Aliza Fogelson Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Aliza Fogelson is an editor and a general fiction writer best known for her debut novel, The Lending Library, which won the Best Book Award for Women’s Fiction in 2022. She also specializes in lifestyle books, especially those about cooking, decorating, and style. Aliza Fogelson studied literature and creative writing at Princeton University. Soon after graduation, Aliza spent a year at Sorbonne Nouvelle in France studying French literature, where she was awarded Creative Writing Sophomore Award.

Before switching to full-time author and editor, Aliza worked as a senior editor at Clarkson Potter, where for more than ten years, she focused on cookbooks, personal style, gardening, house & home, paper products, and gift books.

Aliza Fogelson began her publishing career at Reagan Books, which was a division of HarperCollins publishing house until 2006. At Reagan Book, she edited various bestselling fiction and nonfiction authors, including Jenna Jameson, popularly known for her book, How to Make Love Like a Pornstar. She also edited other famous authors, including Dave Navarro, Neil Strauss, Bernie Mac, Tod Oldham, Wally Lamb, and Amber Frey. Aliza’s first published work was her third-grade short story titled Baby Cow’s Adventure.

In her 2020 debut novel, Aliza Fogelson presents us with a delightful tale of a teacher’s love for books and how she helps the locals when the town library is closed.
Meet Dodie, the 32-year-old narrator of this story. After spending years trying to finance herself as a freelance artist in the busy street of New York, she has no option but to retreat to the small town of Chatsworth in Connecticut, where she gets a job as a primary school teacher.

At the school, Dodie’s favorite pupil is Elmira, a smart, talented girl. Her parent’s are always busy with her younger brother, so they fail to notice the potential and capacity in their daughter. Realizing the disappointment on Elmira’s face after her parents fail to show up for school events and also fail to pick her up at school triggers memories from Dodie’s childhood. Her father abandoned her when she was only four years old, remarried, and started a new family. Dodie’s mother would remain a single mom dividing her time between work and her three daughters. Even though her mother later married a caring man Maddie, the guilt of not being enough for her biological father was still there.

When the town’s library has to be shut down temporarily for renovation due to the presence of asbestos, no one in the town is more devastated than the primary school teacher, Dodie. She cannot sit and witness the town go on without a library to hang out, read books, and enjoy each other’s company, so she comes up with a plan. Armed with several six-foot bookcases, she converts the sunroom attached to her house into the cozy lending library she has always dreamed of. She is committed to making the library a success, utilizes her baking skills, and bakes treats for every person who comes to her lending library.

One person who visits the lending library regularly is Shep Jamison. He is a construction worker and handsome such that Dodie cannot help but spend most of her time picking books she thinks the man would like. As time goes on, several developments in the main character’s life take her attention away from the lending library as she tries to navigate through the events in her life and figure out where precisely her priorities lie. But one thing is clear with Dodie; she wants a baby desperately. But giving birth isn’t exactly what she wants, and even worse, there’s an ever-ticking clock distressing her day-in-day-out. With dozens of romantic books and her sisters sticking to her for the most part, Dodie tries to live realistically and seek her happy ending.

The book’s first section takes place in the library, allowing the reader to interact with the people Dodie meets. The second part of the novel is filled with side stories, including a friend’s death, friends’ love interests, adoption, and Dodie’s desire to become a mother through adoption and not giving birth. Aliza Fogelson also touches on important themes of single parents adoptions, what happens when adoption falls through, and who will take care of the child when the adoptive parent dies. She handles such themes with compassion.