Welcome to Willow Cottage - throw open the shutters, let in the sea breeze and make yourself completely at home. Oh, and please do leave a comment in the Guestbook! Annie Butterworth is the landlady of Willow Cottage, a beautiful cottage in the English countryside with a colourful array of guests. Every guest is encouraged to write their thoughts in the guestbook and do they ever! Love, loss, happiness, sadness, guilt, affairs, births, and surprises, it’s all in there. Even Annie’s life gets caught up in the book. As a young widow, Annie herself is going through some changes. And the appearance of her brother-in-law, celebrity crime writer Oliver Black isn’t helping. As the guests of Willow Cottage go about their seaside vacations, Annie and Oliver must figure out how to move on in their lives, and most importantly, if they will do so together. The Guestbook by Holly Martin is a lovely, sweet, and unique book. Written in the format of notes left in the guestbook,
“But where are you from, really?” This is a question that Canadians of all walks of life are often asked. Part of our identity as Canadians is that we all come from somewhere else, and no matter how long ago, it is a defining part of who we are. But for many people, this question is about more than where their family came to Canada from. For many, it brings about a question of home and belonging. These are the ideas that Esi Edugyan explored in her 2013 Henry Kreisel Memorial Lecture, Dreaming of Elsewhere: Observations on Home . Born in Canada to parents from Ghana, Esi Edugyan has travelled to and lived in various countries, all the while searching for her identity and coming to understand the meaning of home. As an author, Edugyan also reflects on Canadian literature and the notion of the “Canadian story.” Her wildly successful novel, Half-Blood Blues , was set outside of Canada, and something she often heard was that it was not a typical Canadian novel. But a
The first half of this month was marked by very little reading. But the second half of the month was all books all the time. Maybe it was all the rain we got that kept me inside and curled up on the couch. I did not read most of the books I had planned on reading during the month but I found some other great ones to get into. And of course, I did not blog like I had hoped so this continues to be a work in progress. Here is what I read in May: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons - Kevin Hart ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Into the Water - Paula Hawkins The Other Half of Happiness - Ayisha Malik When Dimple Met Rishi - Sandhya Menon Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood - Pauline Dakin ⭐⭐⭐ The Last Neanderthal - Claire Cameron This is That: Travel Guide to Canada - This is That Fierce Kingdom - Gin Phillips June I don’t have much planned in terms of what books I want to read in June. The Child by Fiona Barton is coming out, it is one tha
These are so great! I love the second one!
ReplyDeleteI need that first one, stat!
ReplyDelete