These Days
Lucy Caldwell
Belfast, 1941: across four nights of the Blitz, two sisters — one engaged, one secretly in love with a woman — try to keep living. Intimate, tender, and quietly harrowing.
Buy on Bookshop.org ↗If you liked this, try…
★ 5Raising Hare: A Memoir
Chloe Dalton
A woman finds a newborn hare and, against the odds, ends up raising it. Gentle, patient, unexpectedly moving nature writing.
★ 5Writers & Lovers
Lily King
The protagonist of Lily King’s novel Writers & Lovers lives in Cambridge, too, but Casey is older than Becky, a little more rudderless. Her mother has just died, her boyfriend has broken up with her, and she’s living in a garden shed splitting her time between waitressing and writing. It sounds depressing. It’s not. Casey’s wit, relatability, and dogged ambition make her easy to spend time with, and I ended the book almost hoping I’d run into her in Harvard Square.
★ 5Sandwich
Catherine Newman
Sandwich, by Catherine Newman, describes a family’s week-long vacation in Wellfleet and instantly transported me back. It’s funny, moving, and relatable, much like Newman herself (Aliza and I saw her speak in Boston a few weeks ago.) If you just finished All Fours and aren’t ready to stop thinking/reading about menopause, try Sandwich next.