Even though it's the fall, will be looking for good beach reads ;)
This Is Where The Serpeant Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin, 2026
I love when a book transports me to another place and culture.
This Is Where The Serpeant Lives transports me to Pakistan in the 1950s where we meet orphan Bayazid in Rawalpindi.
He has an easy-going, curious and sincere personality and befriends the boys from wealthy families who attend the nearbly international school.
We also meet Rustom, who has studied abroad at Columbia in America, and comes home to reclaim his families lands in South Punjab.
He has trouble adjusting to becoming a feudal land owner and the violence and lack of laws in his home country.
He seeks the help of his cousin Hisham Atar, who has become a powerful politian in Lahore. Hisham himself has been educated at Dartmouth along with his brother Nessim and his wife Shahnaz. Adjusting to Lahore is a challenge that Hisham balances while still entertaining his western friends.
Chaudrey Saqib is the sone of the Atar household gardener and soon becomes a favorite of Shahnaz.
Riveting characters, details where I picture myself in rural Pakistan. Page-turner where I stayed up until midnight to finish the book.
Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, 2026
He grew up poor in Revere with a mentally ill mother who scarred her and his sister, who just wanted some sweetness in her life.
He marries Evie, a social worker from wealthy parents who leave them their lakeside home to live in. They have a son Rob.
In this community, there are affairs and hidden things that people never talk about.
The back drop is against the elections where politics prove to be devisive.
My first Elizabeth Strout book. I look forward to reading her previous books, including Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitteridge.
The Things We Never Say was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
A New York City socialiate with an impressive lineage, Burden comes from old money.
This is her no-holds-bar memoir of when her husband decides to leave her. During the pandemic.
It's hard to feel too sorry for her as he leaves her at their large Martha's Vinyard estate to flee back to their large Manhattan apartment.
The emotions are raw though, and she is brutally honest with no filter. She feels guilty for being in pajamas when she learns that her husband is having an affair.
Should she have put more effort in her appearance? Even during quarantine?
She notes that more women were shocked at the honestly in her memoir than of her husband leaving her. That friends were not appaled by her husband's decision to leave his family and not ask for shared custody.
Realizing that if she, as a woman, had done that, she would be ostracized.
The memoir is well-written and its honestly and self-awareness impressive. It shows how something so devastaing can strip someone to their true selves.
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