Author: Pamela Simboli

A 30-something Canadian woman faces the demise of her marriage and dating fumblings. Maggie is the only one of her friends who married young. With self-deprecating humor, sarcasm, and flippancy we watch as she learns to navigate the world with her new identity. She relies on her close circle of friends to support her though she feels bereft and confused about how to live in this new world. I enjoyed her incisive opinions and candidness as she makes tremendous effort not to get stuck in a depressive state. Recommended.

A documentary of two great writers: Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb, the film Turn Every Page is a fascinating glimpse into their work and everyday lives. Made by Gottlieb’s daughter, the movie took 10 years to come to the screen. The Power Broker author is still writing and hopes to finish the last volume of the LB Johnson biography set he began years ago. The friendship of these two brilliant men reveals how they work and how they began. A worthwhile visit to the big screen if you appreciate the intellect and subtle humor of the written word. Now playing at JBFC.

The 2023 book awards were announced this week. Exciting titles were revealed in all of the categories including the Newbery, Caldecott and many others. Check out the list and sample some of the best books of 2022.

One of my favorite middle school books has been turned into a play/musical showing in New York city. This Schneider Family Book Award title features Allie who is frequently getting in trouble in school and frequently moving towns and schools. We find out she has a reading disability and is ashamed to reveal this secret. The theater is on W 42nd Street.

The play opens in March and “celebrates neurodiversity, friendship, and the power of imagination, and explores the harm bullying causes and the life changing potential of a generous teacher.”

Flight by Lynn Steger Strong takes place in late December in upstate New York during the first holiday without Helen, the matriarch. Katie, Henry and Martin each miss their mother and are learning how to be this new family without her. Katie with her husband and three children is hoping the others will agree to allow her to live in the mother’s home instead of selling it. Martin and his career-minded lawyer wife, Tess, are not s easily persuaded. Artist Henry and his social-worker wife, Alice, are the only couple without children. Alice is beginning to come to terms with the idea she will not become a mother and is wrapped up in the lives of a single mother-daughter case she is assigned to care for. As each member navigates the holiday week, their likes and dislikes bubble at the surface and their flaws are revealed. An entertaining novel that held my interest.