VINEGAR GIRL (JUNE 2016)

My favorite author has a new book...She said she was 'done with writing' but then came VINEGAR GIRL, a look at The taming of the Shrew, her unique take on this classic....And she dropped me a note too.... (See below)

Vinegar Girl

Dear Joyce,

I have to say that I've always been appalled by The Taming of the Shrew.

For one thing, it's laughably misogynistic. But beyond that, it's illogical. A man and woman meet and instantly start quarreling—in the woman's case, so fiercely that you wonder if she has some sort of serious mental problem. But the man, for his own utilitarian reasons, proposes marriage. And she says yes! (What?) Then he arrives late to the wedding, in rags, and insults everyone present. But she goes ahead with the ceremony anyhow, after which he takes her home, where he treats her miserably. As a result (again: what?), she becomes meek and loving, and the final scene shows them at a banquet where her sister scolds her for acting like a doormat, and her answer is that women should be happy to defer to their husbands.

Apparently, even the Elizabethans found this a bit much to take.

Not to mention me.

But you know how it is when someone tells you a story that doesn't add up. She'll say all her friends have turned against her, or her boyfriend has been acting strange, and you'll think, "Hmm. Maybe there's another side to this."

That's what Vinegar Girl is—my attempt to figure out the other side. I hope and trust that it makes more sense than The Taming of the Shrew.

After all, it could hardly make less sense.

Sincerely, 
Anne Tyler

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On Sale June 21st 

NOT FOR BEACH READING

Beach reads or not, these books are on my TBR LIST...I hope to get to them eventually as Sunday Times reviews were glowing..if you can believe that....So take a chance...both authors are moderately famous...Leave a comment...

BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Robert Petkoff
On a foggy summer night, 11 people --- 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter --- depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs --- the painter --- and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family. With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members, the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.


MODERN LOVERS by Emma Straub (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Jen Tullock
Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch to their own offspring. Now nearing 50, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn. The summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose can never be reclaimed. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.


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