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HOW TO READ A BOOK

Monica Wood

From the awarding-winning author of THE ONE-IN-A-MILLION BOY comes a deeply moving story about a young woman recently released from prison who finds an unlikely ally in the widower of the woman she killed.
"Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle..."

Violet Powell, a 22-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a kindergarten teacher. Abandoned by a family mortified by her crime, she's left to make her own way in Portland. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When they encounter each other one morning in Portland's Wadsworth Books - Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman - their lives begin to intersect in life-altering ways.

How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt and finding second chances. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.
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Published 2024-06-01 by Mariner Books

Comments

What a master of plot and character Monica Wood is. I love the various worlds How to Read a Book took me to: a prison, a bookshop, and a laboratory, all in Portland, Maine. And I love how hopefully Wood writes about grief and second chances on behalf of her three protagonists. Surely everyone who reads this novel will want to offer Ollie, a voluble African grey parrot, a home.

A young female ex-con, a widower who was collateral damage, and a woman who runs the prison book clubthree indelible voices (and let's not forget one extraordinary parrot's), remind us that life is full of mysteries, and sometimes the ones we believe are unsolvable are the ones that might save us. About second chances (our lives need not be apologies), the weight of forgiveness, our bond with our books, and the stubborn way love can make us see a world shining with mercy, Wood's new novel is both incandescent and unforgettable.