~Mailbox Monday~

I received some books last week that have been on my wish list quite a while!

Wesley The Owl (The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl) by Stacy O'Brien:
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Owls permeate literature and mythology, an ancient animal ("some 97 million years" old) that has fascinated for centuries; still, few people have had as intimate an encounter with the mysterious night birds as biologist O'Brien. As a student researcher at Caltech, she fell in love with an injured four-day-old barn owl and seized the opportunity to adopt him permanently. She named him Wesley, and for 19 years kept, cared for and studied him, forging a tremendous relationship with the still-wild animal, as well as a vast understanding of his abilities, instincts and habits: "He was my teacher, my companion, my child, my playmate, my reminder of God." Her heartwarming story is buttressed by lessons on owl folklore, temperament ("playful and inquisitive"), skills, and the brain structure that gives them some amazing abilities, like spotting a mouse "under three feet of snow by homing in on just the heartbeat." It also details her working life among fellow scientists, a serious personal health crisis, and the general ins and outs of working with animals. This memoir will captivate animal lovers and, though not necessarily for kids, should hold special appeal for Harry Potter fans who've always envied the boy wizard his Hedwig.

My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates:
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Of course Oates, fluent in the valor and vulnerability of girls in our aggressively sexualized world, would be drawn to the unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey. But she is also imaginative and daring enough to fictionalize that horrendous case with ferocious intensity, nervy wit, and profound purpose. Bix Rampike, big, sexy, and ruthless, is intent on getting mega-rich. Anxious and needy Betsey Rampike longs to impress the elite in their snooty New Jersey town, and tries to use her jittery son, Skyler, as bait. But it’s her second child, high-strung Edna Louise, who fulfills Betsey’s dream via figure skating. Oates’ choice of girls’ exhibition ice-skating is inspired. It’s a cold, hard, and precarious realm fraught with prurience. And her choice of narrator is equally ingenious: Skyler tells the story of his sister’s grotesque and grueling transformation into Bliss, a provocatively costumed ice fairy, a decade after her death. He has barely survived his toxic family, and his chronicle of the Rampikes’ erotically charged self-destruction becomes a mordantly satirical indictment of a deeply neurotic society, replete with its “Tabloid Hell” and “cybercesspoolspace.” Damaged and incisive, Skyler is an utterly compelling narrator, and Oates is at once wrenchingly visceral and transcendently empathic in this bold and astute tragedy of fatal ambition. An unforgettable novel of extraordinary dimension and power. --Donna Seaman

I also received a couple of new books!

Raising Rain by Debbie Fuller Thomas:
Product Description

Raised to be a 'new woman' by her mother and three college roommates in the 70's amid anti-war protests, feminist rallies, and finals, Rain Rasmussen discovers that putting her career first has left her overdrawn at the egg-bank, and her baby fever has now driven off her significant other.

When her terminally ill mother demands a Celebration of Life before she dies; they all confront ghosts from the past on a 'stormy' weekend in Monterey. Bebe, the roommate closest to Rain's heart, revisits choices that have impacted Rain the most, raising doubts about God's—and her own—willingness to forgive and to be forgiven.

Bending Toward The Sun by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie: (Marcia from The Printed Page sent this book to me....thank you Marcia!)
Product Description

A miraculous lesson in courage and recovery, Bending Toward the Sun tells the story of a unique family bond forged in the wake of brutal terror. Weaving together the voices of three generations of women, Leslie Gilbert-Lurie and her mother, Rita Lurie, provide powerful—and inspiring—evidence of the resilience of the human spirit, relevant to every culture in every corner of the world. By turns unimaginably devastating and incredibly uplifting, this firsthand account of survival and psychological healing offers a strong, poignant message of hope in our own uncertain times.

Rita Lurie was five years old when she was forced to flee her home in Poland to hide from the Nazis. From the summer of 1942 to mid-1944, she and fourteen members of her family shared a nearly silent existence in a cramped, dark attic, subsisting on scraps of raw food. Young Rita watched helplessly as first her younger brother then her mother died before her eyes. Motherless and stateless, Rita and her surviving family spent the next five years wandering throughout Europe, waiting for a country to accept them. The tragedy of the Holocaust was only the beginning of Rita's story.

Decades later, Rita, now a mother herself, is the matriarch of a close-knit family in California. Yet in addition to love, Rita unknowingly passes to her children feelings of fear, apprehension, and guilt. Her daughter Leslie, an accomplished lawyer, media executive, and philanthropist, began probing the traumatic events of her mother's childhood to discover how Rita's pain has affected not only Leslie's life and outlook but also her own daughter, Mikaela's.

A decade-long collaboration between mother and daughter, Bending Toward the Sun reveals how deeply the Holocaust remains in the hearts and minds of survivors, influencing even the lives of their descendants. It also sheds light on the generational reach of any trauma, beyond the initial victim. Drawing on interviews with the other survivors and with the Polish family who hid five-year-old Rita, this book brings together the stories of three generations of women—mother, daughter, and granddaughter—to understand the legacy that unites, inspires, and haunts them all.

What was in YOUR mailbox today?