There’s always something comforting and somewhat validating about reading a book with places and times you can relate to. That satisfying coincidence happened on the first page of the first chapter of Liberty Street, a novel of contemporary historical fiction by Canadian author Heather Marshall. The story begins in 1961 on the fourth floor in the Maclean-Hunter Building at 481 University Avenue in Toronto, the…
I cancelled my subscription to Vogue’s American edition several years ago because the content became so ridiculously irrelevant and nonsensical that it wasn’t even fun to make fun of it anymore. That’s why you haven’t seen my annual critique of the once-fabulous “September Issue” on BoomerBroadcast for a few years. I do, however, still get newsletters each week from Vogue U.K., which has turned out…
Whenever a new David Sedaris book of humorous essays lands in my inbox, it’s like Christmas morning for me. I can’t wait to park myself in my La-Z-girl, and settle in for hours of gentle reading with a smile on my face. His latest book, The Land and Its People, Essays, did not disappoint. Sedaris recounts everyday events and encounters with the people who cross…
My La-Z-Girl did me a disservice this week. As any boomer knows, recliners are a must-have for a happy retirement. They enable and enhance the reading experience, make watching television a pleasure, relieve back pain when visiting with friends, and, most importantly, encourage spontaneous napping. Today, however, she failed to allow me to extricate myself, and I was reminded of those “Help! I can’t get…
Imagine how you would react if you were suddenly jolted out of your normal, ordinary life by being informed by the police that your loved and trusted husband, for more than fifty years, and the father of your children, is a monster, a rapist, and possibly even a murderer. That’s what happened to Gisèle Pelicot when the police in the south of France called her…
It took seventeen years for Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help (and the movie of the same name), to publish her second novel, The Calamity Club, and it was worth the wait. I’ve been able to do little else but read the last few days until I finally finished. Written in the voices of an 11-year-old girl and a 20-something spinster, it is smart, at…
