New Cardiff by Charles Webb

When my mother was a little girl growing up in Cincinnati, she was diagnosed with Scarlet fever. This is an infection accompanied by a rash, sore throat and high fever. The health department came and quarantined my mother and her family in their house. And then they went a step further: they burned all of my mother’s books. The health officials believed that the bacteria would remain in the pages of her books, so her books were thrown into an incinerator. Barbara Marshall never forgot the sadness of losing her books and has been a book collector ever since. As most of us across the world are now spending more time in our homes because of the Covid-19 virus, I have been looking at my own book collection more often. This one book keeps waving at me, “Remember me?! I am the book that made you laugh the hardest.”  If there was ever a time that we as a world need to find a reason to laugh, it is now. For this, II would like to recommend “New Cardiff” by Charles Webb. Yes, Webb also wrote “The Graduate,” and yes, that is his most famous book upon which the Dustin Hoffman movie was based. However, I am here to tell you that “New Cardiff” is one gem of a book. My sister and I still laugh out loud when we talk about.  The novel centers around the life of Colin Ware, an English illustrator, who leaves Europe on the heels of a terrible break up with his fiancé, Vera. He takes refuge in the small town of New Cardiff, Vermont, which is inhabited by a quirky and odd group of people. Colin immediately is fascinated by the local residents and begins drawing their portraits. When he meets Mandy, a local woman who works at a nursing home, he thinks perhaps the town will hold not only a new life but a new love for him as well. Everything seems to be off to a good start until his former fiancé, Vera crosses the pond and makes her triumphant return into Colin’s life. Like Webb’s book “The Graduate,” the book “New Cardiff” was also made into a movie starring Colin Firth. I stop for anything Colin. So read the book. Then watch the movie. You’re welcome. To purchase this book on Amazon click here.