Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. – Barbara Ellis
‘Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford,’ by Carla Kaplan (Harper, 2025)
Raised in a privileged, aristocratic English family, many of whom embraced fascism in the 1930s, Mitford followed her own rebellious path, seeking adventure, shirking responsibility and ultimately joining the Communist Party in her adopted home in the United States. She seemingly knew everyone in radical leftist circles, where she found her chosen family and her passion for activism. That passion led ultimately to her writing career. Kaplan mines Mitford’s own writings, her family letters and photos, plus archives to detail each phase of this multifaceted life, illuminating along the way her loves, losses, loyalties and confounding contradictions. But do we really need to know how much Mitford was paid for a TV Guide article? An interesting life and lots of history here, but Kaplan was unable to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff, to my dismay. — 2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
‘After Annie,’ by Anna Quindlen (Random House, 2024)
Annie Brown is a wife, mother of four children and a nursing home aide. She dies suddenly in her kitchen due to a brain aneurysm. The book follows the journey of Annie’s family and a close friend as they each deal with their grief. Ali is the eldest daughter and struggles to deal with her grief and responsibilities for her younger siblings. Bill is the husband and is now aware that Annie held the family together and stood up to his obnoxious mother. Annemarie is the close friend who Annie helped deal with past addictions, and she is struggling again without Annie. The book shows how the characters deal with their loss by realizing that Annie’s love makes it possible for them to move on. — 3½ stars (out of 4); Diana Doner, Lafayette
‘A Far-Flung Life,’ by M.L. Stedman (Scribner, 2026)
What happens when the unspeakable happens? What do you do with the shame, the guilt, horror and self-loathing? Members of the MacBride family, owners of a sheep station in Western Australia, struggle and cope in very different ways with the fallout from an unspeakable act. Over time, the family ultimately finds a path to some grace and even happiness. Stedman offers a heartfelt homage to the virtues of rural community and the natural beauty unique to Western Australia, as well as a critique of the strictures and dangers inherent in small-minded communities. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
‘Speak to Me of Home,’ by Jeanine Cummins (Henry Holt & Co., 2025)
The three-generation story of a Puerto Rican family with protagonists Rafaela, Ruth and Daisy. After her marriage to a white midwestern American, Rafaela tries unsuccessfully to find her way after they move to St. Louis, experiencing the subtle and not-so-subtle racism of the 1970s. Rafaela’s children and grandchildren eventually find their way back to Puerto Rico and to the home that pulls them there. The chronology of the chapters is all over the place, but it keeps the pacing swift and remains coherent. Beautiful writing, with searching questions about the nature of home, of connection, of place. Cummins takes some hits from reviewers for getting Puerto Rico “wrong,” but itap clear that Puerto Rican identity is complex, varied and difficult to characterize. This is a wonderful read with great potential for discussion. — 4 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver
‘Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark,’ by Leigh Ann Henion, (Algonquin, 2024)
The Western world has a deep cultural bias against darkness, “often presented as a void of doom rather than a force of nature that nourishes lives.” In this delightful piece of armchair naturalism, Henion’s goal is to change our vilification of darkness, to see it instead as a restorative balm, and to stoke curiosity about nocturnal landscapes and creatures. Guides take the author on a series of nocturnal adventures, from spring through summer into fall, all within range of her southern Appalachian homeland. In a companionable, lively voice, the author includes us in those adventures. She describes the bioluminescence — the living light — of fireflies, some of which at certain times of year light up synchronously, like murmuration’s of starlings. At the Woolly Worm Festival and an event called Mothapalooza, she discovers moths that are as diverse and colorful as butterflies, if not moreso. We watch maggots turn into glowworms; fungi light up into Foxfire. We spend time with owls, bats, and nocturnally blooming flowers, all awe-inspiring lifeforms that are nurtured by darkness. — 3½ stars (out of 4); Michelle Nelson, Littleton
