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
‘The News from Dublin: Stories,’ by Colm Toibin (Scribner, 2026)
I have rarely warmed to short story collections. I lean more toward hours-long immersion in or the transport afforded by novel-length works. But Toibin’s latest collection, his third, has sold me on the beauty, thrift and skill to be found in well-told short stories. Wide-ranging in both geography and time, Toibin’s theme in this collection seems to be that relationships, whether familial, romantic or otherwise, are complex, nuanced and impermanent. He conveys so much, whether backstory or emotion, in just a few sentences. Bravo! — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
‘Godmersham Park,’ by Gill Hornby (Century, 2022)
As in 2020’s “Miss Austen,” Gill Hornby stitches well-researched details together into an entertaining and illuminating novel about the Austen family and their most famous writer. We see Jane Austen here in a quite different way, as a friend and as a peripheral part of another’s story. The historic Anne Sharpe became a dear friend of Jane Austen through being the governess of Anne’s favored niece, Fanny. While Anne’s early years are murky, her time living with the Edward Austen family in Kent is well-documented in letters and in Fanny’s diary. Anne is a person I enjoyed meeting, and seeing Jane through her eyes is enlightening. — 3 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
‘Departure(s),’ by Julian Barnes (Knopf, 2026)
A literary “last lecture” from Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes, who had been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. He shapes what he claims is his last book as a novel, though it is clearly a memoir. Barnes reflects first on what a friend describes (a la Proust) as IAMs, involuntary autobiographical memories. Then he recounts the story of his role in introducing Stephen and Jean, who have a young romance that ends. Forty years intervene, and Stephen enlists Barnes to reconnect him with Jean. The ruse works; Stephen and Jean marry. Then they separate a second time, causing Barnes much retrospection. Barnes is a genius with words. His reflections on his own deteriorating body, that of a 79-year-old agnostic/atheist with cancer, are poignant, funny and true. There is a melancholy to this farewell work. — 4 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver
‘Spies and Other Gods,’ by James Wolff (Atlantic Crime, 2026)
Wolff (a pseudonym) is a former British intelligence officer and award-winning author of the Discipline Fine series. In this espionage novel, a government committee is attempting to exert its oversight upon British Intelligence, led by an increasingly erratic man long past his prime. Meanwhile, an assassin targeting expat Iranians across Europe is eluding the efforts to find and stop him. Into this lethal mix pops a former academic, equally determined to find answers, but is she a friend or foe? Wolff deftly questions the nature of espionage as craft versus improvisation, skill versus luck. An entertaining read. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
