Fall has arrived, and Silverock has never looked better. The construction of Phases I and II is complete, and the houses look great from the water’s edge. I really enjoyed a quiet walk around the rim of the lake. The colors of the fall foliage are really prefect this week, and the traffic on the lake has slowed from the summer rush.

All you need is a good book and a deck chair and you’re in business. (Need a recommendation? I just finished “The Accidental Billionaires”–which became the movie “The Social Network”–great book if you like what a mountain of money does to friendships. And I’m reading “The Nine”–the story of the Supreme Court justices and the machinations that have shaped the landmark cases over the past thirty years). And bring a sweater on your next trip, it’s getting chilly.

A few months ago I stumbled across The Middle Place, and haven’t been quite the same since. I am a sucker for an authentic voice telling an honest story. And that is exactly what Kelly Corrigan does in her memoir. I walked around bumping into walls for two days because the book was glued in front of my face. It is a weekend read that will leave a lasting impression. Be sure to pack a copy for your next trip to the Silverock Cove. Don’t forget the tissues, because you will cry, or at least you will laugh until you do. When you have finished reading it (or if you have already had the pleasure), let us know what you think.

Click here for Book Club discussion questions.

Here is a wonderfully accurate description from her website:

Kelly Corrigan’s family is long on characters, her father George chief among them. The center of an ebullient, raucous and largely untested tribe, George greets every day by opening his bedroom window and calling out, “Hello World!” Suffice to say, it was the kind of childhood a girl could get attached to. But, in the fall of 2004, crisis hit and Kelly discovered that although she had all the makings of an adult life—a marriage license, two birth certificates, a mortgage, and tax returns—she was still more daughter than mother.

THE MIDDLE PLACE is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double-vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place. It is about the family you make and the family you came from and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet.

Corrigan is a natural-born storyteller: fighting with her mother over an indispensable pair of Guess jeans, accidentally murdering her brother’s new boa constrictor, fastidiously French braiding her hair on prom night. Mixing childhood stories with those of her adult life, Corrigan takes us through an anxious winter of panic attacks, the long and wicked morning that anesthesia failed to soothe the birth of ten-pounder, and the vexing, disconcerting need to understand why her husband calls his mother so often. She captures the beat of an ordinary life and the tender, sometimes fractious moments that bind families together. Kelly Corrigan is funny, rueful, and honest—the prized friend who will tell you her darkest, lowest, screwiest thoughts and then later that night, dance on the coffee table at your party.