The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

I started reading the much-anticipated The Year of the Flood before the Giller shortlist was announced and the blogs and papers started buzzing in shock at this grand dame’s exclusion from our most lucrative literary award. But after completing the book, I can understand why this venerable Canadian scribe was left out in the cold.
I’m [...]

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The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

It’s a running joke that there’s never any food in my parents’ house. My mother lacks the foresight necessary for adequate grocery shopping, although even when my mother was at her most Hubbard, I never had to eat exclusively grapes for three weeks or pick through other kids’ discarded lunches in the bathroom garbage so [...]

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One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, by Rebecca Mead

This summer I was invited to five weddings. I went to three, and of those was in the wedding party for one. Don’t get me wrong, they were lovely, but at 26, it seems I’m in the wedding prime, although I myself find the prospect a little terrifying. And the only thing that terrifies me [...]

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