![]() ![]() Mary Jane is taken aback by the chaotic, informal, and warm Cone Household – so different from her own. Little does the mother know he is a psychiatrist and a bit of a hippy. ![]() Her mom lets her become a “summer nanny” for a young girl in the neighborhood because the father is a doctor. The narrator and lead character is a 14-year-old girl growing up in a very conservative house in a Baltimore suburb in the mid-1970s. Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau is a delight. I just read a great new book in the genre, and I am ready to add that author to this list of favorites. Favorite authors in this last genre include Lipman, Nick Hornsby, and Stephen McCauley. And I am drawn to contemporary novels “where good people reliably find happiness in a somewhat amusing fashion,” to quote Elinor Lipman, one of the best practitioners of the genre. I am also drawn to mystery novels where an able detective navigates a dangerous and corrupt world, living up to his moral code and resolving the case in the end. I am drawn to science fiction and fantasy novels that allow me to escape this world and show me that other worlds are possible. I find myself drawn to three types of books during the pandemic, as I seek solace and escape. ![]()
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