Quantcast
Channel: contemporary life Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books
Browsing all 144 articles
Browse latest View live

Little Family by Ishmael Beah

In an abandoned field hidden by a maze of thickets, trees, and shrubs is a downed airplane. When it crashed is unknown, but in this unnamed African country it has become home for four young people and...

View Article



What I’m Reading in June

Hello, June and welcome, summer. I’m not sure what to expect here in Michigan, but so far, humidity seems to be a very real thing. Thankfully, even though I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, I have a...

View Article

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

At 22 Ava decides the best way to have a happy life is to move as far from Dublin as possible. She chooses Hong Kong where she is hired by a private elementary school to teach English grammar. She...

View Article

A Burning: A Novel by Megha Majumdar

Jivan is a young woman living with her parents in a slum in India. She is a sales clerk at a nice clothing store. Everyone around her is shocked then when she is arrested for the bombing of a commuter...

View Article

All This Could Be Yours

After another evening spent sniping at his wife about her excessive spending, 73-year-old Victor staggers off to bed and suffers a heart attack that leaves him unconscious and at the edge of death for...

View Article


Convenience Store Woman: A Novel

Japan is known as having a culture that prizes social conformity and adherence to societal values. In such a country, what would it be like to be a young woman whose nature keeps her from understanding...

View Article

Anna K: A Novel by Jenny Lee

One of the staples of fiction is the modern retelling of a classic novel. It’s a bit dicey—sometimes it works and other times it goes awry. Anna K is Jenny Lee’s reimagining of Tolstoy’s Anna...

View Article

The Golden Cage: A Novel

The story is not a new one in fiction: intelligent woman meets man in college, gives him great business idea, he runs with it, they marry, have children, and she finds herself left with nothing when...

View Article


The Majesties: A Novel

Sometimes novels that begin with a bang end with a fizzle. That’s not the case with The Majesties, which opens with Gwen, the main narrator, lying in a coma. After being poisoned by her sister,...

View Article


Thin Girls: A Novel

The opening pages of Thin Girls take place in a treatment facility for people with anorexia. The key protagonist, Rose is sharing her thoughts on group therapy and they fairly crackle off the page with...

View Article

The Boys’ Club: A Novel

Klasko & Fitch is a massive law firm where the best of the best work, so Alex Vogel is thrilled to be hired there. When she learns the most powerful and lucrative group in the firm is Mergers &...

View Article

When These Mountains Burn

There are few things I love more than an evocative writer. Someone who makes me feel what and where they’re writing about. Two that come to mind immediately: Pat Conroy in Prince of Tides, not only for...

View Article

His Only Wife: A Novel

In a small town in Ghana, Afi Tekple lives in a house with her widowed mother. It’s in a compound owned by her avaricious uncle and his many wives and their children. Afi did not go to university, but...

View Article


The Last Story of Mina Lee

Even though her mother is the only family she has, Margot Lee has never felt close to Mina. Margot left L.A. for Seattle for college and never moved back. She would dutifully call regularly, but...

View Article

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

There are so many things I wish I could forget, but maybe “forget” isn’t quite right. There are so many things I wish I never knew.   Transcendent Kingdom is a novel that lies at the intersection of...

View Article


Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

In my post about the fall books I was ready to read I made special note of my excitement about Fredrik Backman’s new book, Anxious People. The novel is about a group of eight people held hostage by a...

View Article

Monogamy: A Novel by Sue Miller

  Recently, my reading has involved both unusual plots and characters. Today I’m back with Sue Miller’s Monogamy, a novel that is, appropriately for this week, about grief. Annie McFarlane’s husband,...

View Article


What I’m Reading this Week

Hello, lovely readers! Everyone still managing to hold onto at least a semblance of their sanity? Mine is questionable so I’ll stick to my reading today. You may already know this, but in case you...

View Article

Homeland Elegies: A Novel

These days, I’m attuned to fiction that takes my mind off reality. Not necessarily easy or soothing, but novels that grab me with their drama (Against the Loveless World) or distract me with their...

View Article

Leave the World Behind

When Clay, Amanda and their children, Archie and Rose, arrive at the secluded house they’re renting on Long Island they’re thrilled to be escaping Manhattan for a week in the summer. The house is...

View Article
Browsing all 144 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images