Richard W. shared a post on November 11, 2021

New Post: When Richard Met Jan!

Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Lovers

When Richard Met Jan!

We embraced each other tightly, and our lips met in a deep and passionate kiss. It was even more intense than the sweet and lovely kisses we had already shared. I felt like I was flying, and if I hadn't worn my boots, I was sure this kiss would have knocked my socks off. This was the moment that sealed our love forever. I had always dreamed of finding true love, and now I had finally found it. Love is a beautiful thing that lasts forever and never dies.
Richard W. Brown November 11, 2021

Go back to Stream

Share your thoughts and ideas

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund!

Donate Now!
The Candy House

Read: December 2022

Get this book

The Candy House: A Novel

by Jennifer Egan

The Candy House: A Novel by Jennifer Egan focuses on a new technology that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had and to share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of others—it has seduced multitudes. According to the NYTimes, “this is minimalist maximalism. As a widow, I live in a world of memories, but I would not want them shared as they are in The Candy House. “It’s as if Egan compressed a big 19th-century novel onto a flash drive.”

Of course, I am not able to access my unconscious memories. Albeit in an amateur way, I write down some of my memories as they remind me of the power of the love that Jan and I shared. For example, the essay when I met Jan rekindles the memory and attempts to tell the story the way it happened, not how some would like it to be remembered.

The Candy House is one of the NYTimes’ top five fiction books of 2022. I have read two of them, The Furrows and Checkout 19. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the multitude of characters and was confused. By the novel’s middle, their interconnectedness helped me understand its real meaning. In the end, Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for authentic connection, love, family, privacy, and redemption. As a widow, authenticity Is what I need to heal.

The Candy House is the seventieth (70) book I have read this year. 

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and “eluders” who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.​ Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy, and redemption.

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.

Subscribe

Contact Us

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.

×
How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

Read: January 2026

Get this book

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

by Nina McConigley

“How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder” by Nina McConigley is a bold, inventive, and fiercely original debut novel. The story begins with the death of an uncle and features his tween niece’s private confession to the reader—she and her sister are responsible for his death, and they blame the British. The New York Times has listed it as one of “The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026.”

Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar, and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle, and young cousin—newly arrived from India—into their house in rural Wyoming, where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do, that is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die.

According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching, and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life. At its heart, the tale she weaves is:

a)    a vivid portrait of an extended family
b)    a moving story of sisterhood
c)    a playful ode to the 80s
d)    a murder mystery (of sorts)
e)    an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence

Or maybe it’s really:

f)      all of the above.

Nina McConigley is the author of the story collection Cowboys and East Indians, which won the PEN Open Book Award and the High Plains Book Award. She has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Radcliffe Institute, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

McConigley was awarded the Wyoming Arts Council’s Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for her columns in High Country News. Her work has appeared in several prominent publications, including The New York Times, Orion, O: The Oprah Magazine, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.

Born in Singapore and raised in Wyoming, she currently resides in Colorado.

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!

×
The Midnight Bargain

Read: February 2022

Get this book

The Midnight Bargain

by C.L. Polk

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk is about Beatrice Clayborn, a sorceress, who was the next book to read. She practices magic in secret, terrified of being locked into a marital collar that will cut off her powers to protect her unborn children. She dreams of becoming a full-fledged Magus and pursuing magic as her calling as men do. Still, her family has staked everything to equip her for Bargaining Season, when young men and women of means descend upon the city to negotiate the best marriages. The Clayborn’s are in severe debt, and only she can save them by securing a good match before their creditors call.

In a stroke of luck, Beatrice finds a grimoire that contains the key to becoming a Magus, but before she can purchase it, a rival sorceress swindles the book right out of her hands. Beatrice summons a spirit to help her get it back, but her new ally exacts a price: Beatrice’s first kiss . . . with her adversary’s brother, the handsome, compassionate, and fabulously wealthy Ianthe Lavan.

The more Beatrice is entangled with the Lavan siblings, the harder her decision becomes: If she casts the spell to become a Magus, she will devastate her family and lose the only man to ever see her for who she is, but if she marries—even for love—she will sacrifice her magic, her identity, and her dreams. But how can she choose just one, knowing she will forever regret the path not taken?

Subscribe

Contact Us

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

×
Year of Wonders: A Novel

Read: November 2024

Get this book

Year of Wonders: A Novel

by Geraldine Brooks

I started reading “Year of Wonders: A Novel” by Geraldine Brooks today. It is a compelling story set in 17th-century England about a village that quarantines itself to stop the spread of the plague. The book is written by the author of “The Secret Chord” and “March,” both of which won the Pulitzer Prize. Inspired by the events in Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, “Year of Wonders” offers a richly detailed portrayal of a significant historical moment.

The plot begins when an infected bolt of cloth arrives from London, bringing the plague to an isolated village. A housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna’s perspective, we experience the fateful year of 1666 as she and her fellow villagers confront the outbreak of disease and the rise of superstition. As death visits each household and villagers turn from prayer to fear-driven witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to face the breakdown of her community and the temptations of forbidden love. Her struggle for survival and growth transforms a disastrous year into an extraordinary “year of wonders.

Written with remarkable emotional depth, the novel introduces, according to The Wall Street Journal, “an inspiring heroine” and skillfully weaves themes of love and learning, loss and renewal into a captivating and unforgettable narrative.

×
Tilt: A Novel

Read: March 2025

Get this book

Tilt: A Novel by Emma Pattee

by Emma Pattee

Today, I began reading “Tilt: A Novel” by Emma Pattee. Set over a single day, this electrifying debut novel features a potent new literary voice, according to Vogue. It follows one woman’s journey through a transformed city as she grapples with the weight of her past and holds fervent hope for the future. Tilt is a gripping narrative about our disappointments and desires, exploring the lengths we will go to for the people we love.

You and I were safe last night. Your father and I fought in the kitchen, but it felt like another universe.

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake strikes Portland, Oregon. She finds herself navigating a chaotic city without a way to reach her husband, a phone, or money.

As she goes through Portland’s wreckage, Annie encounters human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unexpected friendship with a young mother. Throughout her journey, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, unsatisfying career, and anxiety about becoming a mother. Determined to change her life, she needs to make it home.

Emma Pattee is a climate journalist and fiction writer. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She lives in Oregon.

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!

×
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Read: August 2024

Get this book

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

by Junot Diaz

Today, I started reading Junot Diaz‘s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the Century. The book also won a Pulitzer Prize. Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old-world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love.

But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience. It explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

×