Lincoln O'Neill's job at Omaha's Courier newspaper is in security, but he doesn't play the standard role of blocking viruses and thwarting hackers. Lincoln reads emails. More specifically, he monitors a program that flags every uncensored email an employee sends. Everyone at The Courier knows someone is monitoring their email, but no one has seen him, and Lincoln's long night hours make him nearly invisible at the office. Jennifer and Beth are two employees who break the censorship rule -- often. In rebellious defiance of company policy the two women send endless emails to each other during their work hours, hilarious and honest emails discussing their personal lives as they help each other through different struggles. Jennifer isn't ready to start a family, but her husband couldn't be more excited at the prospect of having a baby. Beth's relationship with her college boyfriend, metal guitarist Chris, is on a perpetually rocky road, and with her younger sister getting married ahead of her Beth is more than willing to exercise her sharp tongue in her daily emails to Jennifer. Lincoln knows he shouldn't be reading their emails, knows he should send them a warning and move on; but the prospect of no longer getting Beth and Jennifer's funny and charming emails every day is something he doesn't want to face. Soon not getting involved will get him in over his head - especially when he starts falling for Beth.
On Writing: The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
There are a lot of interesting points in Gardner’s book, particularly following along with him as he crafts a story idea and explores the right and (potentially) wrong moves, how the story would change with different intents, and the myriad ways it could be done well. He also provides exercises at the back of the book – both group exercises intended for classes and writings groups, and individual exercises for the endeavoring writer to tackle alone. (I’ll possibly write about those in the future since I haven’t pursued them yet.) On the whole, for writers looking to better their craft through strongly academic, objective study, The Art of Fiction offers a very thorough perspective.
I Always Loved You by Robin Oliveira
In her new novel, I Always Loved You, Robin Oliveira takes the reader to Paris in the Belle Époque and tells the story of the tumultuous relationships between the radical impressionists, centering on Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas. She’s a sensible American with an untapped talent; he’s the master she’s always admired, whose work is more than paint. When Degas, uncharacteristically bewitched, begs an introduction, their lives are catapulted into a swell of emotional upheaval, of joy and loss and the bewildering elusiveness of love. With his genius Degas will guide her to her own profound talent, helping her to see beyond the meager veil of commercialism to redefine her experience of art; but with his maddening unpredictability, his impossible conceit, and his infuriating severity, Mary may find herself at the brink of breaking, whether by spirit or heart. Central in the lives of Mary and Degas are the host of independently-minded artists who brought the impressionist movement to life: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, and Camille Pissaro. Also among their set are Berthe Morisot and Édouard Manet, whose incorrigible love, barely muted by Berthe’s marriage to Édouard’s brother, mirrors the overwhelming and ultimately tragic trajectory of Mary and Degas’s relationship. Oliveira’s rendering of Paris in the late 1800s is a gorgeous, bittersweet love letter to an iconic and wildly romantic time in history, but nothing of I Always Loved You rings of a fairy tale. Instead, the author pursues the sadness and tumult of her characters’ relationships, unearthing the ugliness of love and the miserable beauty of what can be lost. For all this heaviness, though, Oliveira has brought to readers a surprisingly life-affirming novel, one that will test our allegiance to our way of thinking and open our minds, as her Degas would, to a different perspective.
Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait by Kendra Bean
Although her name is universally synonymous with her groundbreaking roles as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Vivien Leigh's legacy as an actress radiates across a career that spanned three decades and singularly impacted the worlds of both stage and screen. From her industry-changing portrayal of one of the most iconic film characters of all time to her twenty-year relationship with Laurence Olivier, Vivien has always been a woman somehow trapped beneath stigmas, rumors, and ever-changing accounts. She battled manic depression in a time when the disorder was far from understood; she carried the weight of the world’s opinions over her love affair with the world’s greatest actor; and through it all, she remained deeply personal, selective in her career, and enigmatic in her public image. In Kendra Bean’s new biography, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait, the details of Vivien’s life combine with rare and previously unpublished photos to present in full the true nature of Vivien Leigh, celebrating the legend while simultaneously liberating the woman from the shadows of her own success.
May Cause Miracles by Gabrielle Bernstein
As a spiritual entrepreneur and life coach, Gabrielle Bernstein has been called a new-age thought leader and a guru for a new generation. Her third book, May Cause Miracles, is a guidebook that adapts the principles of A Course in Miracles, serving as a tool for faith-seekers on their journey to peace and enlightenment. One of the things I loved right off the bat is that May Cause Miracles manages to liberate spirituality from the politics of religion. It operates on the basis that there’s no right or wrong way to have faith. Let’s say it’s very BYOF –Bring Your Own Faith. Regardless of your spiritual practice – or even if you don’t have one – the tools in May Cause Miracles offer an effective way to look at our real-life problems and find ways of changing our perspective that feel genuinely natural.
The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
Florence in 1943 is radiating calm before a storm, entirely at the disposal of its German allies whose soldiers spill across the Tuscan hillside with abandon, commandeering art and artifacts as they go. Gradually receiving the brunt of the Nazis' focus are the Rosatis, a family of Italian nobility, and their idyllic estate, Villa Chimera. Here lives eighteen year-old Cristina Rosati, who exists in an otherwise blissful ignorance away from the tragedies of the war until she embarks on a love affair with a young Nazi officer that will ultimately lead her family on a treacherous downward spiral. Branded as traitors for hosting the Nazis, the Rosati family is left to witness their own fall from grace - if they manage to survive the war. Ten years later, police detective Serafina Bettini is investigating the gruesome serial murders of the remaining members of the Rosati family. She’s desperate to solve the mystery before the killer reaches the youngest of the Rosatis: Cristina. As Serafina's investigation leads her further into the scandal of Villa Chimera and its wartime downfall, she realizes that she herself may have ties to the victims, and maybe even to the killer.