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Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

Contemporary fiction

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

by Kathleen Rooney

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Quick Take

Dream big, work hard, love deeply, and walk long: all great resolutions for 2017, and the secret behind the magic of this great novel.

Why I love it

The perfect book to start a new year of reading and of living, both captivating and inspiring, this novel opens on the last day of 1984. Lillian Boxfish is 85 years old and on her own for New Year’s Eve, not for lack of invitations but because she prefers to celebrate and reminisce by herself.

We accompany Lillian on her evening’s peregrinations on foot up, down, and all across Manhattan'“ she is a devout walker '“ and back in time, as she remembers the main events of her life. With wisdom, humor, regret, and resolve, Lillian recounts a life well-lived across many decades, from her days in advertising through becoming a bestselling poet (back when such a thing was a possibility), and on to her love life, passionate but difficult. Hard lessons have been learned, but with knowledge comes acceptance and strength in equal measure.

Now, as she takes her New Year’s walk, Lillian is unsure how she can make the most of whatever time she has left. New York City seems on the edge, with incivility and vigilante justice on the rise, and the threat of AIDS pervading communities. Lillian’s past makes a compelling narrative but her future is less certain.

Lillian’s New Year’s Eve turns out to be not the solitary celebration she’d anticipated, but one filled with both ghosts from her past and wonderfully-alive unexpected companions she meets in the present. On the cusp of a new year and suddenly forced into making connections across generational and cultural lines, Lillian discovers she’s still as vibrant and hopeful and full of potential as the city she loves so much. Neither Lillian nor New York City are ready to call it quits, and the love she gives it and its crazy inhabitants ends up coming back two-fold and more.

Based on the real life of Margaret Fishback, the highest paid female advertising copywriter of the 1930s, the story is as well-told as it is moving. Let Lillian Boxfish lead you into your own new year. Dream big, work hard, love deeply, and walk long: all great resolutions for 2017, and the secret behind the magic of this great novel.

Contemporary fiction
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Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Interesting Facts about Space
The Villain Edit
Bye, Baby
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
How to Read a Book
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
A Summer Affair
Adelaide
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Evil Eye
Maame
Advika and the Hollywood Wives
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
Olga Dies Dreaming
If Only I Could Tell You
How Lucky
My Dark Vanessa
Nine Perfect Strangers
Honey Girl
One Italian Summer
Eight Hundred Grapes
The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes
The Five-Star Weekend
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Nest
Rich and Pretty
Britt-Marie Was Here
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Startup
The Identicals
The Dinner List
Goodbye, Paris
Winter in Paradise
A Woman Is No Man
Queenie
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Beyond the Point
What Happens in Paradise
Nothing to See Here
When We Were Vikings
Anxious People
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Removed
The Kindest Lie
Good Company
Impostor Syndrome
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket
Contemporary fiction
View all
The Last Love Note
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
The Wedding People
The Leftover Woman
The Same Bright Stars
Interesting Facts about Space
The Villain Edit
Bye, Baby
Swan Song
The Days I Loved You Most
How to Read a Book
The Connellys of County Down
Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life
A Summer Affair
Adelaide
The Collected Regrets of Clover
Evil Eye
Maame
Advika and the Hollywood Wives
Once There Were Wolves
We Are the Brennans
Olga Dies Dreaming
If Only I Could Tell You
How Lucky
My Dark Vanessa
Nine Perfect Strangers
Honey Girl
One Italian Summer
Eight Hundred Grapes
The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes
The Five-Star Weekend
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Nest
Rich and Pretty
Britt-Marie Was Here
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Startup
The Identicals
The Dinner List
Goodbye, Paris
Winter in Paradise
A Woman Is No Man
Queenie
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Beyond the Point
What Happens in Paradise
Nothing to See Here
When We Were Vikings
Anxious People
A Good Neighborhood
Big Summer
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Troubles in Paradise
White Ivy
This Close to Okay
The Removed
The Kindest Lie
Good Company
Impostor Syndrome
The Other Black Girl
Apples Never Fall
A Quiet Life
We Are the Light
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
When We Were Bright and Beautiful
The Hotel Nantucket