Isola by Allegra Goodman

April 30, 2025

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Marguerite de Rocque was orphaned as a small child. Heir to her family's fortune, her cousin Roberval is appointed her guardian and administrator of her estates. But he squanders her money and sells her manor house to finance one last desperate voyage to the new world, taking Marguerite with him. When she falls in love with his secretary, Roberval abandons them to die on a deserted island near Canada without food or shelter.

I liked this more than I expected that I would, since I frequently hate the books selected by those celebrity and TV book clubs. But I had this on my reading list before Reese Witherspoon picked it, so I decided to read it anyway. Based on the true story of Marguerite de Rocque who lived in 16th century France. Marguerite suffers abandonment in a number of ways, and she lived an interesting life. Brought up to be a pampered lady, she perseveres and survives extreme hardship. Recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction that focuses on strong women.

Some of the islands in the St. Lawrence River, which look a lot nicer in the summer than they do in winter

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

August 19, 2023

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

David lives with his father, his new stepmother, and his new half-brother. He is a lonely child, desperately missing his dead mother and feeling unwanted by the rest of the family. He loses himself in books, mainly fairy tales, until one night, he wanders into the garden following the sound of his mother's voice, and is swallowed by a tree. The tree turns out to be a portal to another world that David calls Elsewhere. There are familiar fairy tale figures but they appear and act differently than they did in the stories he read. David wants to go home more than anything, but first he has to find the king, who has a book that may hold the answer on how to get there.

Grimm's Fairy Tales (the original gruesome ones) meets the Wizard of Oz. David is on a quest where he meets people who help him and others who try to hinder him. He feels his mother's death is somehow his fault, even though she died after a long illness that sounds like cancer. At the same time, he feels abandoned, and that if he would just disappear, his father could have a new life with his new family.

I read this book when it first came out and decided to re-read it before I get the sequel (The Land of Lost Things). While there is a lot going on here about the psychology of fairy tales and mythology, you can also read the book just for the enjoyment of David's story. The sequel is coming out in the fall of 2023.

A fairy tale cottage