The Exhibitionist: A Novel
by

The Exhibitionist: A Novel

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 12 seconds

I began reading Charlotte Mendelson‘s novel, The Exhibitionist, today. The book tells the story of Lucia and Ray, two artists whose marriage starts to fall apart over a weekend. It explores themes such as art, sacrifice, family dynamics, queer desire, and personal freedom. Charlotte Mendelson has created yet another exceptional novel with The Exhibitionist, ranked as the year’s novel by The Times of London, and described as “furiously funny.”

The Hanrahan family is coming together for an important weekend. Ray Hanrahan, a well-known artist with a big ego, is preparing for his first exhibition in many years. His eldest daughter, Leah, is his biggest supporter. His son, Patrick, has decided to pursue his own path. His youngest daughter, Jess, has a big decision to make. Ray’s wife, Lucia, is also an artist but has always prioritized her roles as a wife and mother. She is keeping secrets of her own and must decide which desires to pursue as the weekend progresses and the exhibition approaches.

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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Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Read: October 2021

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Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

by Katherine May

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May is “an intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.”

Two quotes that resonated with me were:

That’s what grief is – a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything.

We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall upon us, revealing our bare bones. Given time they grow again.

May writes in a clear voice that conveys the importance of accepting the cycles of life instead of fighting them.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath swimming in icy waters, and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the serene beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

I recommend this book without reservation.

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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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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American Bulk

Read: February 2026

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American Bulk: Essays on Excess

by Emily Mester

In a series of deeply personal essays, Emily Mester‘s “American Bulk” examines how the things we buy, eat, accumulate, and discard become integral parts of our lives. We often guiltily watch Amazon boxes pile up on the porch, sift through countless reviews to find the perfect product, and crave the familiar comfort of a chain restaurant. With humor and sharp insight, Mester reflects on the joys and anxieties of Costco trips, how a seasonal job at Ulta Beauty taught her the subtle art of sales, and what it means to feel “mall sad.”

In a nuanced exploration of diet culture and body image, Mester shares her experience at a fat camp during her teenage summer and the unexpected sense of liberation she discovered there. Finally, she travels to Storm Lake, Iowa, to confront her grandmother’s abandoned hoard, unraveling the dysfunction at the heart of her family’s obsession with material possessions. American Bulk introduces readers to an impressive new literary voice from the American heartland, urging us to view consumption not with guilt, but with grace and empathy.

Emily Mester is a writer from the suburban Midwest, where her family shopped at Costco every Sunday. She earned an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she received the Prairie Lights Nonfiction Prize. Currently, she resides in New York.

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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The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Read: October 2025

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The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

by Kiran Desai

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” by Kiran Desai is a remarkable and accomplished novel that showcases the talent of one of our greatest contemporary writers. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. The story follows two young individuals as they navigate the various influences that shape their lives, including their country, class, race, history, and the complex relationships that connect different generations.

This novel combines a love story, a family saga, and an exploration of profound themes. When Sonia and Sunny first catch sight of each other on an overnight train, they find themselves captivated yet embarrassed; their grandparents once tried to matchmake them, a well-meaning effort that only drove them apart.

Sonia is an aspiring novelist who has recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont and has returned to her family in India. Sonia fears she is cursed by a dark spell cast by an artist who sought intimacy and inspiration from her. Meanwhile, Sunny, a struggling journalist who has relocated to New York City, is trying to escape his domineering mother and the violence of his feuding family.

Uncertain about their futures, Sonia and Sunny embark on a journey to find happiness together as they confront the various forms of alienation present in our modern world.

Kiran Desai is renowned for her novels, “Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard” and “The Inheritance of Loss,” the latter of which won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Born in India, she moved to the United States at the age of sixteen and currently resides in New York City.

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 I’ve personally vetted for 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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Cloud Atlas: A Novel

Read: September 2024

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Cloud Atlas: A Novel

by David Mitchell

Today, I started reading Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell, one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary, voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins treating him for a rare species of brain parasite.

The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, the West Coast in the 1970s, an inglorious present-day England, a Korean superstate of the near future where neo-capitalism has run amok, and, finally, a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn’t end even there. What sets Cloud Atlas apart is its unique narrative structure, which boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. This journey reveals how the disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a video game, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon. The novel’s diverse settings and cultures, from 1850 Chatham Isles to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii, appeal to readers across the globe, offering a rich and varied reading experience.

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Tell Me Everything: A Novel

Read: January 2025

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Tell Me Everything: A Novel

by Elizabeth Strout

Today, I dived into “Tell Me Everything: A Novel” by Elizabeth Strout, and I’m already captivated. This book made it onto NPR’s best books list for 2024 and caught the eye of Oprah’s Book Club—no small feat! Strout writes with such empathy and emotional depth that it reflects her incredible talent. Lucy beautifully captures this sentiment by stating, “Love comes in many different forms, but it is always love.”

With her profound understanding of the human condition and silences that convey deep emotions, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, reuniting with her beloved characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and others—as they confront a shocking crime, navigate love while choosing to remain apart, and ponder the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer, Bob Burgess, finds himself entangled in a murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also developed a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William.

Lucy and Bob take walks and discuss their lives, fears, regrets, and what could have been. Meanwhile, Lucy is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, who now resides in a retirement community on the outskirts of town. They spend afternoons in Olive’s apartment, sharing stories about people they have known—what Olive calls “unrecorded lives,” which reanimate their experiences and imbue their lives with meaning.

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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Chess Story

Read: April 2026

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Chess Story: A Novella

by Stefan Zweig

“Chess Story,” also known as “The Royal Game,” is the final work of Austrian author Stefan Zweig. He completed it while in exile in Brazil and sent it to his American publisher just days before his suicide in 1942. This story is unique as it is the only one in which Zweig directly examines Nazism, portraying it through his characteristic focus on psychological themes.

The narrative follows travelers aboard a ship bound for Buenos Aires, where they encounter an arrogant, unfriendly world chess champion. Attempting to challenge him, they find themselves thoroughly defeated. However, a mysterious passenger steps forward to offer them advice, dramatically shifting their fortunes. The story delves into how this enigmatic figure acquired his extraordinary chess skills and the personal toll that it entailed.

This new translation of “Chess Story” highlights the work’s distinctive blend of high suspense and poignant reflection.

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942), novelist, biographer, poet, and translator, was born in Vienna into a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. During the 1930s, he was one of the best-selling writers in Europe and was among the most translated German-language writers before the Second World War. With the rise of Nazism, he moved from Salzburg to London (taking British citizenship), to New York, and finally to Brazil, where he committed suicide with his wife. New York Review Books has published Zweig’s novels The Post-Office Girl and Beware of Pity, as well as the novella Chess Story.

Peter Gay was Director of the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He wrote Schnitzler’s Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815–1914.

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 I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Supporting these selections not only helps me continue to provide you with personalized recommendations but also ensures you have access to meaningful stories that enrich your life. Your support truly makes a difference in helping me share more books and insights with you!

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