Glover's mistake

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Barbara Delinsky

Close friends, the Maxwell and Pope families reside in a "perfect" suburban neighborhood, but their idyllic lives are unexpectedly shattered by a moment that can never be erased.

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Kristin Hunter Lattany

Now swinging on the wrong side of forty, solid-bedrock, tight-forever friends Patrice Barber and Cherry Hopkins came of age in the sixties, veterans of Snick, CORE, and God alone knows how many Black Power rallies. By turns ferocious and fearless, passionate and proud, they rejected anything that was sanctioned by society. Sororities? No, thank you. Hair straightening? Get outta here. Marriage? Are you outta your mind? They became single mothers by choice. So who would have dreamed that these two ex-revolutionaries would find themselves trying to compose a la-de-dah wedding invitation for their soon-to-be-married children? True, Cherry's beautiful, somewhat spoiled daughter Aisha - excuse me, that's Eliza now - is about to jump the broom with Patrice's son, Saint, a ruggedly handsome computer whiz who likens himself to a Lone Star, like Texas. But Patrice feels a flutter in her gut, sensing something is deeply wrong. Cherry's favorite phrase is "no problem," but she's got big ones. For a shattering truth from their radical past is about to rear its head and alter the course of all their lives, forcing Patrice and Cherry to hit the road on an urgent mission. While on the home front, label-conscious Aisha soon discovers life lessons beyond brand names, and Saint faces the sobering fact that even the brightest star needs a center to spin around.

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Robert Louis Stevenson

During his residence in London, the accomplished Prince Florizel of Bohemia gained the affection of all classes by the seduction of his manner and by a well-considered generosity. He was a remarkable man even by what was known of him; and that was but a small part of what he actually did. Although of a placid temper in ordinary circumstances, and accustomed to take the world with as much philosophy as any ploughman, the Prince of Bohemia was not without a taste for ways of life more adventurous and eccentric than that to which he was destined by his birth.

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Anthony Trollope

This is one of Trollope's best novels, in the present writer's opinion. Among several intermingled plots, the story arc of Arabella Trefoil is the most rewarding. The husband-hunting Arabella is absolutely one of Trollope's best characters. She is grand-daughter to a great Duke, yet her social position is precarious, because her father was a wastrel younger son who married a woman of low birth (her father was "in trade!"). He engrossed her large fortune and squandered it, leaving his estranged wife and daughter nearly destitute, and yet with an expensive social position to maintain. Read this book for Trollope's masterly delineation of how these circumstances harrow the soul and deform the character of a young woman. With no fortune except a relentless will, Arabella must marry well to save herself from the abyss of middle-aged spinsterhood, poverty, and social death. Arabella has learned to regard the men in her life as stupid but powerful enemies against whom any cruel or dishonest treatment is thoroughly justified. Men are to be flattered, fooled and captured, or dealt with according to the laws of war. Trollope makes clear that Arabella is what her avaricious, hypocritical, patriarchal social class has made her into, and she is a sympathetic character despite her hardened heart. When she is introduced, she is nearly thirty and is nearing the end of the line as a marriageable girl. "I'll tell you what it is, mamma. I've been at it till I'm nearly broken down. I must settle somewhere;—or else die;—or else run away. I can't stand this any longer and I won't. Talk of work,—men's work! What man ever has to work as I do?" The eponymous American Senator is Elias Gotobed, of the fictional American state of Mickewa, who visits England apparently in order to inflict his opinions on everyone he meets. Trollope's senator is a self-righteous, pontificating horse's ass who offends against hospitality by lecturing and berating his hosts and their other guests at the dinner table about their laws and customs, and by meddling in local quarrels which are none of his business. In the end, the honour of England is avenged against the obnoxious Solon of Mickewa and he beats a retreat to the States with a flea in his ear. One wonders who the model(s) for this character might have been. A third storyline involves the romantic vicissitudes of Mary Masters, a country lawyer's daughter and a typical Trollopeian nice, well-principled young girl. All these stories are woven together expertly and seamlessly. This is a book to read and re-read. There are many hunting scenes, and the conversations of the horsey set are strikingly well-observed and most enjoyable, whether you approve of blood sports or not.