April 30, 2026
I feel like April sped by. My book group met this week, and we discussed SPEAK TO ME OF HOME by Jeanine Cummins, which was a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection.
We had a good discussion about it, especially touching on what it was like to leave “home,” and what it was like to either stay somewhere new or want to return to “home.” We all grasped and were saddened by the prejudice that was flung at Rafaela when the family moved to the Midwest. The story felt authentic, and there were comments about how well written it was.
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Editorial Content for Ghost Town
Book
Teaser
From New York Times bestselling author Tom Perrotta comes a gripping and darkly nostalgic tale about a tumultuous summer in 1970s suburban New Jersey from the perspective of a middle-aged writer looking back on a series of events that changed his life.
Promo
From New York Times bestselling author Tom Perrotta comes a gripping and darkly nostalgic tale about a tumultuous summer in 1970s suburban New Jersey from the perspective of a middle-aged writer looking back on a series of events that changed his life.
About the Book
From New York Times bestselling author Tom Perrotta, hailed by critics as “the Steinbeck of Suburbia” (Time), “our Balzac of the burbs” (Chicago Sun-Times), and “an American Chekhov” (The New York Times), comes a gripping and darkly nostalgic tale about a tumultuous summer in 1970s suburban New Jersey from the perspective of a middle-aged writer looking back on a series of events that changed his life --- and the story he finally has the courage to tell.
Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers. One is a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of weed, and a shaky grasp of reality. The other is a smart, eccentric girl, to whom Jimmy finds himself drawn as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which just may offer the only salve to their grief.
As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. Narrated by a much older Jimmy, a literary-turned-commercial novelist, GHOST TOWN reveals how the past haunts the present --- the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we’ve left them behind.
Editorial Content for Go Gentle
Book
Teaser
The New York Times bestselling author of WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.
Promo
The New York Times bestselling author of WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.
About the Book
The New York Times bestselling author of WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.
Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a “coven” --- like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia --- and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.
Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous and international intrigue...and her past --- which she has worked so hard to bury --- lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more...and she’ll risk everything to get it.
Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent and bursting with the stuff of life, GO GENTLE is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.














