called Shapespear; the Fitzgeralds and Gerald and Sara Murphy.
Near the end Pauline arrives and we know this doesn’t bode well for Hadley.

State of Wonder (Hardcover)

By Ann Patchett
$26.99
ISBN-13: 9780062049803
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper, 6/2011
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Marina Singh works for Vogel, a pharmaceutical company that is interested in developing a drug that will allow women to become pregnant into their seventies. Dr. Annick Swenson has been
working in the Amazon with a native tribe on this project. When Anders Eckman is sent there to find out what progress she is making, he does not return and Swenson reports that he died of fever. Marina is sent to learn what is going on.
What she finds will amaze you. A riveting read.

The Uncommon Reader: A Novella (Paperback)

By Alan Bennett
$12.00
ISBN-13: 9780312427641
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador, 9/2008
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Compulsively readable, an absolutely hilarious account when Queen Elizabeth II takes up reading with a vengeance.

After her Corgis digress into the garden, they come upon a mobile library. The Queen is curious and borrows a book; a young, gay kitchen aide suggests books; the more she reads, the more she resents royal tasks. Her private secretary resents her new interest.

Read on to discover the often uproarious consequences of her newfound hobby. Irresistibly funny.

Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship (Paperback)

By Gail Caldwell
$14.00
ISBN-13: 9780812979114
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 8/2011
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Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp were best friends. Knapp died of stage four lung cancer in 2002, leaving Caldwell bereft. They had walked their beloved dogs together many, many times in Cambridge. Knapp had told Caldwell rowing, and Caldwell had taught Knapp to swim. They grew close enough to finish each other’s sentences and often to know what the other was thinking. Caldwell writes lovingly, but without sentimentality, with passion, insight, and humor about friendship.
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