Tag: Ann Patchett

August’s Celebrity Book Club Picks

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It’s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join Simply Held, these titles will automatically be put on hold for you.

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Jenna Bush Hager has selected Summer Sisters by Judy Blume for her August pick.

Curious what Summer Sisters is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, an enchanting place where the two friends become “summer sisters.”

Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin begs Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—because she wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart.

This title is also available in large print.

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Reese Witherspoon has selected Tom Lake by Ann Patchett for her August pick.

Curious what Tom Lake is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

This title is also available as a Libby eBook, Libby eAudiobook, and in large print.

Join Simply Held to have Oprah, Jenna, and Reese’s adult selections automatically put on hold for you!

Online Reading Challenge – July Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in suburbia that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

As I was making the displays full of suburbia books for each Davenport library, I realized that a lot of what I read is set in this location without me even realizing it – those cozy mysteries, generational fiction, thrillers, etc that keep me company day after day. For July, I read our main title: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Well technically, I had already read this title for a previous virtual book club that happened during COVID. (Side question: do any of you re-read books? I generally only do if it’s an absolute favorite comfort read since there are so many other books out there & not enough time! Let me know in the comments.) Anyway, instead of re-reading the book, I spent time going over my review and learning more about Ann Patchett. My favorite fact about Ann is that she opened Parnassus Books, a bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2011. Visiting there is on my bucket list. Let’s get into the book!

” ‘Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?’ … ‘But we overlay the present onto the past,’ … ‘We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.’ ” – Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

Danny and Maeve Conroy’s mother left their house and never returned when the siblings were very young. Their father is not warm or caring, instead he’s taciturn and withdrawn. Luckily for Danny, his older sister Maeve steps in and becomes his champion and ally. Their bond grows as the two age, providing them with love that they didn’t receive from their father. Their bond gets even stronger when their father marries out of the blue.

Their new stepmother Andrea moves into the house with her two little girls. It quickly becomes apparent that Andrea has absolutely no interest in Danny or Maeve, despite the four children getting along. In fact, Andrea works to exclude the older two from the family, giving one of her girls Maeve’s bedroom and forcing the housekeepers, who raised Maeve and Danny, out of the way. Their father is noticably more distant, making excuses to be away more frequently.

What drew Andrea to the family is the beautiful Victorian house that Danny and Maeve’s father bought for their mother. It’s located in an upscale Philadelphia neighborhood. He purchased the house with the former owners’ family portraits and furniture still in it. He saw this house as a symbol of his own success, while their mother saw it instead as excessive and overwhelming opulence with way too many expensive furnishings. Ultimately the house is what drove her away – somewhere to donate her time to helping other people. Andrea, however, saw the house, wanting it and the status that it would give her. She married their father for the house, which eventually led to Danny and Maeve being forced to leave and being haunted by that action for years.

The Dutch House is told first person through Danny’s point-of-view with some input thrown in by Maeve. This is rare for Ann Patchett, but added a layer of mystery to the story as Danny is written as a somewhat clueless character. Readers only see what Danny wants them to see with Maeve providing more details about their upbringing.

This book is about obsessive nostalgia and real estate lust, which I found to be somewhat contradictory, but that nevertheless worked together. It’s incredibly sentimental, heart-warming, and full of themes of forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, redemption, and letting go of the past. This is a story of unconventional families, making due with what you have, and what happens when children are left to their own devices. It gave me strong fairy tale vibes with the theme of motherless children (ie. ‘Cinderella’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Little Princess’). All in all, this book was hard for me to stop reading and left me thinking about the story long after I finished. I hoped you like this pick!

In August we’re headed to Japan!

Online Reading Challenge – July

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels to suburbia. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, suburbia is ‘the outer parts of a town, where there are houses, but no large stores, places of work, or places of entertainment’. Miriam-Webster defines suburbs as ‘a smaller community adjacent to or within commuting distance of a city OR the residential area on the outskirts of a city or large town’. There are so many suburbia options for you to read, watch, or listen to! I can’t wait!

Our Main title for July is The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher.

Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

This title is also available as large print, CD audiobook, Playaway audiobook, Libby eBook, and Libby eAudiobook.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!