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WellRead January Selection: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman
January's selection is both the funniest book we've read in a long time and also a book set in a hospice.
Would you believe us if we told you that January's selection is both the funniest book we've read in a long time and also a book set in a hospice? The New York Times reviewer said it belongs to a category called "really too sad for my taste, but so good I couldn’t put it down, and now I have to tell everyone I know they have to read it.” If this wasn't quite how you expected your reading year to begin (hysterical laughing followed by guttural sobbing etc), do us a favour and just read the first chapter before making up your mind. Because as well as being heartbreaking, it's also a joyful, generous and whip-smart story of female friendship. We adored it!
Edith and Ashley have been best friends for over forty years. They’ve shared the mundane and the momentous together: Gilligan’s Island reruns and REM concerts; hickeys and heartbreak; marriages, infertility, and children. As Ash notes, “Edi’s memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.”
But now the unthinkable has happened. Edi has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or three), and a rotating cast of beautifully human hospice characters.
For lovers of Meg Wolitzer and Nora Ephron, this precious book shows us that life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, and about learning when to hold on and when to let go. The bar has been set incredibly high for 2023, dear readers.
