Book Review: Love is a Filing Cabinet
By Jeanne Kern, Lincoln Author
REVIEWED BY LINDA STEPHEN
If you are looking for a light, fast romance novel – or bucket list inspiration, I recommend Jeanne Kern’s newest book Love Is a Filing Cabinet (January 2021, The Wild Rose Press, 260 pages). The book covers family, sisters, our roles at work and home, daring to find our strengths, and missteps on the way to long-term love. It’s a fun read for any time.
Kern sold the book to a New York publisher at age 80. This is her first novel; it took her 20 years to write, edit, rewrite, and get published. Find online, at JeanneKern.com or at Francie & Finch Bookshop in downtown Lincoln.
What is on your bucket list? What are you doing today to get you closer?
OTHER BOOKS YOU MIGHT ENJOY READING
A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
This realistic novel of a working mother of young children is set in the New York metro. My friend gave me this book because the main character Alice loves books and has a lot on her plate. Alice is a working mother trying to balance volunteer work, caregiving for a sick parent, taking care of young children, and paid work that she loves. When Alice’s husband quits his law job to start his own firm, she decides to go back to work full time. Alice finds a high-paying job with a large startup company envisioning the future of bookstores and books, but the company increasingly intrudes on her home time – and then “pivots” to a new industry. Meanwhile, her life at home is falling apart.
A Window Opens (2015, Simon & Schuster, 370 pages) is about family, work, prestige, values, and how we balance competing responsibilities.
Before moving to Lincoln, like the character, I worked in New York for technology startups and commuted home an hour or so by train each night. The author is the book’s editor at Glamour, so is writing from experience.
Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott
By memoirist Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies), this realistic novel is set near San Francisco and is full of flawed characters, including parents with addictions. The main character Mattie is a newly divorced mother of two children. I enjoy Lamott’s insights on people and the strength and grace that her character finds through friends, her children, and her church. Blue Shoe (291 pages) was published in 2002 by Penguin Putnam.
Linda Stephen is an author, artist, and editor in Lincoln. Contact her at Linda@UnfoldingCommunications.com.