Fiction: December 2007 Archives

Thomas Kinkade is best known as the "painter of light." Art snobs will tell you he's a hack and a sellout but his popularity cannot be denied as he is reportedly the most-collected living artist in America.

I am not a Kinkade collector but I won't dismiss his appeal. His paintings have a Norman Rockwell-like charm, with simple hometown themes, and his depiction of light is undeniably cool.

The artist also has been writing books for some years now, with Katherine Spencer. They continue the Cape Light series with their eighth installment, A Christmas Visitor (Berkley, 249 pages, $23.95)...

I chose today's book, Love Falls (HarperCollins, 304 pages, $13.95), because I was intrigued that the author, Esther Freud, is Sigmund Freud's great-granddaughter; also because the main character, Lara Riley, is of my era.

Lara is 17 in the summer of 1981, when Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. I was also a teenager that summer — but that's where the similarities end. I, for example, am not British and was not whisked off to Italy by my reclusive father to spend the summer at a Tuscan estate, where I then spent my days adventuring with the Willoughbys next door and falling in love with the family heir, Kip.

What could be worse than losing your job right before Christmas? How about knowing you're losing your job and then having to suck it up and work one last night serving holiday shoppers and partygoers as they celebrate what should be a joyous time of year.

That's the dilemma facing Red Lobster manager Manny as he must try to remain positive for the employees in Last Night at the Lobster (Viking Penguin, 146 pages, $19.95) by Stewart O’Nan...