Tag Archives: Literature

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

Imported Empires: Stories of the French Intervention in Mexico

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy—

Everyone loves a story, and a novel set in a historical period can be a compelling way to learn about an era. While some nonfiction history books can seem dry and tedious, a well-researched and well-written novel can satisfy our desire for historical facts and figures.

This month I’ve chosen both fiction and nonfiction books that tell stories about the time when the European monarchs Maximilian and Carlota ruled Mexico. It is my hope that these books will deepen your understanding of their short reign (1864-1867).

North of the Mexican border, the American Civil War was raging while Mexican conservative exiles and clergy convinced Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon), after considerable political infighting, to place Maximilian of Austria on the throne of Mexico. Along with his wife, Carlota of Belgium, he would become emperor of a politically unstable nation already struggling with internal conflict. It was not the career path either Maximilian or Carlota anticipated.

While much of their story seems improbable, it truly makes for a tantalizing tale.

Looking back, it is easy to think, “How naïve.” Yet history reminds us that political power plays often lead to poor decisions. This is a story of ambition, political intrigue, and, ultimately, tragedy.

How did all this come about? Simply put: “The intervention was triggered by President Benito Juárez’s suspension of foreign debt payments, leading to a tripartite agreement between France, Spain, and Britain in 1861, though France ultimately pursued the deeper, imperialistic intervention.”

The Mexican Empire, as well as the reign of Maximilian and Carlota, came to an end with the execution of Maximilian by firing squad in 1867. He was only 35. Carlota had been suffering from depression to the point of “going mad,” but she lived to the ripe old age of 86, dying of pneumonia caused by a bout of influenza.

Maximilian’s last words are said to be, “I forgive everyone and ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico! Viva la Independencia!”

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C.M. Mayo

Author C. M. Mayo is an important voice in contemporary historical fiction. She has translated some of the finest Spanish-speaking writers of our time. In addition to Last Prince, she has written From Mexico to Miramar or Across the Lake of Oblivion: A Nonfiction Novela about a Fairytale: A Visit to the Emperor of Mexico’s Italian Castle. The intriguing title is enough to justify a reading.

Avid readers as well as visitors to this magic land will surely enjoy Mayo’s Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, which highlights the best of Mexico’s creative contributors who write about various aspects of Mexican life.

In addition to being a novelist, editor, and translator, Mayo is a poet, educated at the University of Chicago. Library Journal named Last Prince of the Mexican Empire one of the best books of 2009, just one of the many accolades the novel received.

The language of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is lyrical, highlighted by the shifting points of view of the cast of characters from an overworked kitchen maid to the Austrian archduke.

Blending the cultural and political aspects of the Empire combine here to make a compelling story. The added element of a young boy who childless Maximilian and Carlota want to adopt adds a human element. You’ll be introduced to many historical figures woven into this compelling narrative.

Maximilian in Mexico: A Woman’s Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 by Sarah Yorke Stevenson

Sarah Yorke Stevenson (1847-1921) was an archeologist, Egyptologist, and suffragette who helped found the Penn Museum. In this meticulously researched book, she gives us one of the few published first-hand accounts of the time.

In her own words she says of her book, “By offering these pages to the public, my aim is not to write a historical sketch of the reign of Maximilian of Austria, nor is it to give a description of the political crisis that Mexico went through during that period. My only desire is to provide the reader with a point of view whose value lies in the fact that it is that of an eyewitness who was more than an ordinary spectator of a series of events that became one of the most dramatic episodes of modern times.”

What a find! I came across this while researching. Appears to be a gem that may give us a different interpretation of the era, motives, and personalities of the players.

With Maximilian in Mexico. From the Note-book of a Mexican Officer by Maximilian baron von Alvensleben

This reprint of an 1867 account offers a rare perspective from the viewpoint of a Mexican soldier who witnessed the collapse of the empire. Though less known than other works, it provides an intriguing firsthand glimpse into the turbulent final days of Maximilian’s rule.

This is available for just 150 pesos on Kindle, considerably more in hard cover or paperback editions.

The Crown of Mexico: Maximilian and his Empress Carlota by Joan Haslip

This highly acclaimed novel is rich in detail about the politics of both Europe and Mexico in the 1800s. It also takes us back to Maximilian’s upbringing and is sympathetic in tone to Carlota.

Each novel or history we read provides us with new facts and insightful perspectives into the personalities of Maximilian and Carlota. This is what many of us love about novels. They take us closer to the motives of the people involved. There are psychological and sociological factors that straight history often doesn’t—or can’t–reveal.

Maximilian was naïve and easily spurred on by his ambitious wife. He stayed on to the detriment of them both.

Phantom Crown by Bertita Harding

Yet another highly regarded novel that was written in 1934 and subtitled The Story of Maximilian and Carlota of Mexico. It is exactly that, a tragic and pathetic tale of this historic epoch. Carlota and Maximilian are surrounded by a populace that detested them at worst and pitied them at best. The country is torn apart, with liberal leader Benito Juárez in the north. (Benito Juárez was the constitutional president of Mexico. After the suspension of payments on the foreign debt in 1861 and subsequent French invasion, his government became a “roaming republic,” resisting from the north of the country). Napoleon’s ambition is unbridled. There was not much going in their favor.

One reader summed up succinctly all that we look for in a novel. “Wonderful history lesson, very informative, paints a wonderful picture of the times. It is a great read.”

So many issues, so many countries, personalities, conflicts, and ambitions. ‘Tis the way of the world. Next month we will highlight notable novels published this year. You will most likely find your favorite authors among them.

 

 

 

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

A Banner Year for the Novel and Its Master Storytellers

Leave a comment

Since the theme of The Eye this month is healthcare, herein lies a literary path for positive mental health! This is turning out to be a banner year for lovers of the novel. Many of us thought 2025 was a bit bereft of books by creative minds that produce beautiful stories. Now it appears they were being saved for 2026.

Fire up your Kindles and be sure your library card is up to date! Here is a handful of bright gems hailing from around the globe. There will be more to follow in upcoming months, with June appearing to be the biggest month for publication.

Land by Maggie O’Farrell
For me, this is the most exciting selection of the year. If this is your first foray into O’Farrell’s novels, you have many satisfying hours ahead. I’ve been hooked on her books for the past 20 years, ever since I first read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox in 2006.

O’Farrell may be best known for her recent best-selling novel Hamnet, which has been made into a blockbuster movie and nominated for several Academy Awards. O’Farrell was also one of the screenwriters.

Regardless of the film’s success, I found the book much more emotionally satisfying (as happens most of the time for me). Two hours in the theater simply can’t compare to the hours spent in the silent contemplation of the reading process.

Land, due out in June, takes place in Ireland before and after the dreaded 1842-1852 Great Famine, also known as the Irish Potato Famine. It is a story of survival in a land of a million deaths. Another million fled the country. Publication June 2, 2026.

Contrapposto by Dave Eggers
It’s been a while since we’ve had news of a new Dave Eggers novel. He rose to fame in the literary world with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and has since repeatedly proved himself a formidable writer, with a substantial litany of the finest novels of our time including What Is the What, You Shall Know Our Velocity, and The Circle. Eggers has also been published in The New Yorker and Esquire magazines.

Eggers is so much more than a writer. He is also the founder of several literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights non-profit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition.

In this latest novel, about art and its world, we follow the two principal characters, Cricket and Olympia, for 65 years. Publisher Penguin describes it as “a wild and beautiful examination of the rules and market forces of the art world.” But it’s also about the power of friendship.

Eggers is a classically trained artist whose work has been exhibited throughout the world. This novel has been percolating in his mind for the past 20 years. Publication date: June 9. 2026.

John of John by Douglas Stuart
At the start of the Covid epidemic in 2020, Douglas Stuart’s debut novel Shuggie Bain seized our attention, as did his fairytale personal story.

Shuggie is a young boy in 1980s Glasgow, desperately trying to save his alcoholic mother while dealing with his own identity. The knowledge of the author’s personal struggle and ultimate success gave us joy and hope during difficult pandemic times.

In 2022 Stuart published his second novel, Young Mungo, that also received critical acclaim.

Now, Stuart’s third novel, John of John, promises more excellent craftsmanship in a gripping story of a young man returning home.

Award-winning author Colm Toibin raves about this newest from Stuart, saying “it has the emotional reach and empathy of his earlier books, but this book is special; it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of a fierce emotion repressed, hidden, and volcanically exposed.”

Ann Patchett, another venerated writer, also is enraptured: “Reading John of John is like moving to the Isle of Harris and settling into the family farm. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt as if I were living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and exceptional.”

I needn’t read further previews to know that I’ll be the first in line on publication day May 15, 2026.

The News from Dublin by Colm Toibin
Speaking of Colm Toibin, he graces us with a new series of short stories this year. These 11 selections take you across continents and eras. The Miami Herald calls Toibin an “achingly beautiful writer…with infinite compassion.”

If you’re among the many readers familiar with Brooklyn and its sequel Long Island, you may enjoy a change of pace in Toibin’s non-fiction. Travelers and European history fans may enjoy Homage to Barcelona, a book that celebrates one of the great cities of the world, from the vibrant architecture and expansion to the lives of Gaudi, Miró, Picasso, Casals, and Dalí.
Many of you may, like me, be interested in the separation of Catalan, as well a glimpse into Franco and the Civil War.

Toibin’s selection of both fiction and nonfiction will complete your library.

Now I Surrender by Alvaro Enrigue
The luminous re-creator of Montezuma and the Spanish Conquest in his novel You Dreamed of Empires took both sides of US/Mexican border by surprise. It was lauded by the most prestigious reviewers. The Washington Post called it “An alternate history of Mexican conquest, with a Tarantino-ready twist.”

Riding on this success, Enrigue takes on the American/Mexican Wild West in Now I Surrender. It’s an expansive novel of past and present using myth and history to tell the story through imagined characters such as Geronimo and the Apaches.

Publication date: March 3, available in Spanish and English.

Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead
Fans, including yours truly, of Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto are enthusiastically awaiting this third and final novel of the trilogy.

Returning are furniture dealer Ray Carney and his old friend and partner in crime, Pepper, who is a bit of a sociopath. It has now been 20 years since the death of Ray’s cousin Freddie. Ray is feeling a responsibility for Freddie’s son and needs to weigh the risks of rescuing him from the violent forces of the city versus maintaining the safety and security of his own family.

Most readers are familiar with Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize (for fiction) winning The Underground Railroad. The novel also won the National Book Award. Many readers feel this trilogy deserves equal praise.

Whistler by Ann Patchett
“It’s Friday and if you haven’t read this it’s new to you,” says Ann Patchett, introducing her Friday chats on Facebook. Every week she offers several minutes out of her busy literary schedule to discuss the books she’s reading.

You may know Patchett as the owner of the famous Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with a branch at the Nashville Airport. In addition, she keeps an online magazine. At a site called Musing, you’ll find Ann Patchett’s blog, staff-picked reading lists, exclusive author interviews, shop dog diaries, and more. No matter where you live you can subscribe.

We know Patchett as a reliable storyteller. She has written extraordinary novels loved by a wide range of readers. My personal favorite is Bel Canto, and I’m not alone in my assessment: the New York Times Book Review named it one of the most important books of the 21st century. It also won the PEN/Faulkner Prize and the Orange Prize. “The Shining Path meets the opera star” could be the subtitle.

Now to her new book, Whistler. It concerns a subject we all ponder from time to time: the decisions we’ve made and the ones that have been made for us. Two main characters reunite to formulate and develop the plot and philosophical rendering. Pre-publication reviews are raves. Due out on June 2, 2026.

With so many wondrous novels arriving this year, we dedicate this and future columns to keeping you in the loop.

 

 

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

On the Page: Books That Shape Our View of Mexico

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy—

Living in Mexico for 30 years hasn’t only settled my understanding of the country; rather, it has expanded it. New research and reading continually reshape my previous viewpoints. Novels and nonfiction narratives are my guide, although numerous personal encounters have enhanced my knowledge.

An education is never complete.

Here are some contemporary histories and classic texts to guide your understanding of this great land.

Mexico by Paul Gillingham
This new tome surprises with a topsy- turvy view of our nation. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that now, 500 years later, Mexico survived the literary earthquake we call our history.

Milenio, the popular and prestigious Mexican daily newspaper, calls Mexico “unique and, from now on, indispensable for anyone who wants to explore Mexican history with sincerity.”

It is so easy to get things wrong when writing or relating stories orally. Peter Frankopan from The Telegraph tells us that this “fine account does well to remind that the best history is about fact, not fiction.”

Gillingham begins with the misconceptions of the role of the Spaniards in the early 1500s: their original goals and intentions and their relationships with various communities across the country. Over the next 700 pages, Mexico recounts great human displacements and epic battles. Most important, Gillingham constantly stresses the global economic forces that shaped each period of the country’s history.

Álvaro Enrigue, respected author of the brilliant novel You Dreamed of Empires, in his New York Times review says: “Gillingham’s 700-page book is imposing, yet it is an absorbing read, from the amusing and skeptical cadence of the first line that describes the embellished estimates made by the Spanish of the indigenous armies they encountered.”

Buy a copy and slowly read the unimaginable 500-year history of Mexico. As has been suggested in my other book column recommendations, also pick up a copy of You Dreamed of Empires as an accompaniment.

The Lawless Roads and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Few people are familiar with the Cristeros War (1926-1929). Mexican history often stresses the importance and dominance of the Catholic Church, brought to Mexico from Spain in the 1500s.

The Cristeros War was a reaction to the Calles laws, introduced by the then-president (from 1924 to 1928) Plutarco Elías Calles, which reduced the power of the church. The short rebellion in rural Mexico was eventually settled with the help of Dwight Morrow, ambassador to Mexico from the US.

You might recall that President Benito Juárez in the previous century severely limited the power and extreme wealth of the Catholic church.

British citizen Graham Greene thought of himself as a Catholic Agnostic. These two controversial novels describe different aspects of this short but significant time in the complicated history of Greene’s travels to Mexico to see what the effects of the conflict on Catholicism there had been.

The Lawless Roads is an account of Greene’s Mexican journey that takes him from the northern border towns to San Luis Potosí and Mexico City. From there he goes to the nearby rural state of Puebla and then to Chiapas. But his primary interest was in Tabasco, home of the atheist activist and cacique of the state, Tomás Garrido Canabal.

In 2005, The Power and the Glory was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. John Updike calls The Power and the Glory, “Graham Greene’s masterpiece…The energy and grandeur of his finest novel derive from the will toward compassion, an ideal communism even more Christian than Communist.”

For Graham Greene fans, this novel of southern Mexico it is often cited as their favorite by the author.

The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz is virtually a household name in Mexico, admired and respected by people from all walks of life. Through his remarkable literary skill, Paz brings Mexico’s complex and fascinating history to life, offering richly crafted narratives that illuminate the essence of Mexican identity.

In 1998 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.”

His most famous work, The Labyrinth of Solitude, is an indispensable and deeply illuminating read for anyone who lives in Mexico, visits, or seeks to truly understand the country. With a gentle yet compelling force, Paz draws readers into the deepest chord of the Mexican people, revealing the inner workings of their collective. Paz observes that solitude is responsible for the Mexican’s perspective on death, fiesta, and identity. Published first in 1950, the book explores difficulties of integration and cultural belonging.

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
Regular readers of The Eye may notice that this title pops up from time to time in my recommendations. The novel touches on many different aspects of Mexican life, especially the spiritual.

The appearance of a dead witch is the impetus for a story that is full of rumors, mythology, suspicions, and traditions of violence. It is Melchor’s style, however, that brings to life the mysterious workings of the people who live in the pueblo.

The Guardian review says it well. “A brutal portrait of small-town claustrophobia, in which machismo is a prison and corruption isn’t just institutional but domestic, with families broken by incest and violence. Melchor’s long, snaking sentences make the book almost literally unputdownable, shifting our grasp of key events by continually creeping up on them from new angles. A formidable debut.”

Mexico City Noir, edited by Paco Ignacio Taibo II
I recently ran across this anthology of short stories. These dark, acidic short stories reflect some unique-to-Mexico situations. Take note of the title of the book! This is a dark, somber series about police corruption, drug trafficking, the homeless, and the ultra-rich, to name just a few of the unforgettable characters.

All of the stories, told in different narrative styles, have one thing in common: they speak to, and about, a city the authors love.

The brilliant foreword by the much-loved editor of these stories, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, establishes the basis for these stories with a diverse cast of characters. Perhaps more important is the emphasis on the neighborhoods that drive the narrative.

Each chapter has a subtitle of a colonia (neighborhood): Roma, Condesa, Centro Histórico, Colonia de Valle, Doctores. Don’t look for a list of cafes or clubs or a discussion about gentrification in these stories; a more brutal agenda is at stake here.

Despite the barbarous themes, editor Taibo relates that while “Mexico City Noir may not be sponsored by the city’s department of tourism; but if anyone, from anywhere on earth, were to ask whether the writers recommend visiting Mexico City, the response would be both firm and passionate: ‘Yes, of course.’ Because this is the best city on the planet, in spite of itself.”

Taibo also observes that the writers “take refuge in humor, a very dark humor, acidic, which allows us enough distance to laugh at Lucifer.”

Poems and Sonnets of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
An article about Mexico, especially in an issue emphasizing the spiritual, cannot be written without a discussion about the monumental figure in our country, Sor Juana, philosopher, writer, and poet. We have written about her often over the past 15 years.

Considered the first feminist in the Americas as well as one of the most important writers in the Spanish language, in the 17th century she was defending the rights of women against the patriarchal norms of the time.

If you are a first-time reader of this significant figure in history, I would start with the poems and sonnets, especially the poem Hombres Necios that argues that men’s taste and censorship are inconsistent and that they accuse women of what they themselves cause. It exposes the inequality and injustice that women suffer through sexism and discrimination against women.

Then, continue on to the 975-line monumental poem Primero Sueño (First Dream), an extensive philosophical allegory about the search for knowledge.

Learn from Sor Juana’s most famous words: “I don’t study to know more, but to ignore less.”

Well said, sister!

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

Sneak Peek Between the Pages: 2026’s New Novels

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy—

The new year ignites excitement for passionate readers, but too often novels published at the year’s end don’t receive proper publicity. So first let’s look at a few scintillating novels that hit the shelves late in 2025.

The Predicament by William Boyd (November 2025)
Although I’m not typically drawn to spy novels, this book was a delightful exception.

William Boyd’s novels seldom disappoint. His range is broad, characterizations diverse, and plots compelling. This one takes the reader around the globe from London and Guatemala to Berlin and Dallas (not to worry, it’s a leisurely adventure). Gabriel Dax isn’t your stereotypic spy, making his experiences unpredictable.

Boyd’s collection of work is diverse in subject, but always focused and pristine in pace and local color. I’m a recent fan of his and eager to read anything he writes.

The Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory (October 2025)
In 2001 I read The Other Boleyn Girl, at the time Gregory’s popular (with readers and critics alike) and well-researched novel about Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary. In the ensuing years, readers have been ensconced in the Tudor and Plantagenet series, which has brought critical accolades. Gregory has more than 100 books to her credit.

Now, 24 years later we find ourselves still fascinated by the 16th century and the age of kings and queens. Praise from critics always focuses on Gregory’s detailed research and ability to bring to the 21st century an understanding of this distinct past.

The Boleyn Traitor tells the tale of Jane Boleyn, the wife of Anne Boleyn’s infamous brother George. The reviews tell us the magic endures, so it looks like another bestseller.

Queen Ester by John Irving ( November 2025)
Many of us look back to 1978 and the publication of John Irving’s popular breakout fourth novel, The World According to Garp. To date, Irving has published 16 novels, among them the popular The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Avenue of Mysteries, set in Oaxaca, Mexico.

In his latest, you will recognize the town of Penacook, New Hampshire, and nearby St. Cloud Orphanage from The Cider House Rules. The time is the early 20th century, and a young Jewish girl is adopted by a non-Jewish couple who wonder how they will handle this responsibility. We follow one of the characters to Israel and her political involvement there.

Irving recently stated: “The construction of this novel long predates the events of Oct. 7, 2023, and everything that’s happened in Israel since those terrorist attacks and the hostage-taking. With hindsight, it’s easy to say that what I saw and heard in Israel in the early 1980s serves as a precursor to what has developed since that time, but this is what historical fiction is for.”

Last Night in Brooklyn by Xóchitl Gonzalez (April 2026)
Two unforgettable novels by Gonzalez (also a staff writer at The Atlantic), published in 2022 and 2024, captured my mind and heart: Olga Dies Dreaming and Anita de Monte Laughs Last.

Both focus on women’s role in society and within their own lives. Gonzalez draws us deep into the characters’ worlds, exploring the psychological and philosophical forces that shape their way of living. These novels are unforgettable and beautifully rendered, the first delving into the lives of a Puerto Rican family in New York and the second centered on an aspiring artist.

Gonzalez describes her latest book as a retelling of the Gatsby story. It takes place in a rapidly changing Brooklyn neighborhood in the midst of a financial crisis and a significant presidential election.

Undoubtedly, she’ll be gracing us again with her finely tuned characters and intriguing plot, including lots of surprises in this novel about class, color, and gentrification.

Ghost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh (January 2026)
The captivating subject of reincarnation forms the backbone of this novel by the beloved author of The Hungary Tide and the Ibis Trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire).

From late 1960s Calcutta to present-day Brooklyn, Ghosh takes us on a reincarnation journey. It starts with a young girl, Varsha Gupta, who seems to remember other lives she’s lived. Her concerned parents take her to a psychologist, who investigates “cases of the reincarnation type.”

Jump to a half century later when Vasha’s case file is unearthed by a group of environmental activists who want to investigate more about Varsha’s memories.

Thus begins one of the long, luscious tales for which Ghosh is famous.

No Way Home by T C Boyle (April 2026)
In the early years of the 21st century I read a novel that to this day remains in the corners of my mind, occasionally sneaking into present consciousness. That book is The Tortilla Curtain, a powerful novel about the juxtaposition of poor Mexican immigrants and wealthy Los Angeles homeowners and the space they share. It takes a grand writer to engender in the reader a variety of emotions simultaneously. I’ve now read most of the fiction of T C Boyle, an author who has blessed us with novels and short stories to entertain and remind.

Pre-publication praise is no surprise to Boyle fans. This book is already receiving sparkling reviews. Set in the Nevada desert, it focuses on a Los Angeles physician, whose mother has just died, in the midst of a desiccating city in a remote desert. It is described as a “compulsive, obsessive, psychologically disturbing” novel.

I Give You My Silence by Mario Vargas Llosa (February 2026)
The latest and final novel of Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) is appropriately a love song to his native Peru as well as a statement about the power of art.

His was a life dedicated to writing. In 2010 he won the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature for “his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”

The main character in his final novel is an expert in the vals, a genre of music descended from the European waltz but also rooted in Creole culture. He views the music as having a social function, as a means of uniting the people of Peru through their culture.

The book is dedicated to Llosa’s ex-wife of 50 years.

There’s much more to come in the eleven remaining months of 2026.

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

Turning the Pages of 2025: The Novels That Moved Us

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy—

“By writing a novel one performs a revolutionary act. A novel is an act of hope. It allows us to imagine that things may be other than they are.”

Those are the words of Hilary Mantel, who more than accomplished the above in her many books over the years. Mantel’s brilliant mind discerned more than what could be readily seen.

From the dozens of novels I read this year, several revealed a new perspective or a deeper emotion. The feelings evoked by these books spontaneously pop into my mind at various times, offering perspective and contemplation.

My Friends by Frederick Backman

I always considered Backman to be a writer of “easy reads,” an author who enchanted his readers with compelling characters and entertaining plots. My Friends, however, breaks this mold to awaken in the reader a deeper sense of the meaning and significance of friendship and beauty, the twin pillars that make life worth living.

A painting, a lifetime of friendship, and a series of problem years filled with conflicting emotions drive the plot and shape the structure of the novel. Backman is a master storyteller and character developer.

The Washington Post said it well: “Backman captures the messy essence of being human.”

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

This is renowned writer Ian McEwan’s 18th novel. The New York Times called the book “the best thing McEwan has written in ages” and “entertainment of a high order.” I agree wholeheartedly.

The setting is 100 years from now, with continuing and not necessarily favorable references to the times in which we are living. McEwan refers to his book as “science fiction without the science.”

The storyline is compelling and entertaining despite McEwan’s discomfiting view of our future. Tucked between descriptions of the devastation of 100 years of climate change, wars, and general chaos and disruption of the planet is a delightful narrative of a young literary type who in 2119 is pursuing the location of a poem that was deliberately hidden more than 100 years previously.

The poem was written by a fictional esteemed literary figure of our current era. In addition, McEwan offers keen insights into this poet, his wife, their friends, and their lifestyles.

A formidable plot, complex characters, and sense of place drive the action. This novel has all the essentials required in a narrative about the future to create a novel I read almost nonstop!

You may also want to read these other gems by McEwan: Atonement, Saturday, Nutshell, and On Chesil Beach. All will satisfy your craving for fine writing and precision craftsmanship.

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabin Alameddine

Each page of this simultaneously comic and tragic novel flows like ice beneath a skater’s blade. This despite the fact that Lebanon, where the action takes place, usually would not be described this way.

These characters experience rough times in Lebanon, a country that has undergone many tragic phases. But Alameddine entertains us as the main characters take us through the dark side of the country’s history as well as through his and his mother’s personal struggles, met with determination and even a dash of joy.

This book offers so much easy enjoyment, much like his novel An Unnecessary Woman.

The House on Via Gemita by Domenico Starnone

Do you recognize this Italian author’s name as someone who was thought to be the ghost writer of the successful Elena Ferrante novels, specifically the Neapolitan series? Starnone has denied it, being an illustrious author in his own rite. His equally famous wife, Anita Raja, a translator and library director, has also been “accused” of the deception.

In the end, Ferrante has been accepted as a pseudonym for another Italian author who believes that books, “once they are written, have no need of their author.”

Many avid readers have enjoyed Starnone’s witty novels, Ties and Trick. The House on Via Gemita presents a new, darker side of Starnone. Not light and humorous as Ties and Trick, this novel places a cantankerous artist front and center.

1960s Naples, Italy, is the place where a frustrated railway worker is convinced he is a great artist, his family suffering the consequences of the obsession. The trials of the family are detailed and vivid, Starnone’s best talent clearly at work. The novel deservedly was long-listed for the International Booker prize.

Many avid readers have enjoyed Starnone’s witty novels, Ties and Trick. The House on Via Gemita presents a new, darker side of Starnone. Not light and humorous as Ties and Trick, this novel places a cantankerous artist front and center.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is, simply put, a gem. I am listing his short novel as a favorite because it truly illuminates the joy of reading.

British-born, raised and educated at Oxford, Bennet is exceedingly accomplished, with a rich stock of stories, plays, and films in his repertoire. When I want to feel good and laugh, I pick up one of his works.

The Uncommon Reader is a novel for the book-addicted. The uncommon reader of the title is the Queen of England, and Bennet takes us merrily through her introductory, and eventually continuing, passion for the written word.

Novelist/writer Jennifer Kloester’s review calls it “brilliant on many levels, but also a delicious, edible morsel of a novel. And wait until you read the ending.”

My Final Read of the Year: The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag

At year’s end, I find myself thoroughly engaged in Susan Sontag’s radical novel of ideas, The Volcano Lover (1992), set largely in Naples Italy in the late 18th century. The gentle pace of her style in this unconventional historical narrative perfectly complements my year-end reflections. I will read it slowly through December in order to savor her luscious writing style.

Here’s to many provocative reading experiences in 2026!

San Miguel de Allende

The San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival 2026

Leave a comment

By Pat Steele—

The San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival began in 2006 as an event attended by just 26 people. But what a difference two decades makes. Celebrating its twenty-first anniversary next year, it now brings 1,500 visitors to the mountain town in the heart of Mexico that Travel + Leisure magazine readers have repeatedly voted the “number one city in the world.”

“Our goal is to bring together the literary traditions of the US, Canada, and Mexico,” said the organization’s executive director, Jodi Pincus. “But as we continue to grow, we also have an increasingly global outlook. We strongly believe in the power of literature to build bridges by telling people’s stories. And there’s never been a greater need for that.”

The charm, culture and people of San Miguel de Allende are all parts of the reason why world-famous authors make the trip here each year. Keynoting the 2026 conference, which will be held February 11—15 at the Hotel Real de Minas, are global superstar writers Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone; The Covenant of Water), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun; Americanah; Purple Hibiscus), Rebecca “R.F.” Kuang (The Poppy War trilogy; Babel; Yellowface), Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven; The Glass Hotel; Sea of Tranquility), Andrés Neuman (Bariloche; Traveler of the Century; Fracture; Until It Begins To Shine) Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil (Ää: Manifiestos por la diversidad lingüística), Maira Kalman (The Principles of Uncertainty), and the winner of Canada’s prestigious Giller Prize for fiction (to be announced.)

Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories) and Eduardo Antonio Parra (Nostalgia de la sombra, El rostro de piedra) are two famous names among the dozens of conference faculty who will be offering lectures, advice, and hands-on courses. Attendees will be able to take workshops in everything from plotting telenovelas to writing their memoir. Other faculty members of note include Jean Kwok, Jennifer Clement, Ann Hood, Hope Edelman, Christopher Bollen, and Sara Weinman.

The conference is also a great place for would-be authors to get practical advice from experts on the business and publishing side of literature. Prominent literary agents such as Michael Carr, Anna Knutson Geller, Rita Rozenkranz, Veronica Flores, Sam Hiyate and Susan Golomb will offer one-on-one pitch sessions. Other top publishing insiders offering individual consultations include Harper Influence publisher, Lisa Sharkey. There are also parties galore, faculty readings, open mic sessions, guided local excursions, discussion groups, wellness offerings, and more.

The conference is almost fully bilingual, and many of the Spanish-langue events are free to Mexican nationals. The general director of the Spanish program is Armida Zepeda, who has been instrumental in bringing many famous writers from Mexico and Latin America to San Miguel. “As a culture promoter, I know the literary scene in Mexico, which allows me to interact with literary professionals whom I am thrilled to invite to the festival,” she said.

Prominent Mexican and Spanish-language teaching faculty next year will include Amaranta Caballero, Ana Luisa Isla, Araceli Ardón, Bernardo Govea, Marcela R. Loreto, Mónica Hoth, Rodrigo Díaz Guerrero, Josemaria Moreno, Antolina Ortiz Moore, Matthew Sanabria Stenger, and Magali T. Ortega.

Many credit the event’s president and co-founder, Susan Page, as being among the secrets to its success. “I organized my Brownie troop in the third grade and have been starting organizations ever since,” she jokes. “The Writers’ Conference has put San Miguel on the literary map of the world and brings over three million US dollars into the local economy every year. Plus, I love the experience itself: high-level thrills combined with intimate connections. It’s an enchanting week.”

Her considerable charm and commitment to literature have brought a who’s-who of famous writers to the conference over the last 20 years. Just a small selection of those names include John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Cristina Rivera Garza, Silvia Moreno Garcia, Gloria Steinem, Judy Collins, Alice Walker, Scott Turow, Joyce Carol Oates, Calvin Trillin, Yuri Herrera, Rosa Beltrán, Margo Glantz, Pedro Ángel Palou, Brenda Lozano, Guillermo Arriaga, Adam Gopnik, Elena Poniatowska, Laura Esquivel, Mary Karr, Juan Villoro, Jorge Volpi, Tommy Orange, Paul Theroux, and Delia Owens. (You might also recognize Page’s name as the author of the international bestseller “If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single?”—first published in 1988, and still going strong.)

Tom Robbins, the late counterculture icon whose novels include Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, was an early supporter, keynoting the conference in 2008. Before going home he left a testimonial for the fledgling event, which was then still only catering to a few dozen people: “If Dante had had the San Miguel experience, he would have written more about heaven and less about hell.”

For tickets and more information about the program, please visit the ‘ San Miguel Writers Conference and Literary Festival website: http://www.sanmiguelwritersconference.org

 

Huatulco

Best Books of 2025: Short Stories and Series

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy

A book is a device to spark the imagination.
Allan Bennet

In terms of Bennet’s observation, I found this year of reading disappointingly lacking. Each new season we seek a great read, but what exactly are we looking for?

Novels are rich in character development, have an engaging plot with vivid descriptions of the ambiance of period or place, and possess a distinct writing style. Well executed, these characteristics allow the reader to emotionally connect with the author’s themes, leading to reflection long after the final word is read.

In light of my general dissatisfaction (though a few novels made it into my forthcoming column), I turned to some other genres: the short story for one, as well as essays and series. Here I found the literary satisfaction I was seeking.

Savory Series
One might think a series is merely a collection of novels, but for the reader gratification relies on continuing character development along with detailed, continuing stories of the characters’ lives that cannot be achieved in a single volume.

The following five series, which will take you around the world, provide all of the elements needed for a deeply satisfying season of reading.

The Shetland Island Mysteries by Anne Cleeves
This remote and modest part of the world provides more action and richly developed characters than you might expect. The isolation of the islands and their harsh weather and barren landscape all play roles in the psyche of the population as well as providing an eerie ambiance.

I’m guessing you’ll get hooked on the characters, beautifully crafted throughout the series. Cleeves has a style and method that is simply compelling. Readers of the series have even been inspired to put the Shetland Islands on their travel list.

Cleeves has two other series to enjoy: the Vera Stanhope and Matthew Venn series. All three of Cleeves’ series have been adapted for TV.

The Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito Novels by Anne Hillerman
We are fortunate that Anne Hillerman’s mother and friends encouraged her to continue writing her father’s Navajo tribal police series.

The revered writer Tony Hillerman (1925-2008) and his fictional Navajo Nation detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee charmed mystery lovers in the 1970s, 80s,and 90s. Hillerman’s close field of vision of this Native American population contributed mightily to the popularity of the series. Through his deeply felt descriptions of Navajo culture, Hillerman brought us a new vision of the first Americans.

Anne Hillerman’s earnest effort to continue the series has been a wondrous surprise to fans. She has successfully added detective Bernadette Manuelito (Jim Chee’s wife) to the series, giving her room to be a forceful character in her own right. Manuelito’s relationship with her mother, sister, and Chee adds an exciting new element to the detective unit as well as to the personal lives of the old favorites.

The series re-creates the world of American native citizens of Arizona and New Mexico. The plot weaves in the age-old traditions and beliefs of the people of the southwest in a way that’s engaging and educational. The vivid imagery is so powerful it feels as though the dust might settle on your tongue.

The Sean Duffy Series by Adrian McKinty
McKinty’s hero arrives in the unlikely figure of Belfast Detective Sean Duffy, an independent thinker and rule breaker, not traits usually found in Ulster policemen.

But McKinty’s style is pure genius.

Even if you’re not personally connected to history’s violent political environment of Northern Ireland, the eerie atmosphere of the region and the affairs of the population will entrap you…and Sean Duffy will eventually charm you.

The Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries by Donna Leon
All 33 (so far) novels take place in the ethereal state of Venice, in the mysteriously diverse country of Italy, where detective Commissario Guido Brunetti leads a small group of police that attempts to solve myriad crimes in their district.

However, and this is key, the mysteries always entail more than simply a crime.

Leon gives us sharp glimpses into the social and practical aspects of daily Venetian life. Her characterizations, not only of the police and perpetrators but of Brunetti’s family, are brilliantly colorful in depth and intensity.

Societal and political issues and concerns of the city, as well as other parts of the country, lurk in the background of whatever crime the team is investigating. A few of the novels particularly impressed me with their richness of commentary on Venetian society and personal concerns: Willful Behavior, Friends in High Places, A Noble Radiance, and Uniform Justice.

The Ruth Galloway Novels by Elly Griffiths
It’s nearly impossible to write about favorite series without a shoutout to Elly Griffiths and her memorable archaeologist professor Dr Ruth Galloway, who analyzes buried bones found in Norwich.

Galloway inadvertently (or not) finds herself in the middle of various crime investigations when the bones her archeological students find are not centuries old, but newly emerged. And police investigations ensue.

The real joy in reading this series lies in Griffiths’ keen characterizations—of Dr Ruth Galloway, Detective Nelson, and the Druid Cathbad among others.

Satisfying Short Story Collections

Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell

Argentine writer Schweblin has already tasted success with her 2014 National Book Award-winning Seven Empty Houses. And now this, her latest, is receiving accolades from many sources, most importantly from the prolific Joyce Carol Oates in The New York Times Book Review.

Oates sums it up: “Beautifully translated by Megan McDowell, in prose that shimmers with a sort of menacing lyricism, the stories of ‘Good and Evil’ are powerfully evocative and unsettling. They seem to hover, indeed like fever dreams, between the reassuring familiarities of domestic life and the stark, unpredictable, visionary flights of the unconscious. Everything exists in a state of tension, charged with contradictions.”

Each story, though unique, possesses an unnerving surprise, never taking the expected path.

Dictation by Cynthia Ozick
Recommended by a fellow book club member, I immediately downloaded this quartet of stories. The mention of Henry James and Joseph Conrad as characters in the first story prompted my automatic interest.

Nonetheless, the stars of this short story are the women who take dictation from the masters. The finale is astonishing yet plausible. The other three stories, though without the notable characters of the first, are equally deserving of praise.

Part two of the Best Books of 2025 next month will offer a glimpse into the handful of novels I read in 2025 that satisfied my reading obsession.

Huatulco

The Magic of Oaxaca Unveiled: Books to Start a Journey of Discovery

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy

Oaxaca is ethnically and linguistically the most diverse state in Mexico; it’s also the home state of Mexico’s most popular and effective president, Benito Juárez. It’s here where July’s wildly colorful annual music and dance celebration Guelaguetza takes place. And to quench your thirst, Oaxaca is known for its smooth yet tangy liquor known as mezcal.

If that’s not enough, Oaxaca cheese and mole are incomparable.

I was fortunate to spend ten happy, serene years living on a Oaxacan beach. What follows is a selection from the written word in diverse styles, eras, and points of view of this highly original Mexican state.

The Ultimate Good Luck, by Richard Ford (1981)

We know Richard Ford as the author of The Sportswriter (1986) and its sequel Independence Day (1995), with Frank Bascombe as the protagonist; Independence Day won the Pulitzer Prize – there are three more Bascombe novels. Irving can lay claim to being our present-day Faulkner or Updike.

One reader calls this novel a “narcocorrida.” It certainly take us to the dark side of Mexico with drugs and eroticism in Ford’s unique understated style. The New York Times Book Review describes it as having a “taut, cinematic quality that bathes his story with the same hot, mercilessly white light that scorches Mexico.”

Recollections of Things to Come, by Elena Garro (1969)

The universally admired poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz calls this classic gem “a truly extraordinary work, one of the most perfect creations in contemporary Latin American literature.” These words and the recommendation from the venerated Paz are reason enough to open the pages of this unusual novel.

The fictional town of Ixtepec narrates the story, set in the post-Revolution time (late 1920s). You will meet all the town’s inhabitants, from those in high society to prostitutes on the street.

In an unusual episodic style, impressions move the plot of this novel, which is full of color, smells, and visual seasoning. Garro’s book is often considered one of the first magical realism novels. It is not a pretty picture of Mexico during this time of classism, racism, misogyny, and violence.

You may not be familiar with Garro, though she was at one point married to Octavio Paz. She has been ignored by Mexican intellectuals, who consider her a government informer on the 1968 student movement (known as the Tlatelolco massacre).

Garro spent many years in self-exile, living in the US, Spain, and France, but she returned to live in Cuernavaca, where she died at 81 near her beloved cats and daughter.

Lawrence in Oaxaca: A Quest for the Novelist in Mexico, by Ross Parmenta (1984)

The well-travelled British novelist D. H. Lawrence, famous yet controversial, spent just two years in the Lake Chapala and Oaxaca regions of Mexico.

After the Mexican Revolution, in 1923, he and his wife visited a Mexico that was recuperating from the dregs of war. It is here he finished his well-known Mexican novel The Plumed Serpent (1926). He also completed four of the essays that make up his popular Mornings in Mexico (1927), personal observations that capture the country’s spirit. Reading both these gems will be well worth your while.

Lawrence was not interested in the politics of the Mexican Revolution or the cultural and artistic aspects, such as Mexico’s famed muralists. Lawrence’s interest lay in the “mythical exaltation of the Indian,” which is at the core of The Plumed Serpent – an early draft of the novel was published as Quetzalcoatl (1998).

Lawrence and his wife fled to the US in 1922 after WWI, he having just escaped death from a bout of influenza. He did, however, die shortly thereafter, at age 44 in 1930, from complications of tuberculosis.

He once said “I want to gather together about twenty souls and sail away from this world of war and squalor and found a little colony where there shall be no money but a sort of communism as far as necessaries of life go, and some real decency … a place where one can live simply, apart from this civilization [with] a few other people who are also at peace and happy and live, and understand and be free.” Many would wish the same.

Lawrence in Mexico is a work of double affection both for the novelist and Oaxaca, the city in which he produced his memorable work.

Avenue of Mysteries: A Novel, by John Irving (2015)

John Irving, the modern popular American novelist influenced by Charles Dickens and Gunther Grass, likes to think of himself as a 19th-century storyteller. But Irving introduces additional elements and style that create an almost eccentric and modern atmosphere.

This, his fourteenth novel, is named after a street in Mexico City. It is a story divided into the two aspects of the life of Juan Diego Guerro. The first, where the heart of the novel lies, is reflections and memories of his young life in Oaxaca in the 1970s. The other is his present journey from Iowa to the Philippines to fulfill a promise.

Tayari Jones in The New York Times Book Review lauds this difference: “John Irving is his own thing, and so is his new novel. Avenue of Mysteries is thoroughly modern, accessibly brainy, hilariously eccentric, and beautifully human.”

Avenue of Mysteries is distinctly different from the more popular Irving novels that come to mind when you hear his name, such as The World According to Garp (1978), The Cider House Rules (1985), or A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989).

Oaxaca Journal, by Oliver Sacks (2002)

From Awakenings (1973) to A Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (1985), Sacks is best known for case studies of his patients. This British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science and, of course, author wrote nineteen books, many of them bestsellers.

A nature lover, Sacks blessed us with the beautiful Oaxaca Journal after his 2001 visit to the popular state. The book is an adventure in itself, manifesting the marvels of Oaxaca through his expansive point of view.

From the science of astronomy to the flavors of a luscious cuisine, from the dream-evoking waterfalls to the bustling street markets filled with intricate textiles, Sacks bequeaths us his larger perspective via minute details.

Before his death, Saks philosophized, “Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

Dress Her in Indigo: A Travis McGee Novel, John D. McDonald (1969)

Travis McGee is a household word to faithful McDonald readers. Loyal fans devour each new novel. This one, set in the backlands of Oaxaca, was no exception.

What is the attraction? Fans cite the author’s philosophical and social commentary as their reason to return to each new novel in the series. Dress Her in Indigo centers on a dead woman in a hippie-type community on the outskirts of Oaxaca.

One reader expressed it precisely: “I may never make it to Mexico, but after reading this book set in Mexico – I may not have to.” Another says the story “carries the color and the weight of Mexico on almost every page.”

Oaxaca de Rius, by Eduardo Humberto del Rio García (but known to all in Mexico by his pen name Rius; 2013)

The book boasts 128 eight pages of illustrative delight that explore the traditions, art, and conflicts of Oaxaca. “Drawings, jokes, and notes referring to the state where I live, fleeting impressions,” is how the author himself describes his book.

The sketches offer a glimpse into the gods, customs, churches, Zapotec traditions, festivals, culinary delights, mezcal, and all the rest that makes this state matchless.

Who was Rius? The Mexican government, in the announcement of his death, wrote, “During his lifetime, Rius aimed to contribute to the education and politicization of Mexicans, combat alienation, and foster a critical spirit.”

With Naranjo, Soto, Magú, and other cartoonists, he created Insurgencia popular, the news outlet of the Mexican Workers’ Party (PMT).

Lost in Oaxaca, by Jessica Winters Mireles (2020)

Jessica Winters has done her homework. Most impressive in all the reviews is her understanding and ability to convey the customs and cult ure of this glorious state.

The novel’s plot centers around a schoolteacher in search of her student and a Zapotec man who helps her understand the culture and customs of a society so different from her own, as well as how to view the world in a different light. He helps her navigate the wonders of an unfamiliar culture that is “rugged as the terrain itself.”

On your first or next exploration journey into Oaxaca, heed the advice of a popular song from my youth and “Slow down, you move too fast; you got to make the morning last.”

Soak it all in … and enjoy!

Huatulco

Atmosphere Personified: Environment as Character

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy

Readers often take for granted the setting of a novel, expecting the author to create an atmosphere either directly through straightforward description or indirectly via more oblique prose.

For many stories, though, the sense of place offers the reader another dimension, essentially creating an additional character central to the development of the plot.

The stories in these books could not be told anywhere other than where their authors have set them.

Belfast: Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy crime novels

When we think of Belfast we think: City of the Troubles. Although they can be traced back hundreds of years, the “troubles” as we know them began in the 1960s and lasted until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Unless you’ve been living in a bubble, you know the conflict takes place in a sorely divided Ireland. The island includes the southern portion (the Republic of Ireland), devoted to a sovereign Ireland, and the six counties in the north (Northern Ireland) that are still loyal to the British government, which held control of the entire island until the Republic was formed in 1949. Many people see a united Ireland as the ultimate goal.

This is the setting for the life and career of Detective Inspector Sean Duffy, the only Catholic detective in a nearly 100 percent Protestant unit in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland and the focal point of crime in the country. DI Duffy has a tough exterior, but plays Brahms on the police car radio; he knows how to manipulate, but is essentially honest.

Duffy takes us through the back streets and surrounding rural areas of the city in a country that is desperately looking for solutions to problems of a criminal nature, but also for resolutions in the struggle for a structure in which everyone can live in peace.

The author reinvents actual happenings and crimes of the past to suit his situations. This gives credibility to the sometimes unbelievable mayhem experienced in the region. As we know, truth can be stranger than fiction.

With Duffy the personality and Belfast the catalyst, McKinty has created a world that informs, entertains, and engages his readers. The writing is precise, at times staccato and occasionally lyric, like a Brahms symphony.

Start with book one, The Cold Cold Ground (2012). You need not read the novels in order of publication. To keep readers on their toes, McKinty ends each book with various surprises and tweaks. He never loosens the reins nor lets go of his reader.

Shetland Islands: Anne Cleeves series

Confession: I had to pull out my trusty map collection to locate Shetland. My Chicago Public School education didn’t prepare me for this congregation of small islands 110 miles northeast of mainland Scotland – they are a very real character in the series Cleeves sets there, indeed a world unto itself, relying on weather conditions and human camaraderie in their frank isolation.

The books and characters provide compelling, page-turning entertainment. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, despite his recurring ennui, leads the investigations in the islands.

Winds, storms, and a raging sea are felt as characters that permeate the islanders’ actions and states of mind. Readers might be in awe of this remote way of life. Contrary to what I originally thought when the books were recommended to me, I, a big-city girl, devoured the series during the pandemic, though I initially wondered why a remote place surrounded by water held any interest for me.

There is also a TV series based on the books, but buyer beware. The plots and even characters don’t always duplicate the books. Some are uniquely drawn for the television series.

Addendum: a friend just called, lamenting that she needed something substantive to read that would engage her for a period of time, something to “bite her teeth into” that would endure and captivate. Right off I recommended this Shetland series.

Naples, Italy: Elena Ferrante in the Neapolitan novels

Classical music lovers swarm to Naples to inhale the sea air of the city where opera was born. Its Teatro San Carlos is the oldest active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737.

But this cultural-historical aspect is not the Naples of pseudonymous Italian author Ferrante’s stories in the brilliantly penned novels that make up this tetralogy.

Naples is awakening after the horror of World War II, when the port city was destroyed by the Nazis. It is reestablishing itself in a world that is healing. People are struggling in a place where obvious violence prevails in a city of unrest and poverty. The plot and characters are fiction, but the city is all too real.

The Ferrante books became international bestsellers to the point that there are tours for fans of the series that snake through the dark corners of the city frequented by Lenu and Lila, the main characters, both born in 1944 and raised in the Rione Luzzatti area of Naples (bordered by the prison to the north and central train station to the east).

Naples is not a grand city, like Rome, and no distances seem far from others. The Rione Luzzatti neighborhood, full of littered sidewalks, unmaintained grass, laundry instead of curtains hanging in windows, and the presence of a general malaise, is known for its poverty, violence, and a Mafia presence. While not physically far from the sea and tourist areas, it is miles away mentally and emotionally.

The four novels take us through the childhood and adolescence of the girls, and into early adulthood. Inseparable in early childhood, their paths wander, cross, and often merge later as they go their separate ways in their teen years.

If you hope to encounter the famous author on the streets of Naples, you will be wasting your time as she has successfully chosen to remain anonymous. Despite numerous searches, her identity remains a mystery, somewhat like her city.

Norfolk England: Elly Griffiths’ Dr. Ruth Galloway series

A quiet salt marsh is the home of choice for archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway. She thrives there but also finds peace of mind…and some surprising archeological secrets.

The remoteness, the eerie vibes, and the lure and eccentricity of the salt marsh set the stage for a diverse cast of characters you’ll think about when you drift off to sleep and again when you awaken.

The bones of bodies found in the marsh and the surrounding area come out of the distant past and the all-to-familiar present. It is up to Ruth and her team to determine the ages of buried objects. Was the death natural or imposed?

Each book, as is each case, is unique.

An eavesdropper listening in on a conversation about this series would think the characters belong to your inner circle of friends. You’ll be frustrated by their actions and occasionally angry with them, and then you’ll forgive them, just as we do in daily lives and relationships.

You will savor every minute at the salt marsh.

It’s important to read this series in order, as the author pays close attention to the development of each character and the relationships they establish with other characters. No doubt you will fall in love with Cathbad, as most of us have.

There are 15 books in this captivating series about a woman obsessed by bones! Begin your archeological adventures now with the first book, The Crossing Places (2009).

Sicily: Andrea Camilleri and his Montalbano series

Andrea Camilleri’s 28 books paint a portrait of the island he loves and inhabited (he died in 2019, at the age of 93). They will leave you enchanted with this largest island in the Mediterranean. In addition, the customs and manners of the locals and their idiosyncrasies – especially those of the renowned detective, Commissario Salvo Montalbano – bring spice to the entire landscape.

A TV series based on the series, Il Commissario Montalbano (1999-2021, still available on Amazon Prime), has proved almost as successful as the books. As usual with books and movies, the books delve more deeply into the history and social issues of the island.

The TV series is broadcast in Italian with subtitles. If you’re tempted to ignore the subtitles in an effort to improve your Italian, you may be challenged, as the Italian is Sicilian Italian and is peppered with dialect. Take it from one who has tried.

The fictionalized city of Vigàta is based on Camilleri’s home town, Puerto Empdocle. In the books, the town is located in the famous historical area of Agrigento, on the southern coast of Sicily. The harsh landscape, teetering on the edge of the coast, parallels the often rough daily life of its habitants.

Sicily’s diverse population, thanks to the variety of cultures that have invaded this desirable island, brings a Neapolitan flavor of ways and manners. Fortunately for us, Inspector Montalbano savors the cuisine of his roots. Camilleri shares this table with us throughout: after all, one has to eat!

The series requires a commitment from the reader, but the result is a deep satisfaction with the consistent characterization, brilliant plotting, and extra credit for ambiance.

I envy the adventure you have ahead of you with each of these remarkable place-based books series!

Huatulco

Sneak Preview 2025: A Few New Gems by Our Favorite Writers

Leave a comment

By Carole Reedy

The end of the year creates a wondrous feeling of bookish anticipation that helps move us through the post-holiday doldrums. To whet your appetite for our upcoming reading pleasure, here’s a brief preview of new books by several favorite authors, both fiction and nonfiction. Publication dates are, as always, subject to change.

Fox: A Novel, by Joyce Carol Oates (July 2025)
Lolita for feminists! In yet another of her original novels, the prolific and amazing Joyce Carol Oates this time takes on Vladimir Nabokov’s classic Lolita (1955), shifting the perception to that of the woman in the tale, a temptress schoolteacher named Frances Fox.

I try to read everything Joyce Carol Oates creates. Despite writing more than 100 books, she still finds new, varied, and creative paths to entertain and captivate her readers.

Flashlight: A Novel, by Susan Choi (June 2025)
Susan Choi won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2019 for her novel Trust Exercise: A Novel (2019).

Her newest novel, Flashlight, tells the story of Louisa and her family after her father disappears when she is ten years old. By focusing every other chapter on a different family member, complicated stories are revealed through time, patience, and memory.

Sounds challenging and intriguing.

The River Is Waiting: A Novel, by Wally Lamb (May 2025)
We eagerly await new novels from this skilled writer of the best sellers She’s Come Undone (1992) and I Know This Much Is True (a Novel) (1998).

Advance press for Lamb’s new novel refers to a great deal of pain created by the protagonist’s own mistakes. He goes to prison, where, pondering his errors, he wonders if he can ever be forgiven. Is there a possibility of atonement for the unforgivable?

Fever Beach: A Novel, by Carl Hiaasen (May 2025)
With 14 novels and many best sellers – Skinny Dip: A Novel (2004), Sick Puppy: A Novel (2000), and Squeeze Me: A Novel (2020), among others – under his belt, Hiassen returns with two unique characters who continue yet another laugh-out-loud adventure story in the author’s home state of Florida.

Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, by James Lee Burke (June 2025)
Burke, who spent most of his life in the US South, is one of the most popular mystery writers of our time. Currently splitting his time between Montana and Louisiana, he says the greatest influence in his life was the 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

His latest takes place in Louisiana and New York City and is told through the eyes of 14-year-old Bessie Holland. Holland finds solace in her mentor, a suffragette English teacher who encourages her to always keep fighting, but the challenges presented at the beginning of the 19th century seem almost insurmountable.

Warhol’s Muses: Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine, by Laurence Leamer (May 2025)
Bestselling biographer Leamer explores the lives of 10 superstar women Andy Warhol manipulated for his own artistic benefit while also revealing the mysteries of Warhol’s turbulent life and work. Surely meant to sensationalize!

Leamer is the author of Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era (2023), Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession (2023), and The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family (1996).

Men in Love, by Irvine Welsh (July 2025)
This much-anticipated sequel to the 1993 cult classic Trainspotting joins the two existing sequels, Porno (2005) and Dead Men’s Trousers (2018), but this new novel takes place immediately after Trainspotting.

Recall the characters in Trainspotting (Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, and Begbie) were heroin users in Edinburgh. In this new novel, the crew is dispersed to Scotland, London, and Amsterdam where they try to substitute love for heroin. The author tells us he has never stopped writing about these strange, beloved characters from Trainspotting.

Three years after Trainspotting was published, Danny Boyle converted it into a successful movie starring Ewen McGregor, Robert Carlyle, and Johnny Lee Miller.

Vianne, by Joanne Harris (May 2025)
We know Joanne Harris for her multi-million-copy bestselling Chocolat (1999). Vianne is the story that takes place six years before the famous chocolaterie opens.

It appears this newest novel is equal to its predecessor both in its sensuality and its ability to provoke thought.

Mark Twain, by Ron Chernow (May 2025)
Ron Chernow is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who has tackled the challenge of relating the varied and exciting life of the famous journalist, satirist, and performer Mark Twain.

We know Mark Twain for his two novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), but there is much more to his life and story that comes via his thousands of letters and unpublished manuscripts.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens adopted the moniker Mark Twain and thus gave the world hundreds of hours of entertainment in his vast library of writing. More than a hundred years after his death, Twain, who travelled the world and wrote about it, is still voraciously studied in schools worldwide.

His clever use of words, description, and phrases is still quoted. Some of his most famous aphorisms include, “A classic is a book that people praise and don’t read.” Then there’s “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education,” as well as the popular, “Never put off until tomorrow what may get done the day after tomorrow just as well.”

Speak to Me of Home: A Novel, by Jeanine Cummins (May 2025)
Cummins is the author of the Oprah Winfrey-recommended and highly controversial novel American Dirt (2018), in which a woman and her son must escape their home in Acapulco when they are pursued by narcos. The journey through Mexico and the doubts arising from the purpose of their adventure are the basis for the book.

This new novel takes place in Puerto Rico and the US, telling the tales of fifty years and three generations of immigrants. It is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters and the decisions they face and are haunted by.

This is only a sampling. Many more book recommendations forthcoming over the next few months.

Happy Reading New Year 2025!