Both a British comedy of errors and a sweet love story, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand has enough to please a wide range of readers. Major Pettigrew is retired and living a quiet widow's life in a small town in Sussex. As his friendship with Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper, becomes something more, complications - both large and small, funny and serious - arise. Join us to discuss Simonson's first novel next week during our monthly Books Plus book discussion.
For more details of this and future programs, please see below.
Books Plus meets the first Sunday of each month. All are welcome. Join the discussion or simply come to listen.
2 p.m., First Sundays
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This week Tennessee Lady Vol's basketball coach, Pat Summitt, made headlines with her announcement that she had developed Alzheimer's disease. Coincidentally, I was reading this very readable novel on the same subject. 
This book describes my dream job, being a fire lookout out west. I could handle the wild creatures, the solitude, even the lightning strikes, but maybe not cleaning out the cistern after vandals pollute it. In the tradition of writers, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Edward Abbey and Norman Maclean. Philip Connors leaves his job as a Wall Street Journal editor and while on vacation signs up on the spot to detect fires for the National Forest Service, or as he jokingly calls it "The National Forest Circus." 
As a person raised Catholic, I was drawn to the topic of this novel. Who doesn't want to be a kind, caring person? To do good works? To make the world a bit better each day? OK, maybe not serial killers, some Wall Street tycoons, mafia types, mercenaries, etc. but on the whole most people try (at least part of the time) to be good.
Asking that question is Mark O'Connell at