Love, Work, Children

This is the book that finally got me working on this blog. I'd been toying with the idea of a book blog for about a year, but I never had the time or impetus to make it happen. After reading Love, Work, Children by Cheryl Mendelson, I fell in love with reading all over again. Like many good books, this one was recommended by my mother, who has a golden touch. Her uncanny ability to recognize greatness in something long before it becomes popular is hard to overstate.

This book is the second in Mendelson's Morningside Heights trilogy set in the New York neighborhood of the same name. Mendelson uses omniscient narration to allow us to hear the thoughts of each character. Another author might not be able to pull that kind of thing off, but Mendelson does it with such ease that it's easy to get engrossed in the book and realize that an hour has flown by. Indeed, I did just that while nursing a cold last month - and anyone whose ever had a baby can tell you that it's often very hard to relax fully knowing that cries might be just around the corner. Thankfully, my husband was tending baby when I dove head first into this book and didn't come up for air until a few hours later!

The plot is intricate, like Mendelson's writing, and ties up in a nice little bundle in the end in ways that you might not anticipate. The story weaves around the residents of an apartment building, especially Peter Frankl who is thinking of leaving his wife after many years of marriage. Then there's the younger generation who are struggling with their own relationship issues. My favorite character is Alexi, the young Russian immigrant who fixes computers and teaches chess to finance his dream of becoming an opera singer.

Since we only have one bookcase, we give away almost every book we read (or return them to the library). One rare occasions, I'll keep a book that has changed my life or provided me with such fond memories that I can't bear to part with it. I made a special spot for this book.