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Peter Ackroyd
A short essay by Peter Ackroyd about his 2009 novel The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
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Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall, discusses her Booker shortlisted novel at the the London bookstore, Daunt Books (3 part video)
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   Summary and Book Reviews

Open House: Summary and book reviews of Open House by Elizabeth Berg, plus links to an excerpt from Open House and a biography of Elizabeth Berg.

Open House Open House
by Elizabeth Berg
Hardcover: Jul 2000,
256 pages.
Paperback: May 2001,
272 pages.

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Book Summary

In this superb novel by the beloved author of Talk Before Sleep, The Pull of the Moon, and Until the Real Thing Comes Along, a woman re-creates her life after divorce by opening up her house and her heart.

Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember--and reclaim--the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage. Open House is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself.

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 Kirkus Reviews
The eighth effortless novel from soft-pedaling specialist Berg is an emotional slurpee/comedy featuring the newly separated mother of a near-teenaged son who finds the man of her dreams in spite of herself .... Skillfully crafted, with a fluidity and snap that will delight Berg's fans but, when all is said and done, a distressingly familiar story.

 Library Journal
Berg writes with clarity, accurately capturing the aftermath of an adjustment of the heart. Her characters are true to life, with diverse and complex emotional reactions to real-life situations.

 Publishers Weekly
Berg once again refreshes a well-worn plot with knowing domestic detail, an understanding of familiar--sometimes conflicting--female emotions and an infectious sentimental optimism.


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