The Latecomer by Jean Hanff KorelitzThe book we introduce this month is The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz, an American novelist, playwright, theatre producer and essayist. Published in 2022, it tells the story of the parents and children of a rich, dysfunctional Jewish family.
The blurb on the back cover of the novel reads:
The Oppenheimer triplets have been reared with every advantage. But they have been desperate to escape one another ever since they were born. Now, on the verge of their departure for college and so close to their long-coveted freedom, the triplets are forced to contend with an unexpected complication: a fourth Oppenheimer sibling has just been born. What has possessed their parents to make such an unfathomable decision? The triplets can’t begin to imagine the impact this unwanted sibling will have on their lives – nor the power this little latecomer is about to exert….
Music played
In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt by Edvard Greig.
Book recommendations from Reading Circle members:
• The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. A novel about a novel – a psychologically suspenseful novel about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.
• Wreckonomics by Ruben Andersson and David Keen – argues for a better appreciation of the true costs and benefits of various wars and fights – and in particular of the way that costs have been unfairly and unevenly distributed.
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – A realism over from 1939 about the struggles of a family of tenant farmers who are evicted from their farm in Oklahoma because of drought and dust storms and travel to California in search of a new life.
• Essays in Love by Alain de Botton – Brings a philosopher’s sensibility to his analyses of the emotions of love, resulting in a genre-breaking book that is at once touching and though-provoking.
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer – the mesmerising, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captures the world’s attention.
• Great Uncle Harry by Michael Palin – A novel of war and empire. An utterly compelling account of an ordinary man who led an extraordinary life. A blend of biography, history, travelogue, and personal memoir.
• Free Love by Tessa Hadley – A woman turns her life upside down and feels the allure of swinging London in this poignant tale of mid-life desire.
• Feline Philosophy by John Gray – Why can’t a human be more like a cat? This question threads through this vivid patchwork of philosophy, fiction, history and memoir.
• The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak – A story of love, friendship and spirituality – in a magical setting.
• 10 minutes 38 seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak – A one-woman story about a sex worker in Istanbul: a profound and unflinching look ar sexual violence.
• The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese – 7 decades of an Indian family’s evolution: a magisterial epic of love, faith and medicine.
• Annas Mitgift by Maria Kandolph-Kühne (in German) Maria’s new family memoir – social and political history in Vorarlberg
