Other Relaxation

With her novel, A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara makes a beautiful piece of pottery. Then she drops it on the floor, where it shatters into pieces. Yet before the book finishes, Yanagihara has created what the Japanese call kintsugi. Kintsugi is the art of taking...

To Converge and Disconnect is a very short debut novella from Eric Ballein. Set in a small town outside Las Vegas, it primarily occurs on a single day. The main character is a young Sherriff’s deputy named Royal Fields. He’s feckless, immature, and not especially...

Gayle Forman captures the overwhelm of managing life and acute illness in her novel Leave Me. The protagonist Maribeth Klein is a 40-something mom of twins when she has a heart attack. Like many women, Maribeth has no idea her heart is in acute distress. She keeps...

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie portrays two Nigerian young people through the pivotal years of teens and twenties. But it’s much more than a coming of age story. It’s more of a “coming into your full self” kind of story, especially because it includes so many...

I sped through Less by Andrew Sean Greer, like a six year old ripping open a birthday present. It made me smile, laugh, groan, and get a bit misty with tears. Greer deserves the Pulitzer for effortlessly mixing humor, pathos, and adventure. Arthur Less is guileless,...

Laura McBride weaves the stories of four women together in her novel, ‘Round Midnight. It’s cathartic and intensely character-driven. And just what my book group needs to make a scintillating discussion. The story starts with June, who’s a rebellious young woman in...