Favorite Reads 2025 : My Brilliant Friend Deluxe Edition by Elena Ferrante

My Favorite Gift Book of the Year: My Brilliant Friend Deluxe Edition by Elena Ferrante

This is a beautifully presented collection of four unforgettable novels, each exploring a universal story of love, friendship, family, and belonging.

In My Brilliant Friend Deluxe Edition, Elena Ferrante’s quartet of novels are culled into one distinctive volume. If you’re not already familiar with the four books she previously released as standalone Neapolitan-themed novels (My Brilliant Friend; The Story of a New Name; Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay; The Story of the Lost Child), this is a chance to read all the books between two covers. This beautifully presented, deluxe cloth hardcover edition features sprayed edges and colored endpapers illustrating the Bay of Naples. 

When Elena Ferrante set out to write the story of Elena and Lila, she conceived it as one single work of fiction, one expansive novel that would capture the reality and ambivalence of female friendship, motherhood, marriage, class, and adolescence. This year, 2025, marks 10 years since the quartet of novels was completed and this one book, filled with all four of the novels, has been issued to celebrate that anniversary and honor the author’s original conception.

If you are a reader or writer--or maybe you love to collect books--this is a MUST to add to your cherished collection.  Or better yet, give this one as a gift!

NOTE: My Brilliant Friend was named the #1 Best Book of the Century by the New York Times.

My Brilliant Friend Deluxe Edition (The Four Volumes) by Elena Ferrante

Europa Editions, $65.00 hardcover, 9798889661443, 1248 pages

Publication Date: October 7, 2025

To order this book via Bookshop.org, link HERE

To learn more about author Elena Ferrante, link HERE

Favorite Reads 2025: False Claims by Lisa Pratta

My Favorite Non-Fiction Book of the Year:  False Claims: One Insider’s Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption by Lisa Pratta

This propulsive memoir richly details the quest of a brave saleswoman who risked everything to expose pharmaceutical industry corruption.

In False Claims, Lisa Pratta, once a top-selling pharmaceutical sales representative, renders a chilling behind-the-scenes account of how she bravely put herself--her career, her reputation, and even her life--on the line to expose an industry rife with corruption and deception.

 

Pratta grew up in Pittman, New Jersey in the 1960s. Suffering emotional and physical abuse as a child, she became an ambitious over-achiever determined to escape her family and make something of herself. Her tough, shrewd, pistol-packing, paternal “Nonna” set a strong example of right and wrong and female independence for young Pratta.

 

Earning a college scholarship, Pratta’s talkative personality and exemplary listening skills steered her toward making a “decent living” in pharmaceutical sales. Self-starting, competitive, and astute, Pratta--a dedicated, honest worker--quickly excelled in Big Pharma, a world full of fat perks and bonuses. It also felt, at times, like “one big fraternity” that often belittled and demeaned women in the field. Pratta, however, held her own. At age 27, she married a research scientist and gave birth to a son who was later diagnosed with autism. When Pratta was 50, her marriage fell apart, and she suddenly needed to support herself and her son, finance his special-needs education, and secure good health insurance. She took a job as a sales rep for Questcor Pharmaceuticals, whose premiere drug was a self-injectable, two-to-three-week treatment offering pseudo-hope for patients battling the debilitating effects of Multiple Sclerosis.

 

Pratta’s success was hard-fought and won. However, when sales reps were prompted to pitch the drug to doctors using a five-day regimen that not only undermined how the drug was originally approved for use but also jacked up the $50 prescription price point to $28,000, ethical and moral red flags were raised in Pratta’s conscience. After a trusted colleague lost his job and approached Pratta, asking her to join in exposing Questcor’s nefarious corruption, Pratta agreed to become a whistleblower. For years, she risked everything—continuing her sales work, while also working as an undercover agent for the government in order to expose Questcor’s fraudulent, deceptive practices.

 

Pratta’s propulsive, nail-biting narrative is a must-read—especially for those who rely on pharmaceuticals of all kinds, as the harrowing truths she courageously exposes about the medical and drug industries are alarming, but could also prove life-changing for many.

 

False Claims: One Insider’s Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption by Lisa Pratta

William Morrow, $30.00 hardcover, 288 pages, 9780063371101, 288 pages

Publication Date: June 3, 2025

To order this book via Bookshop.org link HERE

 

To learn more about Lisa Pratta link HERE

Favorite Reads 2025: Mona's Eyes by Thomas Schlesser

My Favorite Novel of the Year: Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser 

A tender, inspiring and beautifully rendered story about what it means to have true vision—in life and in art. 

A ten-year-old French girl who inexplicably starts to go blind shares an enriching 52-week experience with her attentive, maternal grandfather, visiting museums and studying five centuries worth of great visual art. 

Traversing works in Parisian galleries from DaVinci to Kandinksy, Rafael to Magritte, Whisler to O’Keefe, all the way to Basquiat, the author entwines the enlightening journey shared between grandfather, Henry, and suddenly disabled granddaughter, Mona, with the beauty and wisdom behind each great work of art—and those who created them.

Thomas Schlesser is a thoughtful, exquisite craftsman of tender prose and plotting. Mona’s Eyes is an unforgettable, visionary gift for readers—a tender, life-affirming story of love and the transformative power of life when it is lived as an art.

Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser (translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle)

Europa Editions, $30.00 hardcover, 432 pages, 9798889661115, 432 pages

Publication Date: August 26, 2025

To order this book via Bookshop.org link HERE