BOOKS
Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki
(Pan Macmillan, $20)
A delicious debut detailing deception and confession among several generations of one family, from a wedding night recitation of Byron in 1950s Calcutta, to a primary school performance of Noël Coward’s Private Lives in modern-day London. — Adult
The Invisible Woman by Lucy Cavendish
(Penguin, $28)
A read-it-with-wine, let-the-house-burn-down story of one modern extended family’s meltdown in a tumbledown cottage. Chaos ensues as Samantha’s lascivious ex-husband, Jon the second, arrives to stay. Well-drawn children characters distinguish it from the current crop of chick lit. MC — Adult
Like this? Try Any Way You Want Me (Pan Macmillan). Good and easy like Doritos, it tells of a mom of two who discovers she misses her former sexpot ways.
The Bill from My Father by Bernard Cooper
(Simon & Schuster, $20)
The rueful dissection of the relationship between Cooper and his remote father (who did indeed send him a two-million-dollar bill for paternal expenses) depicts the segue between longing and the shape-shifting nature of memory. MC — Adult
DVD
Little Children directed by Todd Field
(New Line Cinema, $39)
A modern take on suburban alienation, it stars Kate Winslet as a disaffected mom and Patrick Wilson as a passive house-husband, who take their attraction beyond the playground. LM — Rated 18A
