BOOKLOVES

Harrold is a former butler to King Charles III and the United Kingdom’s “leading expert on etiquette,” according to the jacket description, but he makes a good impression and does well without a ghostwriter. The Crown plays a modest role in the lives of most Britons, but Harrold’s parents were genuine enthusiasts who enjoyed visiting […]

In the Bernese German dialect, “grossmeer,” or grandmother, translates literally to “large ocean,” and the sense the narrator has of their own beloved but often troubling Grossmeer reflects this vast, enveloping unknowability. As Grossmeer’s condition declines, the narrator sets out to compile the stories that form the complex throughline from their cloistered childhood in the […]

Thirteen-year-old Elma Quill’s family isn’t like any other—people believe that her grandfather Jonathan is crazy, her mother, Patricia, has recently come back from the dead, and her father, Jason, is missing. In a quaint Victorian farmhouse in Oklahoma, Patricia calls a meeting so that Elma can hear the full story of her family’s treasure, though […]

Former classmates at St. Anthony of Padua elementary school in Springhaven, Pennsylvania, come together to organize a gathering 55 years after their graduation in 1964. The process of planning for the event brings back memories of childhood friendships, rivalries, infatuations, and heartbreaks at this Catholic institution, named after a saint who receives prayers to restore […]