WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

1. What are you currently reading? Christmas Every Day by Beth Moran. The book begins with the holiday party at a major London law firm. Everyone is abuzz because the firm's most eligible partner is rumored to be ready to settle down. What fabulous woman has captured his heart? Our narrator, Jenny, is sure she knows. After all, she's his personal assistant and secret lover. When she finds out that she will not, however, be his bride, she breaks down. Or rather, she publicly melts down. 

She loses her big city job and moves to a ramshackle rural cottage, left empty by the death of a grandmother she barely knew. As she rehabs the cottage, and her life, she makes friends with the village women. Together they support one another as they work toward the individual goals they vow to reach by next Christmas. And, in true romance novel fashion, she clashes with her gorgeous but grumpy neighbor, Mack.

This book reminds me of another I read last spring: Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff and Amber Flynn. In that book, set on this side of the pond, a Manhattanite loses everything in her divorce and moves into the suburban wreck left to her by her favorite aunt. She, too, clashes with a hunky neighbor. 

But that's OK. I just read a big, heavy historic volume filled with real-life horror and heartbreak (see below). Chick-lit that feels familiar and has a warm, fuzzy Christmas overlay is just what the doctor ordered.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Death of a President by William Manchester. This is the closest to an authorized account of the Kennedy assassination we have. Manchester was chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to write it. She and Manchester later had a major falling out, but that was less about fact than detail.

I picked it up hoping to revisit the events as historic fact. There are so many hysterical theories out there and those get more play. But I'm not interested in lurid, tinfoil-hat conspiracies. I wanted to see what happened, hour-by-hour. How did the most famous murder of the 20th century take place? How did the principals behave in the aftermath?

While that's all here, I came away with a greater understanding of human nature than the crime. This book is about how people behave when confronted with an unacceptable reality, and how they move on to grieve. I found it compassionate, universal and compelling. It was also painful. Know that if you choose to pick up this 700+ page book, you may have to put it down and turn away at times.

3. What will read next? I don't know.