Summer is usually my big reading season... this summer has been so busy with I don't really know what at this point (such is the life of the mom of teenagers!). I didn't get nearly the amount of reading done this summer I had hoped to... and also last month I had quite a few "misses" with books (books I started and didn't like so I never finished them). So those two things combined have me a little bummed at my reading progress. I hope to catch up this fall - which is likely wishful thinking! But I'll try!
To make up for the quantity of books I read this month... I fully made up for it with the quality. I read three AWESOME books this month. And after a book slump last month I was thankful for it. Who can resist a really good read? It feels so good.
Here's what I read this month...
Book blurb: On a clear December morning in 1937, at the famous gold clock in Grand Central Terminal, Joe Reynolds, a hardworking railroad man from Queens, meets a vibrant young woman who seems mysteriously out of place. Nora Lansing is a Manhattan socialite whose flapper clothing, pearl earrings, and talk of the Roaring Twenties don’t seem to match the bleak mood of Depression-era New York. Captivated by Nora from her first electric touch, Joe despairs when he tries to walk her home and she disappears. Finding her again—and again—will become the focus of his love and his life.
Nora, a fiercely independent aspiring artist, is shocked to find she’s somehow been trapped, her presence in the terminal governed by rules she cannot fathom. It isn’t until she meets Joe that she begins to understand the effect that time is having on her, and the possible connections to the workings of Grand Central and the solar phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge, when the sun rises or sets between the city’s skyscrapers, aligned perfectly with the streets below.
As thousands of visitors pass under the famous celestial blue ceiling each day, Joe and Nora create a life unlike any they could have imagined. With infinite love in a finite space, they take full advantage of the “Terminal City” within a city, dining at the Oyster Bar, visiting the Whispering Gallery, and making a home at the Biltmore Hotel. But when the construction of another landmark threatens their future, Nora and Joe are forced to test the limits of freedom and love.
My review: After my reading slump this is JUST the book I needed! I was completely transported to New York City's Grand Central Terminal in this story about New York City, time travel, love and persistence. I still can't get this book out of my head - I think about it all the time - even though I read it almost a month ago now. For fellow book nerds there is a Gone with the Wind reference - which I LOVED since that is one of my all time favorite books. In the end I highly recommend this book! I rate it a 9/10. I also recommend Time Travelers Wife and How to Stop Time for more time traveling books. Two other recommendations would be The Masterpiece which is another book that takes place in Grand Central Terminal or The Subway Girls.
Book blurb: One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.
My review: This book was warm and tender, funny and heartbreaking and one I will never forget. I loved the author's honest and raw view on life while still being kind to both herself and her patients. If you love a self-help-ish book from time to time or a nice non-fiction to cleanse the reading palette, so to say, this is a great read! I rate this book an 8/10.
Book blurb: From the dramatic redbrick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City's creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics. A Red scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for Communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine's Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom.
My review: I have loved every Fiona Davis book I have read - so no surprise this one was yet another winner from her! Davis makes you fall in love with New York City - as the city is always the main character in the book! Each book she writes features a prominent New York City landmark building and this one about the Chelsea Hotel is so intriguing and was a part of American history that I wasn't familiar with at all. Famous residents of the Chelsea hotel include Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix and tons more. I rate this book an 8/10. If you want more from Fiona Davis I highly recommend ALL of her books but The Address and The Dollhouse are my two favorites!
Now tell me what you have been reading lately! I would love to know!
