Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

I loved this wonderful novel. Probably the best book I've read this year. This is the story of Lara and her husband Joe who own a cherry orchard in Northern Michigan and their twenty-something daughters. It's the spring of 2020 during the pandemic. Lara's daughters beg their mother to tell them the story of her romance with actor Peter Duke and what really went on during the summer Peter and Lara were in summer stock at Tom Lake. Lara tells her story with humor, compassion, and wistful reminiscence. She talks fondly about playing Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN first in community theatre and then at Tom Lake where she first met Peter Duke. Her story is filled with surprises for her daughters and for us the readers. The Washington Post says of the novel, "TOM LAKE is about romantic love, marital love and maternal love, but also the love of animals, the love of stories, the love of the land and trees and the tiny, red cordiform object that is a cherry. The generous writer hits the mark again with her ninth novel."

Our Town

 by Thornton Wilder

If your reading group decides to discuss TOM LAKE, you might want to read the play OUR TOWN written by Thornton Wilder which debuted on Broadway in 1938 and won the Pulitzer Prize. Since I played George Gibbs in the play years ago, the references to OUR TOWN in Ann Patchett's novel meant a lot to me. I've always had a special place in my heart for that role. I guarantee that the reading of the play will add to your discussion of TOM LAKE. Harper Perennial has produced a handsome version of the play with photos of the original production and so much more. If you'd rather see a production then I suggest the two DVD set done several years ago with two versions of the play...one with Hal Holbrook as the Stage Manager and the other with Spalding Gray. The set should be available from your local library. 

A Good House for Children

by Kate Collins

I've always enjoyed a good haunted house story. This one by Kate Collins is great! Nick, Orla and their small son Sam move to the Reeve, an old Georgian house on the Dorset cliffs in 2017---a good house for children, Nick says. When Orla begins to hear strange voices in the night, when doors open and close on their own, and when Sam seems to have made an imaginary friend, she fears for her family's safety. Four decades earlier in 1976, live-in nanny Lydia moves into the house with a grieving family. She feels an evil presence in the house and begins to fear for the children that are in her charge. Collins gives us two very creepy stories in one pulsating novel.  Author Sally Hinchclife says, "A GOOD HOUSE FOR CHILDREN weaves a seductive spell, drawing the reader as inexorably as the house draws its inhabitants into its own sinister world. This is a very contemporary take on the house of horror theme and the way it is rooted in the real world makes it all the more chilling. Neatly reversing your expectation at every turn, this is a well-crafted tale that may well leave you sleeping with the lights on."

Bloomsbury Girls

by Natalie Jenner

THE BLOOMSBURY GIRLS are three women who work at London's Bloomsbury Books during the 1950s. Vivien, Grace and Evie are determined to make some changes to the bookshop and upend the domineering men they work with. But it's an almost impossible task since the male employees want things to stay the same. After all, the bookshop has been in business for 100 years. Natalie Jenner has written another fascinating story following the success of her first novel, THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY. She creates a cast of characters you won't forget and includes some famous people to further spark her plot including Daphne du Maurier, Samuel Becket, Peggy Gugenheim, Sonia Brownell Balir (widow of George Orwell) and Ellen Doubleday (widow of American publisher Nelson Doubleday, Sr.) Author Rhys Bowen calls the novel, "a delicious read for all fans of books and bookstores." Author Janet Skeslien Charles says the book is "a timely and beautiful ode to ambition, friendship, bookshops and the written word."