July 31, 2026
In the olden days (which is sometime before, let's say, 2010), there were lots of really fun book parties. Now they are few and far between. So when there is a big-themed book event like the one that Tom, Francesca and I went to on Wednesday night to celebrate the August 18th US publication of Raphael Montes' novel, THE SECRET DINNER, it's special. The party was hosted by Celadon Books and the author.
July 31, 2026
Well, this month flew by. January always feels like a year, and July feels like a long weekend. We know that many book groups skip a month or two over the summer, but that just means you have plenty of time to read books to suggest at your next book group meeting. I have been on a total reading tear, which has been fun.
Somehow, I allow myself more pleasure reading time during the summer than at any other time of the year. I can stand in the pool and read for hours. I have read so many books that I have enjoyed. It has been one really wonderful summer for reading! Read on to see what I mean.
Editorial Content for Country People
Book
Teaser
Joyous, absurd and life-affirming, COUNTRY PEOPLE is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.
Promo
Joyous, absurd and life-affirming, COUNTRY PEOPLE is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.
About the Book
A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont) --- a “witty and gorgeous” (The Guardian) novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of NORTH WOODS.
Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, 12 years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life.
But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, a great capacity “to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales --- from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas.
The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre --- perhaps ridiculous --- local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.
Joyous, absurd and life-affirming, COUNTRY PEOPLE is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.
