Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that a writer that died two years ago has a new book out.  After all Tupac Shakur has a musical in development on Broadway and Dick Francis and Anne McCaffrey are still writing books (with their offspring) well after their deaths!  That said, I still wanted to read the new Maeve Binchy!

This collection of short stories reads more like a set of sketches for future books- some of the stories are more developed than others. My favorites in this collection are the tale a lonely widow and the builder hired to renovate the house next door and the story of four women who decide to buy a house together. Some of the stories' main characters appear in the background of other stories and all the stories have a satisfying resolution. I'd recommend this collection for hardcore Maeve Binchy fans only.  384 pages.

Ten White Geese by Gerbrand Bakker

A scholar of Emily Dickinson rents a farm in Wales. She calls herself Emilie. She eats, she sleeps, she walks around the countryside, and she goes to villages for food and other supplies. She begins to make paths and plant shrubs and flowers. She sees that there are 10 white geese in the field, and they begin to disappear, one by one.

Gradually, we learn that she is ill, and that she fled Amsterdam because she had an affair with her student. She told no one that she was leaving.

This is a book club selection for me, and I found it really, really boring. There is no character development; the characters for the most part aren’t even named. They are: the husband, the wife, the mother, the father, the policeman, etc.  There is no real plot; we get glimpses of her life before Wales, but never the story. I like stories! And I like to know about characters: who they are,  how they think, what makes them who they are. There is no story here, and the characters are cardboard cutouts.

Not a book I will be recommending.

241 pages