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These are books that I found while browsing online this week...they have been added to my Wish List (LIKE I NEED MORE BOOKS...) but they sound SO GOOD! Can't resist!
The Geography of Love by Glenda Burgess:
“If I had given it much thought, I might have hesitated to marry a man for whom at the age of 45 much of the past was too painful to consider--for either of us. Truthfully, thought had little to do with it. Instinct did--the instinct to seize a sure and ebullient happiness or go down trying.”
Falling in love is arguably the greatest risk and leap of faith any of us take. There’s no guarantee for future happiness, no protection from the ugly scars of the past, no shield from tragedy--this powerful memoir reminds us why we bother.
At a lakeside café in the summer of 1988, 31-year-old Glenda Burgess is sitting across from 44-year-old Kenneth Grunzweig and falling in love. Then Ken confesses that he has already been widowed twice, under harrowing circumstances. This tragic past, the age difference, Ken’s emotionally scarred teenage daughter--all might be enough to send anyone running, but Glenda believed in her instincts, believed more than anything that this lovely, generous man would shape her life. And Ken, who with his heartbreaking losses had long said that he’d given up on love, came to share a sense of their romantic destiny. The two embark on the sort of love affair that many of us don’t believe exist anymore--a grand romance that buoys them through the birth of two kids and fifteen magical years of marriage until tragedy strikes again in the form of a shadowy spot on Ken’s lung. The journey that follows will test their resilience and strengthen their devotion.
The Geography of Love is a book about believing in first instincts and second chances.
It is a poignant exploration of the depths of the human heart and our ability to love and to trust no matter the obstacles.
It is a reminder that “real” life is always richer, stranger, and more extraordinary than fiction.
Falling in love is arguably the greatest risk and leap of faith any of us take. There’s no guarantee for future happiness, no protection from the ugly scars of the past, no shield from tragedy--this powerful memoir reminds us why we bother.
At a lakeside café in the summer of 1988, 31-year-old Glenda Burgess is sitting across from 44-year-old Kenneth Grunzweig and falling in love. Then Ken confesses that he has already been widowed twice, under harrowing circumstances. This tragic past, the age difference, Ken’s emotionally scarred teenage daughter--all might be enough to send anyone running, but Glenda believed in her instincts, believed more than anything that this lovely, generous man would shape her life. And Ken, who with his heartbreaking losses had long said that he’d given up on love, came to share a sense of their romantic destiny. The two embark on the sort of love affair that many of us don’t believe exist anymore--a grand romance that buoys them through the birth of two kids and fifteen magical years of marriage until tragedy strikes again in the form of a shadowy spot on Ken’s lung. The journey that follows will test their resilience and strengthen their devotion.
The Geography of Love is a book about believing in first instincts and second chances.
It is a poignant exploration of the depths of the human heart and our ability to love and to trust no matter the obstacles.
It is a reminder that “real” life is always richer, stranger, and more extraordinary than fiction.
It is the most moving love story you’ll read this year.
Jack & Rochelle by Jack & Rochelle Sutin:
Jack & Rochelle by Jack & Rochelle Sutin:
“A story of heroism and of touching romance in a time of fear and danger.” —USA Today
There are two voices intertwined in the narrative: those of Jack and Rochelle. Now and then they interrupt each other. This is the way they have told these stories for the past fifty years: side by side, listening intently each to the other, at the ready to speak up lest a single detail be lost. These stories are their lives—the testament of their survival and their love for each other. —from the Preface by Lawrence Sutin In this gripping memoir, Jack and Rochelle Sutin recount their struggle to survive the Holocaust as part of a band of partisans in the forests of Poland. Told through their son Lawrence, the book brings alive the reality of months spent hidden in a dank underground bunker unaware of the outside world. Jack and Rochelle is more than just an account of stark survival, however. It is also the tale of an almost impossible love affair that has lasted more than fifty years, and an eloquent reminder that history is made up of the often deeply moving details of individual lives.
Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow by Dedra Johnson
Despite being a straight-A student and voracious reader, eight-year old Sandrine Miller is treated as little more than a servant by her mother, who forces Sandrine to clean house, do chores and take care of her younger half sister, Yolanda. On top of the despair of her life at home, Sandrine must confront growing up against the harshness of life in 1970s-era New Orleans, where men in cars follow her home from school and she is ostracized because she is a light-skinned black girl. The only refuge Sandrine has against her bleak world is spending summers with her beloved grandmother, Mamalita. After Mamalita’s death, Sandrine realizes that she must escape from her mother, from New Orleans, from everything she has known, if she is to have any kind of future. In the tradition of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow is a brilliant debut from an important new African-American voice in literary fiction.
What have you found today?
There are two voices intertwined in the narrative: those of Jack and Rochelle. Now and then they interrupt each other. This is the way they have told these stories for the past fifty years: side by side, listening intently each to the other, at the ready to speak up lest a single detail be lost. These stories are their lives—the testament of their survival and their love for each other. —from the Preface by Lawrence Sutin In this gripping memoir, Jack and Rochelle Sutin recount their struggle to survive the Holocaust as part of a band of partisans in the forests of Poland. Told through their son Lawrence, the book brings alive the reality of months spent hidden in a dank underground bunker unaware of the outside world. Jack and Rochelle is more than just an account of stark survival, however. It is also the tale of an almost impossible love affair that has lasted more than fifty years, and an eloquent reminder that history is made up of the often deeply moving details of individual lives.
Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow by Dedra Johnson
Despite being a straight-A student and voracious reader, eight-year old Sandrine Miller is treated as little more than a servant by her mother, who forces Sandrine to clean house, do chores and take care of her younger half sister, Yolanda. On top of the despair of her life at home, Sandrine must confront growing up against the harshness of life in 1970s-era New Orleans, where men in cars follow her home from school and she is ostracized because she is a light-skinned black girl. The only refuge Sandrine has against her bleak world is spending summers with her beloved grandmother, Mamalita. After Mamalita’s death, Sandrine realizes that she must escape from her mother, from New Orleans, from everything she has known, if she is to have any kind of future. In the tradition of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow is a brilliant debut from an important new African-American voice in literary fiction.
What have you found today?
5 comments:
These look great and they are all new to me!
I haven't heard of any of these books -- great finds!
I just found 3 more books while visiting the bookstore today :)
I admit, I have absolutely no willpower whatsoever. :)
I've never heard of any of these but they sound good especially Sandrine's Letters.
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