What Are You
Reading?
What Are You Reading? A project sponsored by the Friends of the Macomb Public Library District to encourage reading and book discussion in our community. Would you like to share your favorite books with other readers? Please send your name, occupation or grade level, book author and title, and a brief statement about the book and why you liked it to Kate Joswick, [email protected].
Reviewer’s Name: Connie LaRue Reviewer’s Occupation: McDonough County book club coordinator Book Title: Maisie Dobbs Book’s Author: Jacquelin Winspear Maisie Dobbs, a novel, was introduced by the author Jacquelin Winspear in 2003.
The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs was only thirteen when she was sent to work as a maid for wealthy London aristocrats.
But Maisie studied her way to Cambridge, then served as a nurse on the Front during the Great War. In the spring of 1929, Maisie opened her detective agency. Each of Maisie Dobbs’ 18 books follow a different case, or sometimes a few cases. Maisie finds and loses love, experiences personal growth across many pages as she wrestles with her obligations and role in society. The book follows Maisie’s improbable rise to become a woman of independent wealth who married into the gentry, adopted a child, found a second husband, became a spy, and repeatedly saved the day. It is tempered by Winspear’s careful examination of Maisie’s emotional journey and reminders that with every source of joy, she taps into trauma. The books explore her losses, the trauma that ricochets through her own life, and the lives of everyone around her. I’ve enjoyed each of Maisie Dobbs books and even Hillary Clinton has publicly declared herself a fan.
