Reading Room

Reading room
Here’s what we’re reading this month

Love Walked In
By Marisa de los Santos
Plume book, Penguin Group 320 pages

When Martin Grace enters the hip Philadelphia coffee shop Cornelia Brown manages, her life changes forever. Charming and debonair, the spitting image of Cary Grant, Martin sweeps Cornelia off her feet, but, as it turns out, Martin Grace is more the harbinger of change than change itself. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, eleven-year-old Clare Hobbs must learn to fend for herself after her increasingly unstable mother has a breakdown and disappears. Taking inspiration from famous orphans (Anne Shirley, Sara Crewe, Mary Lennox, and even Harry Potter) Clare musters the courage to seek out her estranged father. When the two of them show up at Cornelia’s cafe, Cornelia and Clare form a bond as unlikely as it is deep. Together, they face difficult choices and discover that knowing what you love and why is as real as life gets.
Read along with Flare.com – Buy your copy now!

Getting Rid of Matthew
By Jane Fallon
Harper Collins, 224 pages
Watch the trailer here!

This debut novel from Jane Fallon will leave you and the ladies with plenty to chat about. Turning the chick-lit formula on its head, Getting Rid of Matthew tells the story of a most-unlikely heroine: the other woman.
When Matthew finally leaves his wife Sophie, his longtime girlfriend Helen realizes maybe being a part-time lover wasn’t so bad after all. Matthew is messy, mopey – and impossible to get rid of. With her caustic wit, intelligently drawn characters and an engaging plot, Getting Rid of Matthew is a highly entertaining, completely satisfying read – even if you can’t help but hate the main character a little bit…
Read along with Flare.com – Buy your copy now!

Made for Each Other
By Bronwyn Cosgrave
Bloomsbury, 307 pages

If your sole motivation for sitting through the Oscars is seeing what the stars are wearing, pick up a copy of this book. Author Bronwyn Cosgrove, who used to cover the Academy Awards for BBC TV presents a fascinating account of the long-standing relationship between style and celebrity – from the glamour of Marlene Dietrich, to risk-taking divas  Cher and Sharon Stone, to couture-clotheshorse Nicole Kidman, Cosgrave tells the inside story of how the biggest stars dress for their big night.

Bad Bridesmaid
By Siri Agrell
Harper Collins,
Watch the trailer here

Whether you’ve been a bridesmaid yourself, or just laughed at the outfits from a distance, you’re bound to enjoy this collection of tales from National Post columnist Siri Agrell. Kicked out of her own friend’s bridal party for having the audacity to question the sanity of the tradition (which seems to consist mainly of wearing bad dresses, spending too much money and participating in endless showers) Agrell received countless letters from readers commiserating with their own bridal horror stories. Their stories are published in this laugh-out-loud volume proving that while being a bridesmaid may not be much fun, reading about them sure can be!

The Glass Castle
By Jeanette Walls
Scribner, 288 pages

You might want to clear your schedule before diving into this compulsively-readable memoir. Funny, poignant and at times so off-the-wall it’s hard to believe it’s a true story, this book is sure to keep you up reading way past your bedtime.
Walls book tells the story of her nomadic and dysfunctional family – headed by her sometimes-charming, but often deceitful alcoholic father and her mother, a free spirit who refused to shoulder the responsibility of raising a family. Walls and her siblings learned to take care of one another, eventually finding their way to New York, where they carved out stable lives even as their parents chose life on the streets.

– Kali Pearson