We All Want Impossible Things: The funny, moving Richard and Judy Book Club pick 2023

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Tragically funny, with moments of clarity and wisdom, Newman writes loss and laughter in equally brilliant amounts. ' BONNIE GARMUS I literally HATED this book. You ever read a book so bad, that it was literally changing your mood for the worse because everything about it just annoyed you.. yea.. it was this book for me. Should've easily made it to my DNF list. Whisk together the dry ingredients, then add these to the mixing bowl in two or 3 additions, beating until just mixed. At the same time, Ash is dealing with her own midlife crisis. She still pines for her husband despite their separation, but that isn’t stopping her from sleeping with several different men. As she comes to terms with her best friend’s mortality, she’s also concerned about her daughters and what will happen to Edi’s husband and young son.

There is a lot of focus on food especially a lemon polenta cake so you may find yourself salivating from time to time!

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Fly, be free! I want to say. I want to say, Stay with me forever! Come to think of it, these are the two things I want to say to everyone I love most." Gloriously funny, utterly heartbreaking, and really just brilliant, We All Want Impossible Things is one of the best novels on friendship I've ever read. I loved it. AJ PEARCE, author of DEAR MRS BIRD

Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over. This is definitely an emotional book, but it wasn’t actually as overwhelmingly sad as I thought it would be. There are surprising flashes of humor and levity throughout. And as someone who lost a best friend last year, the book captured many of my feelings very accurately. As a professor of animal behaviour, Ashley Ward argues that to talk of five senses is inadequate and reductive: in fact, he says, there might be as many as 53, depending on how granular we want to be: for example, a sense of balance and a sense of our body’s position both fall under the generalised description of touch. Combining biological science with history, culture, sociology and personal reflections, this is a wide-ranging and highly engaging read. Invisible ChildAsh spends her days talking and reminiscing with Edi, caring for her, being her friend, and trying not to fall to pieces in the process. You see, Ash is a mess. Her life is a mess and she's desperately trying to hold on, while knowing she must let Edi go... Two random things: I have a PhD, and I'm the secretary of Creative Writing at Amherst College. (catherinenewmanwriter.com) Rather a treat ... this novel is less about death than it is about life - the messy unpredictability, hideous unfairness and perplexity of it, as well as its one magnificent certainty: love. THE SUNDAY TIMES The characters are all original, fully imagined human beings, likable in different ways. (Sometimes they’re overly nice, in the cases of Ash’s husband with the annoying name of Honey and her too-wise-and-tolerant teenage daughter, Belle.) Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love.

For fans of Nora Ephron and Sorrow & Bliss, We All Want Impossible Things is a deeply moving, jubilant celebration of life and friendship at its imperfect, radiant, and irreverent best. Add the butter and beat again until smooth, then add the eggs one at a time and—say it with me—beat until smooth.

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Ash spends hours and hours every day with Edi, reminiscing, crying, eating, drinking, and getting to know the staff and other residents of the hospice, many of whom, like Edi, wind up living longer than their doctors predicted, although they are slowly moving toward their end. A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.

Ashley spends most of the book sleeping with her best friends cancer doctor, sleeping with her best friends brother, sleeping with someone else (I don't even remember). She is sad when the husband she left for no good reason starts dating someone younger. You never learn anything meaningful about her friendship with Edie or about Edie herself. It's just the main character thinking she is witty and charming. My disdain for the main character was growing when I came to the part in the story when Edie tells Ashley, 'don't make my eulogy about you.' That sealed it for me. Mikki Brammer's The Collected Regrets of Clover is a big-hearted and life-affirming debut about a death doula who, in caring for others at the end of their life, has forgotten how to live her own, for readers of The Midnight Library.

But now the unthinkable has happened. Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or two), and a rotating cast of beautifully, fleetingly human hospice characters. Devastatingly funny ... handled with compassion and courage in elegant prose lightened by honest humour. MAIL ON SUNDAY