The Book of Love: A Novel
by

The Book of Love: A Novel

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 6 seconds

I started reading “The Book of Love: A Novel” by Kelly Link today. The book showcases her exceptional writing skills, where she channels different forms of love, including friendships, romance, and family ties, with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary prowess. Readers can expect to experience joy, a little terror, and an affirmation that love endures despite challenges.

The story revolves around Laura, Daniel, and Mo, who mysteriously vanished from their hometown in Lovesend, Massachusetts, and were presumed dead. However, almost a year later, they find themselves in a high school classroom with their unremarkable music teacher. The teacher seems to know why they disappeared and what brought them back. They agree to undertake magical tasks to reclaim their lives, allowing them to return to their families and friends, but they can’t reveal where they’ve been. The tasks would lead to winners and losers.

Their resurrection attracts the attention of other supernatural beings with their agendas, which puts the community in danger and chaos. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo try to piece their lives together, and Laura’s sister Susannah tries to make sense of what she remembers, they must solve the mystery of their deaths to prevent a looming disaster.

The story takes place in Lovesend, where readers will experience love and loss, laughter and dread, magic, karaoke, and some delicious pizza.

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Love Forms

Read: August 2025

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Love Forms: A Novel

by Claire Adam

Love Forms, a novel by Claire Adam that is longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, is a profoundly moving story about a woman’s journey of self-discovery. This novel stands out with its unique exploration of a mother’s life, emphasizing the enduring bonds of love, family, and home. The protagonist’s search for the daughter she gave up for adoption at sixteen challenges her to reconsider every life decision she has made.

For much of her life, Dawn has felt as if something is missing. Now, at the age of fifty-eight, with a divorce behind her and her two grown-up sons busy with their own lives, she should be trying to settle into a new future for herself. But she keeps returning to the past and to the secret she’s kept all these years. At just sixteen, Dawn found herself pregnant, and—as was common in Trinidad back then—her parents sent her away to have the baby and give her up for adoption.

More than forty years later, Dawn yearns to reconnect with her lost daughter. But tracking down her child is not as easy as she had thought. It’s an emotional journey that leads Dawn to retrace her steps—from Trinidad to Venezuela and then to London—and to question not only that fateful decision she’d made as a teenager but every turn in the road of her life since.

Claire Adam‘s debut novel, Golden Child, was published by Sarah Jessica Parker’s SJP for Hogarth. It was listed as one of the BBC’s “100 Novels That Shaped Our World” and was awarded the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and the McKitterick Prize. She was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She studied physics at Brown University and later received an MA in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Adam lives in London.

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What We Can Know

Read: September 2025

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What We Can Know: A Novel

by Ian McEwan

“What We Can Know” by Ian McEwan, the critically acclaimed author of nineteen novels and two short story collections, is a remarkable work of fiction and a love story that celebrates both individuals and the words they leave behind. This literary detective story reclaims the present from our sense of impending catastrophe and envisions a future world where not everything is lost.

In 2014, during a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honored his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, titled “A Corona for Vivien.” As the guests enjoy a delicious meal and drink plenty of wine, little do they know that people will speculate about the meaning of this poem for generations to come. A copy of the poem was never published, and it remains an enduring mystery.

Fast forward to 2119: over one hundred years in the future, rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident have submerged much of the Western world. The survivors tormented by the memory of the vibrant world research the world that once existed. In the waterlogged south of what was once England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he searches for the elusive poem “A Corona for Vivien.”

Thomas reflects on how wild and full of risk their lives were, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles upon a clue that may lead to the poem’s discovery, he uncovers a story of entangled loves and a brutal crime that shatters his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately.

Ian McEwan is a critically acclaimed author known for his nineteen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories titled “First Love, Last Rites,” won the Somerset Maugham Award.

His notable novels include “The Child in Time,” which won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 1987; “The Cement Garden“; “Enduring Love;” “Amsterdam;” which won the Booker Prize in 1998; “Atonement;” “Saturday;” “On Chesil Beach;” “Solar;” “Sweet Tooth;” “The Children Act;” “Nutshell;” and “Machines Like Me,” which became a number-one bestseller.

Several of his works, including “Atonement,” “Enduring Love,” “The Children Act;,” and “On Chesil Beach,” have been adapted into films.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

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Long Island

Read: May 2024

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Long Island – Eilis Lacey Series

by Colm Tóibín

Today, I embarked on a literary journey into the distinct world of Long Island, a novel by the acclaimed author Colm Toibin. This captivating narrative continues the life of Eilis Lacey, a beloved character from Toibin’s celebrated work Brooklyn, but two decades have passed. Eilis, now in her forties, is married to Tony Fiorello, an Italian-American plumber, and they are raising two teenagers.

The novel offers a fresh perspective on Eilis’s life, struggles, and journey of self-discovery. She lives with Tony’s large and loving extended family on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, which plays a significant role in the story. Though Eilis feels connected to her Irish roots, she has yet to return to Ireland in many years.

One fateful day, a visitor arrives unannounced at Eilis’s doorstep, bringing with him a life-altering revelation. He reveals that his wife is carrying Tony’s child and plans to leave the baby with Eilis once it’s born. This unexpected twist throws Eilis into a maelstrom of emotions and a labyrinthine decision-making process. As the emotional core of Toibin’s narrative, this journey of self-discovery and emotional upheaval is sure to hold readers spellbound.

‘Long Island‘ is a poignant exploration of unfulfilled desires and the enigmatic secrets that shape our lives. Eilis’s reticence speaks volumes, and Toibin masterfully gives voice to her concealed yearnings and profound connections. For instance, Eilis often finds herself lost in memories of her life in Ireland, particularly her relationship with her mother. Though unspoken, these recollections lay bare her profound yearning for her homeland and family. This evocative tale of love, longing, and the quest for self-discovery is bound to enthrall readers.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Colm Toibin about his new novel Long Island.

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Flashlight

Read: August 2025

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Flashlight: A Novel

by Susan Choi

A monumental new novel by National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a captivating and emotional exploration of family, loss, memory, and the ways we are influenced by what remains hidden. Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, the novel follows the journey of a father’s disappearance over time, across nations, and within the realm of memory. This work comes from the author of Trust Exercise.

On a summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk along the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight, but he cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin and barely alive. Her father is missing. She is only ten years old.

Louisa is the only child of parents who have distanced themselves from their pasts. Her father, Serk, is Korean but was born and raised in Japan. He lost touch with his family after they embraced the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family due to a reckless adventure in her youth. Then there’s Tobias, Anne’s illegitimate son, whose unexpected return will have profound consequences.

For now, it is just Anne and Louisa—Louisa and Anne—adrift and facing the challenges of everyday life in the aftermath of their immense loss. Bound together yet estranged, they struggle to cope with their shared grief and attempt to move forward. However, they cannot escape the haunting memories of that fateful night. What happened to Louisa’s father?

With shifting perspectives across time and character, and repeatedly revisiting that night by the sea, Flashlight explores the shockwaves of one family’s tragedy while also engaging with the invisible currents of history.

Susan Choi is the author of Trust Exercise, which won the National Book Award for fiction. She has also written the novels The Foreign Student, American Woman, A Person of Interest, and My Education.

Choi has received several prestigious awards, including the Asian American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W. G. Sebald Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Additionally, she has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Currently, she teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and resides in Brooklyn, New York.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

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The Heat Will Kill You First

Read: July 2023

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The Heat Will Kill You First

by Jeff Goodell

I recently started reading “The Heat Will Kill You First” by Jeff Goodell, which delves into the extreme ways our planet is already changing. The book explores how spring is arriving earlier and fall is arriving later and how this will impact our food supply and disease outbreaks. As I have stated in my Action Alert: EPA’s Carbon Rule, the time to act is now.

The book also predicts the consequences of summer days in cities like Chicago and Boston, reaching temperatures as high as 110°F. Goodell explains that heat waves are used only to affect the most vulnerable people, but as they become more intense and familiar, they will affect everyone.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the world is facing a new reality. In California, wildfires are now seasonal, while the Northeast is experiencing less and less snow each winter. Meanwhile, the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are melting alarmingly. Heat is the primary threat that is driving all other impacts of the climate crisis. As temperatures rise, it exposes weaknesses in our governments, politics, economy, and values.

The basic science is straightforward: If we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the global temperature will also stop rising. However, if we wait for 50 years to stop burning them, the temperature will continue to rise, making parts of our planet uninhabitable. The responsibility to act is in our hands. The hotter it gets, the more our underlying issues will surface and expand.

Jeff Goodell has been an award-winning journalist in the field of environmental reporting for several decades. His latest book explains how extreme heat will cause significant changes in the world. The book is an excellent blend of scientific insights and on-the-ground storytelling, and Goodell explores some of the most significant questions surrounding the topic. He reveals that extreme heat is a force we have yet to comprehend fully.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Rabbit Moon

Read: April 2025

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Rabbit Moon: A Novel

by Jennifer Haigh

Today, I dove into Jennifer Haigh‘s gripping new release, Rabbit Moon. Set against the vibrant backdrop of Shanghai, this tense and riveting drama unravels the complexities of a fractured American family. It explores hidden secrets and the unbreakable bond between two sisters. Ms. Haigh, the New York Times bestselling author of Mercy Street, which I read last year, weaves a tale that promises to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak receive a phone call that no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, who is teaching English in China during her college gap year, has been critically injured in a hit-and-run accident. As they wait at her bedside in a Shanghai hospital, they hold onto hope for the best while preparing for the worst.

The accident exposes a deeper rift within the family: it brings to light the shocking events that ended the Litvaks’ marriage and turned Lindsey against them. Estranged from her parents, Lindsey has confided only in her younger sister, Grace, who was adopted from China as an infant. As Claire and Aaron navigate the bustling, cosmopolitan atmosphere of Shanghai—the newly prosperous “miracle city”—they face unsettling questions about Lindsey’s life there, where nothing is as it seems.

With her trademark psychological insight, Jennifer Haigh crafts a taut and suspenseful story about the enduring ties of marriage that divorce cannot sever and the legendary red thread that connects two sisters across time and space. Ms. Haigh again demonstrates that she is, as The New York Times describes her, “an expertly nuanced storyteller…her work is gripping, real, and immersive.”

Jennifer Haigh is the author of seven best-selling, critically acclaimed works of fiction. Her first, Mrs. Kimble, won the PEN Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Her latest, Mercy Street, was named a Best Book of 2022 by the New Yorker and won the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A Guggenheim fellow and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, she lives in Boston.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

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