Good evening.

It is so good to be with you once again.

Several weeks ago, one of our two wonderful daughter in law's recommended a book to me and going to the Wichit Public Library to get the book I learned I was 86th on the wait list.

I also read that the book was a continuing bestseller at Watermark, so I was excited when I heard from the library that it was now my turn.

I picked the book up from th Rockwell branch about 2:30 p.m., and I finished it five hours later.

I found it a fascinating read with a very entertaining premise and protagonist.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Tonight's book is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

It was published in April of 2025.

As I noted earlier, it has been a runaway word of mouth bestseller.

It is told entirely through letters and emails, which makes i I learned, an epistolary novel.

Evans turned 40 on June 2nd of 2026, and this is her debut novel.

She graduated from James Madison University and earned a master's degree at Trinity College in Dublin.

Interestingly, Evans notes that she sold the book just before she was ready to quit writing and go off to law school.

The correspondent is a retired lawyer, Sybil Van Antwerp, living in Annapolis, Maryland.

At the time the book begins with the first letter dated June 2nd, 2012, Sybil is 7 and the correspondence continues through 2022, with the last letter written by Sybil's neighbor and dear friend, Theodore Lubeck.

From the correspondence as set forth by Evans, we learned much about Sybil Van Antwerp.

She graduate from the University of Virginia Law School in 1967 at the top of her class.

I graduate from Mizzou Law School in 1972, and I was far from the top of my class.

Upon graduation, Sybil formed a law partnership of Donnelly and Van Antwerp.

In 1971, her law partner, Guy Donnelly, was appointed to the bench in Frederick, Maryland, and Sybil made the decision to go to court with him as his law clerk.

In one of her communications, she explains why she decided to become a lowly law clerk.

She was adopted as a young girl by Mr.

and Mrs.

Stone.

She has a brother, Fritz, who was also adopted, who is a gay man with a partner living in Paris, France.

She was divorced from her husband Dan, a native of Belgium.

Sybil has two children of her own.

Her son Bruce, with whom she has a solid relationship, and her daughter Fiona, with whom she has, shal we say, a strained relationship.

There was a third child, Gilbert, whose death as a young boy has continuin tragic consequences for Sybil.

Sybil Van Antwerp is opinionated, set in her ways, and compassionate.

She is also a reader and in the book she corresponds with numerous authors, including Joan Didion, C.S.

Lewis, Diana Gabaldon, and Larry McMurtry.

She also writes George Lucas.

I think the essence of Sybi Van Antwerp, and the book is set forth in what she writes to a suitor from Texas: ‘You might also consider a simpler value of the written letter, which is namely that reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world, the preservation of which has to be of some value we cannot yet see.

The written word in black and white.

It is letters.

It is law.

It is all the same.

I had some notion of this from as far back in my life as I can remember, and I have been writing letters out into the world since I could form a sentence with a pen, age nine.

I found this to be a delightful and wonderful read.

In this epistolary novel, I made a new literary friend and learned much about life loving, learning, and living.

Thank you, Sarah, for your recommendation.

That's our show.

Until next time, keep reading, keep thinking and live well.

Good night and see you next time.