Library Journal's Reader's Shelf

Read me a letter:  Epistolary Fiction and Nonfiction

84, Charing Cross Road By Hanff, Helene 1990-10 - Penguin Books 9780140143508 Check Our Catalog When New York City writer Helene Hanff sends a letter to London bookshop Marks & Co. requesting good, clean copies of a few books she inadvertently begins a charming and hilarious correspondece with bookseller Frank Doel. This bound version of that correspondence is a book no booklover should be without. …More

The Pull of the Moon By Berg, Elizabeth 1997-08 - Jove Books 9780515120899 Check Our Catalog When was the last time you dreamed about running away? In this luminous novel from bestselling author Elizabeth Berg, 50-year-old Nan leaves behind home and husband to take a second look at life--and learn how to live it all over again. …More

Which Brings Me to You By Almond, Steve Author Baggott, Julianna 2006-04 - Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 9781565124431 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title A funny and shocking epistolary novel of modern love, told in the alternating voices of a man and a woman who spend the course of a year candidly writing to each other about their past love affairs. …More

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters By Robinson, Elisabeth 2005-01 - Back Bay Books 9780316159364 Check Our Catalog A BookPage Notable Title Hollywood and leukemia are the two unlikely poles of this wrenching, tragicomic novel now in its third printing. Pouring out her troubles in epistolary form, 34-year-old Olivia Hunt, a struggling film producer, chronicles a year of dizzying highs and devastating lows. …More

We Need to Talk about Kevin By Shriver, Lionel 2006-07 - Harper Perennial 9780061124297 Check Our Catalog The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry Eva never really wanted to be a mother and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails. …More

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society By Shaffer, Mary Ann Author Barrows, Annie 2009-05 - Dial Press 9780385341004 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title In 1946, writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name. …More

Ella Minnow Pea By Dunn, Mark 2001-10 - MacAdam/Cage Publishing 0967370167 Check Our Catalog Ella Minnow Pea is an epistolary novel set in the fictional island of Nollop situated off the coast of South Carolina and home to the man who invented the phrase The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog. Now deceased, the islanders have erected a monument to honor their hero, but one day a tile with the letter "Z" falls from the statue. The leaders interpret the falling tile as a message from beyond the grave and the letter is banned from use. On an island where the residents pride themselves on their love of language, this is seen as a tragedy. They are still reeling from the shock, when another tile falls and then another.... Mark Dunn takes us on a journey against time through the eyes of Ella Minnow Pea and her family as they race to find another phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet to save them from being unable to communicate. Eventually, the only letters remaining are LMNOP, when Ella finally discovers the pangram that will save their language. …More