Pennie’s December Pick:
THE IMPOSSIBLE LIVES OF GRETA WELLS

9780062213785_a6458    9780062213792_8e2ae

This month’s book pick by Costco’s influential buyer, Pennie Clark Ianniciello, featured in the Costco Connection is The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer, (HarperCollins/Ecco; hardback, 6/25/13, cover above left; trade pbk, 4/15/14, right; HarperAudio). Ironically, it not only gets the nod from the chain, independent booksellers also made it an IndiNext pick in hardcover. A further irony; Greer admits in the Costco interview that he was fired from many jobs, including one as a bookseller.

IndieNext July, 2013: “This exquisitely rendered novel captures one character in three distinct and historically significant periods: during the flu epidemic of 1918, the wartime world of 1945, and the full-blown AIDS terror of 1985. Greer manages to achieve the near impossible in making Greta believable in all three eras. Greta suffers and learns in each circumstance, though her hard-won, accumulated knowledge is of little help in solving the essential riddle that is life. Still, hers is a grand and brave journey that will not soon be forgotten.” — Marion Abbott, Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, Berkeley, CA

It was later chosen as a New York Times Notable Book for the year.

OverDrive Sample.

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