Penelope Fitzgerald’s Booker winning novel of 1979 is the story of a group of people living on boats in London on the Thames. There is Nenna who is separated from her husband, trying her best to raise two daughters alone. Richard was a captain in the navy, and since he knows about boats and is a well-organized person he has become the leader of these residents. Maurice’s business is storing illegal merchandise on his boat. Willis wants to lie about the leaks in his boat, so he can sell it and finally live on land.

Although I found Off Shore a nice read, I wouldn’t have chosen it to win The Man Booker Award. I read it because I had read Fonseca, a fictionalized story about a true incident in Fitzgerald’s life and was eager to try something written by her. I’m glad I read Off Shore but I’m not sure I’ll be reading any more works by Penelope Fitzgerald.

Sam, Yash and the narrator who the two refer to as Jordan are English majors at an unnamed college. Jordan first has a relationship with Sam, but it turns out that Yash is really the man she loves. Heart the Lover follows Jordan’s life during these relationships and after.

I can’t do justice to summarizing Heart the Lover without giving away a good deal of the plot. I read Lily King’s novel in 48 hours. It’s a great, easy, can’t put down read. I puddled up a few times as I learned what happens to Sam, Yash and Jordan after college.

Joan Silber’s newest novel begins with Ivan remembering a terrible event that he was responsible for about thirty years ago. After recalling this event through Ivan’s perception of it, Silber then describes the history of five other characters who directly or indirectly are connected to Ivan’s night of horror.

Joan Silber is a fine writer, and each of her five characters are interesting and believable. However, two of the characters only have a remote association with Ivan, and one has no connection to Ivan whatsoever. Mercy is a good read, but it isn’t a novel; rather it is six short stories with some being interrelated.

Buckeye, for the most part, takes place in the small town of Bonhomie, Ohio and focuses on six interrelated characters. Cal and Becky are married and have a son, Cal Jr, nicknamed Skip. Margaret and Felix are married and have a son, Tom. Their lives are connected by proximity, passion, secrets and eventually friendship.

I started to read Buckeye because I was drawn to the title, but once I started the novel, I couldn’t put it down. Its characters are interesting and complex, and the plot is fast paced and easy to follow. I highly recommend Buckeye. It’s a winner!!

Jessica Francis Kane has taken a real person and a true situation and embellished them. In 1952 the future author Penelope Fitzgerald leaves London with her six year old son, leaving behind her alcoholic husband and her two year old daughter. Her destination is Fonesca, Mexico where she hopes her son will inherit money from two elderly, unmarried sisters who are distantly related to her family. When she and her son arrive at the sisters’ villa, she learns there are others vying for the money.

Kane artistically weaves fact and fiction throughout Fonesca. Some may find it confusing that some characters, events and locations are fictitious and some are not. The more I read Fonesca, the more I enjoyed it and look forward to reading a few novels by Penelope Fitzgerald.

Olio Hercules is a Ukrainian woman who authors cookbooks with recipes from her homeland while living in London. When the Russians attacked Ukraine in February of 2022, she felt it was important to learn more about her family and the country she left. Part of the tradition of any country is the food one brings to the table, so while Hercules describes four generations of family members, she also writes of the country’s native dishes as well as Ukraine’s tumultuous history.

Olia Hercules is an excellent writer. Her descriptions are so vivid. I knew very little about Ukraine and it’s difficulties, not just recently, and was glad to learn what its people have endured for almost a hundred years. For readers who have a hard time with foreign names Strong Roots has lots!

Noah Cassidy, a lawyer, his wife, Lorelei Shaw, an AI expert and their three children are in a self driving car headed towards North Carolina. Charlie, age seventeen, is behind the wheel when suddenly his sister Alice screams. Charlie grabs the wheel, gives it a sharp turn, and crashes into a car going in the opposite direction. After that moment, the Cassidy-Shaw’s life is never the same.

Culpability begins with an interesting premise. Who or what is responsible for the accident? And although it is a good, relevant read, I feel Culpability tries to cover to many themes and problems in too little time.

Hai is an intelligent, twenty-one year old druggie whose family immigrated from Viet Nam. He has dropped out of college but has his mother believing that he is in medical school in Boston when he is really only a few miles away from her in East Gladness, Connecticut. One night he is seriously contemplating suicide by jumping off a bridge into a fast flowing river when a voice calls out for him to stop. The voice belongs to Grazina, and elderly woman with dementia who escaped from Lithuania during World War II. Hai ends up living and taking care of Grazina while working at HomeMarket, a fast food restaurant specializing in Thanksgiving fare. The workers at HomeMarket are quirky and sad but they care about each other as well as the restaurant.

Ocean Vuong writes beautifully and I appreciated The Emperor of Gladness, but it is not an easy read. All of the characters are weighed down by what life has offered them. There is very little that is uplifting or positive in any of the characters’ lives. The Emperor of Gladness is not a beach read!

My “summer classic” last year was David Copperfield. I enjoyed it so much I decided to read another Dickens’ novel this summer. Bleak House was a big mistake. It is a criticism of the British legal system during the mid 1800’s. Dispersed within this indictment is a huge cast of characters, most having long, weird names and pathetic tales of woe. It was only after I had read over half of the book that I knew who was who, and even then I was unable to feel for their plights. In Dickens’ time, Bleak House was read in installments, and I can’t imagine how any reader then could keep the characters and the experiences straight. My advice: If you have the urge to read some Dickens, don’t read Bleak Street. It’s a chore with very little pleasure.

Sybil Van Antwerp has been writing letters all her life, so it seems only natural that a novel where she is the main character is written in letters to and from her. Sybil is 77 years old, divorced, mother of three but one son died. She was adopted when she was a year old, is going blind, lives alone, has two elderly men pursuing her and is very set in her ways.

This epistolary novel is fun, engaging, charming and delightful. It is an easy, quick read with a dynamic, complex, sympathetic main character. The Correspondent is a “woman’s novel,” and women over sixty will be able to relate to Sybil.