Last Tuesday, the lovely readers at the West Branch’s monthly Literatea program traveled to France via books and tea. The tea of the month was Remembering Paris. For my suggestions of books to pair with that tea, see the July Newsletter.
On the subject of armchair travel to France, our readers also suggested The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, which tells the story of the quirky owner of a floating bookstore. Another reader suggested all of Peter Mayle’s books. Mayle writes both fiction and nonfiction set in France. Especially highly recommended are his nonfiction work A Year in Provence and his novel Anything Considered.
Other top suggestions included The Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith, which is the saga of a 17th century female Dutch painter and a modern day art forger.
Several of our perennial favorite authors have newer titles out that our readers didn’t love quite as much as they had hoped. In this category are LaRose by Louise Erdrich, which like its predecessor, The Round House, deals with Native American justice and Japanese Lo
ver by Isabel Allende, which weaves a love story between the survivors of the Holocaust and a Japanese internment camp.
Happily, not all of our favorite authors are letting us down. The release of Cometh the Hour, the latest book in the Clifton Chronicles, led Jeffrey Archer fans to suggest that those who have not yet done so, should start at the beginning with Only Time will Tell and catch up on the multi-generational family saga. Meanwhile fans of Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, also put in a good word for his newest novel, 
Everyone Brave is Forgiven.
For anyone looking for a gripping nonfiction read, several were suggested. Ten green bottles : the true story of one family’s journey from war-torn Austria to the ghettos of Shanghai by Vivian Jeanette Kaplan was recommended for an unusual history book and In an Instant by Lee Woodruff was declared quite gripping.
Two readers recently enjoyed The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi, which is a novel about the life of a woman living in Kabul in 2007. This fiction pick led another reader to describe a nonfiction book that she enjoyed, which was written by an American journalist who interviewed and described the lives of Middle Eastern women. Using my librarian sleuthing skills, I narrowed this down to two possible titles: one is Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks and the other is Price of Honor by Jan Goodwin. Both received excellent professional reviews.
Hopefully, my fellow book lovers, these suggestions will keep you contentedly reading until Literatea return in August with more tea and books you won’t want to miss!