My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Europa Editions, 2012.  331 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. In granular detail, the narrator, Elena, chronicles her friendship with the magnetic Lila, from their meeting in first grade through their late teen years. The girls, born near the end of World War II, grow up in a dangerous,… [Read More]

Suite Française Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky; translated from the French by Sandra Smith.  Vintage Books, 2007.  403 pages; $15.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Némirovsky’s novel is accompanied by some fifty pages of notes. If you read only the novel itself, you will take up a panoramic, camera’s-eye view of Paris in June of 1940. You will… [Read More]