A great new book for your summer reading list!
July always feels to me like the real beginning of summer. And of course you know what summer means to me: summer reading!
I just read a terrific new novel I want to share with you. In fact, I like it so well I’ve arranged to have it available to you at a special discount, so you can add it to your summer reading list!
The Transcriptionist is Amy Rowland’s debut novel. Rowland is a book review editor at The New York Times. Prior to that, she worked for many years as a transcriptionist for Times, typing up interviews and reporters’ stories.
The book centers on Lena, who spends her days in a lonely office at a major New York newspaper called The Record, with the words of others flowing into her ears and out of her fingertips. Lena is beginning to have the sense that, by channeling the words and thoughts of others for so long, she is beginning to lose her own. She rarely talks to other people and, when she does, she is prone to quoting dead authors.
What sets off the action of the novel is an article in The Record about a suicide in which a blind woman jumps the fence of the lion’s area at the Bronx Zoo, swims the moat, and is devoured by a lion. Lena realizes that, days before this incident, she had an encounter with this very woman on a city bus. As we follow Lena’s search to learn more about this unknown woman, we learn about Lena’s background and we are also given an inside glimpse into the workings of a beleaguered institution: the major city paper.
I greatly enjoyed reading this quirky, thoughtful, unusual and well-written book. I highly recommend you give it a try!
You can place an order for a copy with a special one-time only Open Book 25% discount: https://squareup.com/market/open-book/transcriptionist-the
Happy reading!
