By Isabel Allende
It is always wonderful when Isabel Allende, best known for The House of the Spirits, has a new novel, and The Japanese Lover will not disappoint. The main character, Alma, is nearing the end of her life in a nursing home in San Francisco, when her grandson and a caregiver begin to piece together the secret love affair maintained over 70 years between Alma and a young man sent to the internment camps of World War II. So beautifully written, not to be missed.
By Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams is one of my very favorite authors (check out When Women Were Birds and you will understand), and now she has written this stunning commemorative to the 100th anniversary of our National Park System. She has dug deep into twelve of our beloved parks, including Acadia, and reminds us why these wild lands must remain wild. Her environmental writing is meditative and exquisite and always speaks right to our soul.
By Jessica Joelle Alexander
and Iben Dissing Sandahl
So why have annual studies since 1973 shown the Danes to be the number one happiest people in the world (The United States comes in 17th, behind Mexico). These authors state their case that is due to the Danish parenting skills, passed from generation to generation. They break it down to play, authenticity, reframing, empathy, no ultimatums and togetherness. I’ve read a ton of parenting books over the years, and this is the very best, hands down. Easy to read, it should be required reading for anyone who is a parent, or who was parented.
By Lizi Boyd
How exciting is the night, and the woods, and camping, and a magical flashlight to a young child? Lizi Boyd, the wonderful Vermont writer and illustrator of so many children’s books, perfectly captures these feelings in this wordless picture book. Such beautiful illustrations, this one is a keeper.
(Katharine Nevins is co-owner of MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, an independent, family-run bookstore since 1998.)