Rather than analyze Macbeth’s soliloquy (futility) or the Zevin title (infinity), I thought about how Zevin’s book focuses on friendship and its dramatic ups and downs, and my first link is a book about friendship which incidentally has “tomorrow” in the title. In Wishing for Tomorrow (2009), Hilary McKay wrote a sequel to A Little Princess about how Sara’s friends coped without her. Perhaps my distrust of continuations not written by the original author prevented me from enjoying it as much as some of my friends. I do like other books by McKay.
Another book about wishing and friendship is The Wishing Star by Norma Johnston (1964). Imagine my surprise when I pulled this off the shelf at my childhood library long ago and saw it was dedicated to Maud Hart Lovelace! It was years before I met anyone outside my family who would find this as homage as fascinating as I did (yes, they do exist). I got to know Ms. Johnston when I lived in NYC; she was a character.
Third Degree
Julie worries her friends will find out her charming mother has a drinking problem. In my third link by Zoa Sherburne, Jennifer (1959) and her family have moved across the country to escape the memories of a lost sibling. Jennifer’s mother can’t cope and is drinking so much, Jennifer is also afraid to bring friends home.
Fourth Degree
Jennifer Crusie’s Maybe This Time (2010) includes a variety of mothers: Andie Miller, asked to nanny two orphans for a month; her mother, who likes to read tarot cards; and her ex-mother-in-law, who never liked her. There are also ghosts and a second-chance romance! I have been a big fan of this author since a former coworker sent me a copy of Getting Over Bradley.
Fifth Degree
My fifth link is humor. Jennifer Crusie’s books are often laugh-out-loud funny and in Someday, Someday, Maybe (2013) actress Lauren Graham wrote amusingly about a struggling actress who has given herself six more months to make it in New York before she gives up and returns home to teach. It’s fiction but surely based on her own experience trying to get her big break, which turned out to be Gilmore Girls.
Sixth Degree
Sticking with humor, my final link is Death of a Harvard Freshman by Victoria Silver (1984), a mystery I loved about a Harvard student from New Jersey, Lauren Adler, who decides to investigate when a student in her Russian History seminar is murdered. Lauren and her gay friend Michael are very arch and sarcastic and seemed like people I would have enjoyed in college. There is one sequel but nothing else from this author. Kate Miciak once told me Silver was a man. But why did he only write two books? Harvard no longer uses the word "freshman" - now they are called first years.
So I managed to go from Cambridge, MA to London, Western Massachusetts, Washington State, Ohio, NYC, and back to Harvard and Cambridge! Have you read any of these?
Next month (February 3, 2024), we will each start with the book we finished at the end of January (or the last book read).
Jennifer Crusie’s Maybe This Time (2010) includes a variety of mothers: Andie Miller, asked to nanny two orphans for a month; her mother, who likes to read tarot cards; and her ex-mother-in-law, who never liked her. There are also ghosts and a second-chance romance! I have been a big fan of this author since a former coworker sent me a copy of Getting Over Bradley.
My fifth link is humor. Jennifer Crusie’s books are often laugh-out-loud funny and in Someday, Someday, Maybe (2013) actress Lauren Graham wrote amusingly about a struggling actress who has given herself six more months to make it in New York before she gives up and returns home to teach. It’s fiction but surely based on her own experience trying to get her big break, which turned out to be Gilmore Girls.
Sticking with humor, my final link is Death of a Harvard Freshman by Victoria Silver (1984), a mystery I loved about a Harvard student from New Jersey, Lauren Adler, who decides to investigate when a student in her Russian History seminar is murdered. Lauren and her gay friend Michael are very arch and sarcastic and seemed like people I would have enjoyed in college. There is one sequel but nothing else from this author. Kate Miciak once told me Silver was a man. But why did he only write two books? Harvard no longer uses the word "freshman" - now they are called first years.
Next month (February 3, 2024), we will each start with the book we finished at the end of January (or the last book read).
I tried the Tomorrow, Tomorrow etc but just wasn't interested in the gaming stuff so gave up.
ReplyDeleteI agree that much of the gaming stuff reminded me of a computer class I should never have taken in college! However, there was a lot else going on that I found quite fascinating.
ReplyDeleteFun chain-circle here, but what a change of tone from beginning to end. Haven't read any of those titles.
ReplyDeleteThe covers of your older books made me smile. It is a wonder you even thought of those books. Good chain!
ReplyDeleteHere is my post: #6Degrees
Happy New Year.
Very good chain. Darn it, Death of A Harvard Freshman isn't available! I'll try the library--small town libraries often have old stuff. Looks like the author also wrote one for Radcliffe book. Nice.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting chain. I have read one of Hilary Mackays books, Saffy's Angel, and I have another one to read... Love to Everyone.
ReplyDeleteI have not heard of Death of a Harvard Freshman. Interesting that they changed the terminology to first years. It makes sense though.
What a lovely chain. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing, Sam, is that there is a murder in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow but it is not unsolved, so there is no mystery, only tragedy. But I agree there was a change in tone, although I realized at the end, I could get the chain back to Harvard.
ReplyDeleteAnne, I still own many of those older books I read in childhood although I have been donating some to the de Grummond or Simmons Library.
Lisa, my sister and I, both alums, really enjoyed Death of a Harvard Freshman and Death of a Radcliffe Roommate, although I seem to recall the first one was better. They were both paperback originals so probably few have survived.
Love to Everyone (which had a better title in the UK; one of my friends accidentally bought it twice; don't you hate when publishers do this?) is one of McKay's best books, Tracy. It reminded me of Flambards which is in my all-time top ten.
Davida, you are frequently in my thoughts. I hope 2024 is a safer year in your part of the world.
I'm on the wait list for the Tomorrow book--I guess I didn't realize it was sad. I'll need to brace myself. Maybe I should get the Someday book by Lauren Graham, whom I loved in GG--I didn't know about this book, but it sounds very fun to read. I saw her as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls in NYC in the 2008 timeframe, and she was great! Although that is a great role.
ReplyDeleteSame as some of your other readers, this book wasn't for me. But there is always a way to link books to the starter.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I have not read any of your books, I hadn't even heard of any of them. But that's the beauty of this challenge, we get to know so much about other books that we might never read.
My Six Degrees of Separation ended with Books That Changed the World.