Re-Envisioning the Blog & New Reads

I've been moved, at long last, to do some urgently needed updates to this blog.

I finished An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer this morning, and the novel persisted in being a relaxing, though mildly provocative read. It's such a relief to read a novel geared specifically toward people in their fifties and early sixties. I heartily recommend it! Please see my earlier posts for more details.

I am now reading a YA novel by a German writer, Peter Hartling, which is set in Austria in 1945-1946. It's entitled Crutches and is about an orphaned German boy and a crippled German soldier strugging for survival in Vienna. The twelve-year-old boy, separated from his mother during a stampede at a German train station at war's end, arrives in Vienna, hoping to be reunited with his aunt. His aunt's house and all the apartments on the street have been reduced to rubble and she is nowhere to be found.

I've also started a new adult novel published in January 2012, The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesy. Once again, I'm reading it on the Nook, which is such a help to my eyes! The brightly lit screen helps immensely, no matter what kind of day I'm having with my vision, and I'm able to read much more rapidly than I'm able to read a standard hardcover or paperback book.