BOOKS
"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."
Toni Morrison
"There is no friend as loyal as a book."
Ernest Hemingway
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
Haruki Murakami
I prefer books over people. I don't need therapy as long as I can get lost in a novel.
Unknown
At an extravagant summer gala, Alison Porteus meets the charismatic Kyle Riker and soon finds herself entangled in an affair with him. However, their romance quickly comes to an end when Kyle's influential and wealthy wife, Janice Caldwell, discovers their relationship and puts a stop to it.
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As Alison begins a new friendship with real estate attorney Marc Kelsey, it gradually develops into something deeper. Despite this, Kyle tries to win her back, and Alison can't resist his allure. She dreams of a future together with Kyle and their baby, envisioning a family life. But her hopes are shattered when she catches her best friend, Felicia, in bed with Kyle.
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Through all this turmoil, Marc remains a steadfast presence in Alison's life, offering support and understanding. Alison eventually realizes that true happiness lies with Marc. However, when Kyle is unexpectedly hospitalized, Alison faces the most challenging decisions of her life.
“John’s Pond” begins in the fall of 1976 and ends in the summer of 1977 when the Wampanoag Tribe unsuccessfully sued the town of Mashpee for their tribal lands in Boston Federal Court. “John’s Pond” is the story of Tobin Horvarth, a young member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, who dates high school senior Laurie Matthews. When the story begins, we see that Laurie is sensitive to her classmates’ jokes about Native American classmates. Because of this they taunt her, calling her an ‘Indian Lover.’ While Tobin’s conflicts with the local police escalate, through no fault of his own, Laurie’s mother throws down roadblocks to the budding romance—a relationship that makes life more difficult for both Tobin and Laurie. Finally, in a dramatic moment, Laurie learns about long-hidden family secrets as the book reaches its climax.
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Aimee Parker feels trapped in a loveless marriage with a man who makes her feel worthless. Feeling especially isolated since quitting her job to become caretaker to her mother, Aimee finds solace in the music and voice of Rob Stone, a singer-songwriter who lives across the country. After meeting at a party, they start an intense long-distance friendship that fills Aimee’s heart with hope and joy, de spite the fact that Rob is also married, and apparently not unhappily so. Though her husband Steve is materially generous, he’s emotionally bankrupt, while Rob is the opposite. She thinks he’s everything she needs.
When Rob tells her that he is also a fledging sex therapist, a healer who uses his hands to awaken women’s sexual energy, Aimee is thrown for a loop. Past trauma won’t allow her to fully trust him, but despite her fears, she flies to the west coast to be with him, and to meet his family. They spend a blissful and confusing week together, but when Aimee returns home, her world falls apart. Caretaking her mother, a woman with a jagged exterior that shields her own traumas, had become central to Aimee’s life and when she dies, Aimee is bereft. And Rob stops answering her calls and messages when she needs him most. Was he just a manipulator all along? Is she better off without him? Without Steve? Without her past self …
No Regrets
John's Pond
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends:
They are the most accessible and the wisest of counselors,
And the most patients of teachers.
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Charles William Eliot
I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
Harold Kushner
The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
–Dr. Seuss
