The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 278 pages/hardcover $22.00 The Dial Press, 2008 paperback edition to be released by Dial Press 5/5/09 ($14.00) “We clung to our books and our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us.” Told entirely in letters, this charming and deeply moving novel celebrates the power of friendship, love, and books to sustain the human spirit. In Guernsey, one of England’s Channel Islands occupied by the Germans in World War II, an unusual book group forms. Begun as a ruse to fool the capriciously... (Read More ...)

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult 477 pages/hardcover $27.95 Atria Books, 2009 Reviewed by Cindy Kane Bestselling author Jodi Picoult delivers another compelling mixture of family dynamics and ethics in her new novel. Handle With Care explores the emotional toll of caring for a seriously ill child and the repercussions of a medical malpractice suit that asks the question: Could a family have been better off if a child had never been born? The novel is told as a series of diary-style entries addressed to Willow, the daughter of Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe. The O’Keefes have coped with... (Read More ...)