Monday Morning Two-Pack

Over the weekend I was looking through the current crop of fiction offerings. Wow, there are so many tempting titles out right now. Hard to choose, to be honest with you. I picked one up that I dug right into. More on that tasty little book later. In the meantime, two other picks to inspire on a Monday:

• Peony in Love by Lisa See (new hardcover): “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan certainly is a hard act to follow, but Peony in Love measures up. It’s another magical story set in long-ago China; this time, a young woman becomes obsessed with an opera and the love story it portrays. See’s descriptions of 17th-century Chinese lore are fascinating, as are the themes of women’s friendship and coming of age.” -Sue Boucher, Lake Forest Book Store, Lake Forest, IL

• The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford (new paperback): A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist; a “New York Times” Best Book of the Year; and a personal favorite of this little bird. A sportswriter and a real estate agent, husband and father, Frank Bascombe has been many things to many people. His uncertain youth behind him, we follow him through three days during the autumn of 2000, when his trade as a realtor on the Jersey Shore is thriving. But as a presidential election hangs in the balance, and a postnuclear-family Thanksgiving looms before him, Frank discovers that what he terms the Permanent Period is fraught with unforeseen perils. An astonishing meditation on America today and filled with brilliant insights, “The Lay of the Land” is a magnificent achievement from one of the most celebrated chroniclers of our time.

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