Marilyn Recommends...

Difficult stories of life and death in Rowanda and Africa are told gently and poignantly by the narrator, a woman who makes special occasion cakes and her own difficult story to face.

Here's a favorite line that gives a wonderful taste of this memoir - "How then does the written word work? What part of a reader absorbs it - or should that be a double question?" Intelligent and absorbing!

I am always excited to read the next in the Maisie Dobb's series. This one felt a bit darker than the previous books as she explores the world of mental illness and the institutions that existed in the 1920's for that care. It reminded me a bit of the bestseller The Professor and the Madman.

I love this book so much, I would like the entire town of Wellesley to read it and talk about it with me. An epic tale about logging as the National Park Developers vs. North Carolina after the stock market crash of 1929. We follow Serena, the new wife of the logging owner -- and what an adventure it is!

Two families meet at the airport on the arrival day of their adopted babies. We follow these entwined lives with very different ideas about raising their children. Very thoughtful, at times funny and at times moving - rather light and straightforward for Anne Tyler. More like Back When We Were Grownups than Accidental Tourist.