<p>I am siding with Mary’s happy ending for Roland and Maud! Repeating, I will not change my mind, I will not change my mind…</p>
<p>I have been looking over your list, and you all have read some good books! I especially loved Major Pettigrew, The Thirteenth Tale, State of Wonder, and Before I Go to Sleep, (this, while I was tending to someone close in the hospital), The Help. </p>
<p>I offer a few suggestions, for future books because they sit here in my to-be-read stack, and not because they are vouch-safe…descriptions from Amazon.com</p>
<p>Swamplandia by Karen Russell-(a gift book from S’s GF) Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush and bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.</p>
<p>The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich (I recently read her Round House, thought it excellent, although brutal. This one’s a gift from my son).</p>
<p>A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (I have read others, but not this, adore his writing)</p>
<p>The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Haven’t read this one, love his writing too–and reading of life in the decadent 20’s)</p>
<p>The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball (non-fiction, woman meets farmer, leaves New York to live on farm; a Christmas gift from my mom)</p>
<p>The World As We Know It by Joseph Monninger (another gift from my mom, A lifetime of friendship begins the day brothers Ed and Allard save Sarah from drowning in an icy river near their rural New Hampshire home. Though their paths diverge through the years, the connection between the three endures until a heartbreaking tragedy in the remote mountains of Wyoming forces Sarah and Allard to confront the unthinkable. In their grief, they find themselves on separate journeys that test the enduring bonds of their relationship and time’s unremitting power to heal. Poignant and transformative, The World as We Know It is subtle and heartrending—a love story of friendship, nature, and the surprising twists that can alter our destinies forever.)</p>
<p>Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley (gift from my son, I don’t know if I’ll read this unless with a group…Cover blurb from NYT “A powerful and vitriolic indictment of the intellectual world.”</p>
<p>And Crossing To Safety by Stegner is one of my favorites, ever (given to me some 20 years ago by my MIL).</p>
<p>I’m a new-comer here, so I do not want to intrude. These are just some suggestions based on what’s sitting here, so I won’t seem like a lurker :-(.</p>
I too have decided to picture Roland and Maud communicating by letter and poem and having the passion of Randolph/Christabel and the enduring comfortable love of Randolph and Ellen.</p>