A series of related stories that combined together = anovel. They are told from the viewpoint of 6 year old Vanessa who describes herself as a "professional listener". She narrates the lives of her parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles during the depression years & beginning of WW2. There is no sentiment here, only facts & the cumulative effect of what happens can break the heart.

This is a novel in the form of a memoir. It chronicles the life of a young girl from her birth to marriage. Her family is poor & it is the women who struggle most to make a decent life for their families. Not as well-written as Ms. Gibbons other books but still interesting.

A novel on the grand scale. unforgettable scenes & characters. It brought tears & laughter & my daughters read & enjoyed it.

A typical family story of a woman who meets a man recently returned from WW2. They marry & have 4 children. What happens during their lives together is told from the point-of-view of each family member. Each is a separate chapter which reads like a short story. Although this is an often-told tale, the author has selected details that make the scenes & characters achingly real & unforgetable.

Not one of my favorite Anita Shreve novels. This story is told by a male narrator, a college professor who decides that he is in love with a young woman & is determined to possess her, at all costs. What he never realizes is just how high that cost turns out to be. A well-written story, but unsatisfying.

The angle of repose is a term used in geology to determine the place where an object stops moving & becomes stationary. In his novel, Wallace Stegner uses the term to define his characters who travel from the US east coast to the newly discovered areas of the Pacific north-west. His fully drawn, believable & ultimately tragic characters endure hardships & misunderstandings as they attempt to bring civilization to a harsh world.

This novel is told with alternating points of view between a father & daughter. The daughter becomes with a young man from the Hopi Pueblo. Another daughter volunteers for human rights work in Central America. It is a very moving story.

Although we know at the beginning how this book is going to end, Ann Patchett has drawn us so deeply into the story of her friendship with poet & writer Lucy Grealy that I could not help crying. Lucy had struggled so hard since the age of 10 to overcome her cancer that it was refreshing to read about all the happy times she & Ann spent together & also all the positive things that had gone on in her life. Yet she was never able to completely overcome her disfigurement, like grief it had become a part of who she was & eventually she becaame too worn down to continue the struggle. Ann Patchett treads very lightly in this portrayal of their friendship but her sense of loss is still evident.

A warm-hearted storyabout an elderly lady, a young man & the mysterious appearance of a baby. The characters are well drawn, but the story lacks credibility to me.

Charming Billy is a novel about family life in the Irish-American neighborhood in Long Island NY. The title character is, indeed, charming but to say more would give away the very unexpected plot twists.