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