Dear Great Book Guru, I was at a "Beat the Winter Blues" party last week and I think it really worked. My spirits have lifted and I am now looking for a new adventure: something great to read. I love English settings, a lively plot line, and the more contemporary the better. Any suggestions? Feeling Spring is Just Around the Corner


Dear Spring Around the Corner, Well, this is very easy: my recommendation for you is HOW IT ALL BEGAN by Penelope Lively, set in 2010 London, and filled with wonderfully colorful characters. Lively's premise is that chance plays a pivotal role in our lives; she then goes on to show how a single event changes the lives of each of her characters. The book opens with Charlotte Rainsford looking up from a London street pavement on a lovely April day. Her purse has been stolen and her hip broken. Now unable to live on her own, she is forced to move into her daughter Rose's home. Because of her mother's accident, Rose misses work, Rose's employer Sir Henry find a substitute for the day, the substitute, his niece Marjorie, inadvertently causes her lover's marriage to implode, and as a result she meets an glamorous new client who will soon alter her life forever. Suddenly, everything has changed. Lively describes each of these characters in brief (224 pages) but exquisite detail as they all come to question life's purpose. In alternating chapters we see Charlotte's evolution and those (many of whom she never meets) who are impacted by her fall. The title is somewhat misleading because we soon realize there are no beginnings or ends in this novel but rather a series of spontaneous combustions. Highly recommended!