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Showing 1-5 of 24 (next | show all)

Berg just has a great way of writing - she drew me in. I love her writing about a writer and it made me want to talk to her to see if she had ever had periods where she couldn't she write, and how she overcame it, etc, etc.

This is definitely a feel good book and I'm tempted to call it a coming of middle age book. Interesting how the story unfolds and how it ends (no, I wont' spoil it for you!) But I really recommend this book. Especially if you are a Berg fan already, this one won't disappoint! (

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Brandie | Feb 1, 2010 |

This book is worth reading for the insights into a writer's world, and for the description of the love affair between books and readers. It isn't my favorite of Berg's plots, but she writes beautifully about finding one's way. (

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pdebolt | Dec 29, 2009 |

I just finished Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg, this was the first time I have read anything by Berg and I enjoyed the story. It was well written and kept my attention. It's a story about love and loss and the bonds between a mother and daughter, good and bad. It left me with an uplifted feeling and reminded me to be thankful for the things we have, and the things we lose in this very brief gift of life we've been given here on earth. I'd say it's worth a trip to the local library! (

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bbrrtt | Nov 12, 2009 |

Well told story of a woman widowed in her 50s, finding herself suddenly responsible for parts of her life which were foreign to her. She is a writer and can no longer write and finds that her husband had taken most of their money to create a surprise for her. She is also too dependent on her adult daugher. Berg shows us how she finds her path again. (

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ccayne | Oct 13, 2009 |

I was leaning toward a 3 - 3.5 for this newest of Berg's books - it felt predictable and a bit ho hum. But it really picked up for me toward the end and turned out to be not so predictable after all.

The story centers on 59 year old Helen, a novelist who's been recently widowed. She hasn't been able to write since her husband's death; it becomes apparent that she was dependent on him for many things and she must find her way through the maze of finances, home repair and navigating around her city of Chicago. She comes to depend on her 27 year old daughter Tessa a bit too much and is also forced to let go of trying to control Tessa's life.

There are many nice moments and bits of prose in this novel. I especially liked the writings of the adult students she taught (an experiment in diversity). Berg was able to come up with consistent voices for each of the students, and these scenes showed glimpses of astonishing writing by people who wouldn't consider themselves writers or be considered writers by others.

Well written, very enjoyable book. (

)

teelgee | Sep 30, 2009 |

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Series (with order)

Canonical Title

Original publication date

2006-04-06 [2006]

People/Characters

Important places

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Tupelo, Mississippi, USA

Illinois, USA

Oak Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA

(show all 8 items)

Important events

World War II

Related movies

Awards and honors

Oprah's Book Club selection (2000)

New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2005)

New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2006)

New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2009)

ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1994)

(show all 7 items)

Epigraph

If we look at the path, we do not
see the sky. We are earth people
on a spiritual journey to the stars.
Our quest, our earth walk, is to look
within, to know who we are, to see that
we are connected to all things,
that there is no separation,
only in the mind.
--Native American, source unknown

You get the hovering gray of early morning, or late afternoon-- the hours of yearning.

There's the wind and the rain

And the mercy of the fallen. . .

There's the weak and the strong

And the many stars that guide us

We have some of them inside us

--Dar Williams

"The Mercy of the Fallen"

Again the pyrocanthus berries redden in the rain, as if return were return. It is not. The familiar is not the thing it reminds of.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Dedication

For Jean-Isabel NcNutt

For those who have gone before us.

For Pat Raming and Marianne Raming Burke

For women with cancer
who have found their fire,
and for those who are
still searching.

For Jennifer Sarene Berg and Julie Marin Krintzman

(show all 6 items)

First words

Dear Martin, I know you think I keep that green rock by my bed because I like its color.

I had been right to want to drive to the midwest, taking only the back roads.

Oftentimes on summer evenings, I would sit outside with my mother and look at the constellations.

This morning, before I came to Ruth's house, I made yet another casserole for my husband and my daughter.

You know before you know, of course. You are bending over the dryer, pulling out the still-warm sheets, and the knowledge walks up your backbone. You stare at the man you love and you are staring at nothing; he is gone before he is gone

(show all 8 items)

Quotations

Sex is so shaky and mysterious. I will never unravel it.

…it had put them on the fast track for being comfortable with each other. As they were, ever after. Always comfortable in a way that Dan described as home safe.

I do not believe the army is a good idea for people with regular human hearts.

Without her husband or the practice of laying out words on a page, she feels that she spends her days rattling around inside herself; that, whereas she used to be a whole and happy woman, now she is many pieces of battered self, slung together in a sack of skin.

What she feels, suddenly, is that she has come to see Dan. He is not here, but here he is.

(show all 7 items)

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

(show all 8 items)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

"Berg's brilliant insights about the human condition, plus her capacity for turning the ordinary into richly detailed prose, make this book the love story of the year." -Detroit Free Pres.

Gould, Joan

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Open House (novel)

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Contains: The day I ate whatever I wanted -- Returns and exchanges -- The party -- Over the hill and into the woods -- Full count -- Rain -- The day I ate nothing I even remotely wanted -- Mrs. Ethel Menafee and Mrs. Birdie Stoltz -- Double diet -- The only one of millions just like him -- Truth or dare -- How to make an apple pie -- Sin City.

▾Book descriptions

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0345435168, Paperback)

Oprah Book Club® Selection, August 2000: The narrator of Elizabeth Berg's Open House calls divorce "a series of internal earthquakes ... one after the other." She ought to know. Samantha is abandoned by her husband in the opening pages of this three-handkerchief special, and the resultant tremors keep her off-balance for most of the novel. There are practical problems aplenty, of course, including a shortage of money and an 11-year-old son to raise. But Sam's sense of emotional bereavement is far worse, despite the fact that her husband had been giving her the conjugal cold shoulder for years:

I miss David so much, yes I do, I miss the presence of another person in my bed at night, even if he doesn't touch me; the reliability of someone else being there in the morning, even if they only shave and stare straight ahead into the mirror while you lean against the bathroom doorjamb with your cup of coffee, chatting hopefully.

The loneliness in her "as constant and as irrefutable" as circulating blood, Sam begins to rebuild her life. She finds herself a job and takes in a couple of boarders to help meet her mortgage payments. (One of them, a depressed student named Lavender Blue, informs her that "life was nothing but one major disappointment after the other"--the sort of homily that Sam is understandably reluctant to hear these days.) She also starts dating, with disastrous results. Yet this comically kvetching heroine does manage to find love in the ruins, and by the time Open House winds down, it's hard not to believe that she's much better off. Throughout, Berg alternates her snappy and sappy registers like a real pro. And the conclusion, which most readers will be able to spot a mile off, seems just right--the light at the end of the post-matrimonial tunnel. --Anita Urquhart

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:17:28 -0500)

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