Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Teaser Tuesday


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*

*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser today comes from Crazy Love by David Martin:

~He knelt down to see if it was over yet, covering the cow's closed eye with his hand, then pulling back her eyelid. That big brown eye fixed Bear and, just before dipping into oblivion, the cow told him, God bless you....and time stopped.~
pg. 21.


What's YOUR teaser today?

Monday, June 28, 2010

Book Review - The Lies We Told by Diane Chamberlain


From Goodreads:

Maya and Rebecca Ward are both accomplished physicians, but that's where the sisters' similarities end. As teenagers, they witnessed their parents' murder, but it was Rebecca who saved Maya from becoming another of the gunman's victims. The tragedy left Maya cautious and timid, settling for a sedate medical practice with her husband, Adam, while Rebecca became the risk taker.

After a devastating hurricane hits the coast of North Carolina, Rebecca and Adam urge Maya to join them in the relief effort. To please her husband, Maya finally agrees. She loses herself in the care and transport of victims, but when her helicopter crashes into raging floodwaters, there appear to be no survivors.

Forced to accept Maya is gone, Rebecca and Adam turn to one another—first for comfort, then in passion—unaware that, miles from civilization, Maya is injured and trapped with strangers she's not certain she can trust. Away from the sister who has always been there to save her, now Maya must find the courage to save herself—unaware that the life she knew has changed forever.

My Thoughts:

This was an enjoyable read from start to finish.

Sisters Maya and Rebecca couldn't be more different. Maya longs to be a mom, and Rebecca is totally career-oriented. Both are medical doctors. Maya is married to Adam, also a medical doctor. Rebecca is single, and plans to stay that way....until a horrible turn of events changes her life and the lives of many others in a drastic way.
Maya is the shy, timid type character who is safely ensconced in her role as a pediatrician. When she is called upon to help out in a disaster relief effort after 2 hurricanes, she is put to the test. Her husband and sister are already there helping out, and Maya doesn't want to disappoint them. This turn of events changes Maya's life in ways that she could never imagine.

I found myself cheering Maya on to take steps that were totally out of character for her. She was able to find an inner strength that she never even knew that she possesed. Her sister Rebecca kind of rubbed me the wrong way....her character being very out-spoken and bossy. I had no idea how this story was going to play out, and I was very pleasantly surprised at the end.


This is the first of Diane Chamberlain's books that I have read. Now I am eager to get my hands on her other books. I have already ordered 3 others.....The Secret Life of Cee Cee Wilkes, Secrets She Left Behind and Summer's Child. I can't wait to read them.

I highly recommend The Lies We Told.....a riveting and rewarding story of loss, love and finding out what is most important in life.


Photobucket Very Good!
  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Mira; Original edition (May 25, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0778328538
  • ISBN-13: 978-0778328537



Wednesday, June 23, 2010

What Are YOU Waiting For?




Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

The Last Ghost Dancer by Tony Bender

The Last Ghost Dancer is more than a coming-of-age fable, more than the wry memoirs of a spiritual search. It is the story of a remarkable summer in a remarkable west river town. It is a commentary on the depth and breadth of friendships forged, of lovers lost, and the realization that it is the journey that is of importance, and not so much the destination. Looking back, as old men do, it’s hard to imagine it really happened. But it did. One wise teacher, one perfect girl, one harrowing summer, can set the course of a lifetime. Meet Bones, the wry, funny, ever-observant, thoughtful and hapless narrator, a grease monkey at the only gas station in Pale Butte, whose most recent claim to fame is dropping an Edsel off the hoist. Now, some sixty years later, Bones, a dreamer of apocalyptic dreams, reflects on miracles small and large and his spiritual discovery that marked the summer of 1977.
  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (July 20, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312592302


Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong

G
rowing up in the small town of Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the 70’s and 80’s, Linda believes that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. “What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two” are the cruel, mysterious last words that Linda’s grandmother ever says to her. Now in her thirties, Linda looks back at her past when she navigated her way through life with the help of her great-uncle Harper, who loves her and loves to dance, and her best friend Kelly, with whom Linda exchanges almost daily letters. The truth about my family was that we disappointed one another. When I heard the word “disappoint,” I tasted toast, slightly burnt. For as long as she can remember, Linda has experienced a secret sense—she can “taste” words, which have the power to disrupt, dismay, or delight. She falls for names and what they evoke: Canned peaches. Dill. Orange sherbet. Parsnip (to her great regret). But with crushes comes awareness. As with all bodies, Linda’s is a mystery to her, in this and in other ways. Even as Linda makes her way north to Yale and New York City, she still does not know the truth about her past. Then, when a personal tragedy compels Linda to return to Boiling Springs, she gets to know a mother she never knew and uncovers a startling story of a life, a family. Revelation is when God tells us the truth. Confession is when we tell it to him. This astonishing novel questions many assumptions—about what it means to be a family and to be a friend, to be foreign and to be familiar, to be connected and to be disconnected—from others and from the past, our bodies, our histories, and ourselves.
  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Random House (August 31, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1400069084
What are YOU waiting for today?

Tuesday, June 22, 2010


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*

*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser this week comes from The Lies We Told by Diane Chamberlain:

~I knew better than anyone how quickly these things could happen. The man reached behind his back with his right hand, then whipped his arm out straight, the gun a gray blur as it cut through the air, and I saw the tattoo of a black star on his index finger as he squeezed the trigger.~ pg. 70

What's YOUR teaser today?





Monday, June 21, 2010

Mailbox Monday



Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.


Here's what was in my mailbox last week!

Belly of the Whale by Linda Merlino.


Hudson Catalina has given up—having lost both breasts to cancer, she is
emotionally and physically exhausted, no longer willing to endure the nausea and crushing weakness of her grueling treatment. Nothing in her life—not even her beloved husband and children, her best friend, or her passion for teaching high school—will sway her decision to terminate her treatment. On the eve of her daughter's fifth birthday celebration, a troubled former student confronts her, hell-bent on violent revenge and then suicide. Facing certain peril, Hudson vows to do whatever she must in order to survive and see her husband and children once again.


Jan's Story: Love Lost to the Long Goodbye of Alzheimer's by Barry Petersen.

Imagine hearing these words: "She has Alzheimer's." Now imagine that "she" is vibrant, active, loving, healthy...and just 55. Acclaimed CBS News reporter Barry Petersen, writes about hearing the unimaginable: what it meant, what it still means, what he did--and didn't do--and how this beautiful love story needs to be read by the thousands of families who have already heard that same devastating diagnosis...EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMER'S. Jan's Story is a full, rich story of two people--and thousands like them--for whom "forever" suddenly and terrifyingly has an expiration date. Barry Petersen is a long-time, award-winning TV journalist who has covered wars, the devastating Asian tsunami, the historic confrontation at Tiananmen Square, the unspeakable deaths in Rwanda, and so much more...but was not even slightly prepared for what happened to his darling wife, Jan.

Creeker: A Woman's Journey by Linda Scott Derosier.

In her memoir of growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, this professor of psychology at Rocky Mountain College in Montana is unabashedly honest about and proud of her Appalachian heritage, chronicling her life with honesty, wit, and insight.


What was in YOUR mailbox today!




Saturday, June 19, 2010

On My Wishlist #12



On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where you can list all the books that you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.


A deeply moving story of one woman’s search for truth and meaning in the aftermath of her father's unsolved murder....

The Lost Night by Rachel Howard

On the night of June 22, 1986, ten-year-old Rachel Howard woke to a disturbing sight: pools of blood on the hallway carpet and a glimpse of her father clutching his stabbed throat. Stan Howard died minutes later, and his bizarre small-town murder was never solved. Rachel’s father was thirty-two, a laid-back, handsome man who loved the music of Rod Stewart and had no known enemies. Faced with her family’s shock, Rachel decided she would cope the only way she knew how: By keeping silent and trying to pretend the murder had never happened.

Now, seventeen years later and recently engaged, Rachel attempts to uncover for herself what happened that night. Finally reconnecting with her father’s family, she sorts through her relatives’ memories of his death and presses the less-than-helpful detectives. Still bewildered, she seeks the only other two people present at the murder: her former stepmother and stepbrother, neither of whom she has seen since her father’s funeral. The result is a tender portrait of a father and a keen investigation of memory, truth, and how a family moves on from a tragedy for which they may never find answers.


From the bestselling author of The Woman in the Fifth and The Pursuit of Happiness comes a devastating new novel....

Leaving The World
by Douglas Kennedy

Years after vowing to herself and her parents to never marry, have children and lead the resentful life they chose, Jane, now a Harvard professor, falls unexpectedly pregnant. Resolved as she’s been to childlessness, she begins to warm to the idea of motherhood, even with a partner who is increasingly absent. But a devastating turn of events takes the decision out of her hands in a way she could never have predicted.

Her familiar world torn apart, Jane feels forced to leave her old life behind. She resigns from her job, cuts all ties with friends and family and moves to a place where no one will find her. Isolated, she feels she has finally succeeded in leaving her world.

Yet when a young girl disappears, prompting a high-profile police investigation, Jane is drawn in. Convinced that the person at the heart of the case is much closer to her new community than anyone realises, she has to make a decision to either stay hidden or bring to light a shocking truth.


In her most ambitious novel to date, Lily King sets her sharply insightful family drama in an upper-middle-class suburb where she traces a complex and explosive father-daughter relationship from the 1970s to the present day....

Father Of The Rain by Lily King

When eleven-year-old Daley’s parents separate, she is thrust into a chaotic adult world of competition, indulgence, and manipulation. Unable to place her allegiance, she gently toes the thickening line between her parents’ worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother, and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But without her mother there to keep him in line, Daley’s father’s basest impulses are unleashed, and Daley has to choose her own survival over the father she still loves.
As she grows into adulthood, Daley retreats from the New England country-club culture that nourished her father’s fears and addictions, attempting to live outside his influence. Until he hits rock bottom. Faced with the chance to free her father from sixty years of dependency, Daley must decide whether repairing their broken relationship is worth losing not only her professional dreams, but the love of her life, Jonathan, who represents so much of what Daley’s father claims to hate, and who has given her so much of what he could never provide.


What books are on YOUR wish list today?



Thursday, June 17, 2010

Friday Finds


Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading.



Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel: I saw this one on Carolina Gal's Literary Cafe blog and I was hooked after reading her awesome review:

One sunny morning in 1969, near the end of her first trip to Miami, 26-year-old Frances Ellerby discovers a place called Stiltsville, a community of houses built on pilings in the middle of Biscayne Bay. For the Atlanta native, it’s the first time she’s been out on the open water, the first time she’s felt alive in months. Giddy with the freedom of this idyllic, foreign place, and enjoying her first taste of adventure, she meets the fair-haired Dennis DuVal, the careless yet lucky man with whom she will spend the next three decades. Frances is seduced by Miami’s chaos and beauty, by the sun and sea and sky that Dennis calls home. Going against her cautious nature, she leaves her job and moves to Florida to start a life with Dennis. With a baby daughter and very little to call their own, surrounded by an intimate community of friends and relatives, Frances and Dennis set out on a decades-long journey. Over the years, they struggle with the vicissitudes of love and Florida’s weather, infidelity, parenthood, friendship, Hurricane Andrew, and debilitating illness—coming to terms, finally, with a life that doesn’t necessarily end happily-ever-after, but one which Frances wouldn’t trade for anything. Susanna Daniel interweaves the tropical intensity, beauty, violence, and humanity of Miami as it comes of age with a modern yet enduring story of a marriage’s beginning, maturity, and heartbreaking demise.

Doesn't it sound good? I love me some Florida Fiction!


The Lies We Told by Diane Chamberlain:

I've not read any other of Diane Chamberlain's books, so this will be a first.

Maya and Rebecca Ward are both accomplished physicians, but that's where the sisters' similarities end. As teenagers, they witnessed their parents' murder, but it was Rebecca who saved Maya from becoming another of the gunman's victims. The tragedy left Maya cautious and timid, settling for a sedate medical practice with her husband, Adam, while Rebecca became the risk taker.

After a devastating hurricane hits the coast of North Carolina, Rebecca and Adam urge Maya to join them in the relief effort. To please her husband, Maya finally agrees. She loses herself in the care and transport of victims, but when her helicopter crashes into raging floodwaters, there appear to be no survivors.

Forced to accept Maya is gone, Rebecca and Adam turn to one another—first for comfort, then in passion—unaware that, miles from civilization, Maya is injured and trapped with strangers she's not certain she can trust. Away from the sister who has always been there to save her, now Maya must find the courage to save herself—unaware that the life she knew has changed forever.

This book was offered to me for review by Tricia at Meryl L. Moss Media Relations....Thank you Tricia....I am looking forward to reading a new-to-me author!

What about you? What did YOU find today???



Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Book Review - Please Excuse My Daughter by Julie Klam



I truly love memoirs, and this one was no exception. Please Excuse My Daughter by Julie Klam is a hilarious (and sometimes serious) peek into the life of 35 year old Julie Klam. She chronicles her life, growing up in the well-to-do suburb of Bedford in Westchester County, NY. I could relate to her youth, as I grew up around the same area. A few times she had me crying, I was laughing so hard!

Julie writes with a raw honesty that I wish I could present myself. She explained situations and feelings that she had that I, myself have experienced, only I could never put it into writing.

She grew up sheltered under her parents wings, and always knew that she could count on them for help. When she falls in love with a man that is not as well off as her parents, it knocks her into a realm that is unknown to her. I felt her frustration and longing. Before meeting her current husband, she had a boyfriend who almost ruined her financially....been there, done that.

Her tales of her grandparents are sweet and funny, and the situations that she has been through vary from hilarious to insane to heart-breaking. God bless her for putting all of it down into words.

I highly recommend this memoir. I can't wait to read her next book, coming out in October...."You Had Me At Woof".

Photobucket Very Good!
  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Riverhead Trade; Reprint edition (April 7, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1594483574


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Teaser Tuesday


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser this week is from Please Excuse My Daughter, by Julie Klam....same book as last week....I haven't had much reading time lately!

~I dressed carefully, and as I slipped my sweater on, Grandma Pearl's tiny head popped up on my shoulder, her hair sprayed into a red-brick nautilus shell: "Show them you're rich and fancy, you'll be treated better." pg 132~

What's YOUR teaser today????


Monday, June 14, 2010

Mailbox Monday




Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.


In The Failing Light by David Tillman:

"In the Failing Light" is a mesmerizing, non-fiction account of a women coping with stage IV breast cancer, written from her husband's point of view. Relying heavily on dialogue, the book focuses on the love between the two, and the fight they endure to live together happily and healthily. "In the Failing Light" spares the reader no details and its tone is exquisite-by the end, you'll not only have fallen in love with the author's wife, you'll be thankful Mr. Tillman wrote this beautiful book.

Fireworks Over Toccoa
by Jeffrey Stepakoff:

Lily was married for just days before her husband was sent abroad to fight in WWII. Now, he and the other soldiers are returning, and the small town of Toccoa, Georgia plans a big celebration. But a handsome and kind Italian immigrant, responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned captures Lily's heart and soul. Torn between duty to society and her husband, and a poor, passionate man who might be her only true love--Lily must choose between a love she never knew and a commitment she'd already made.

Poignant and elegant, FIREWORKS OVER TOCCOA is a mosaic of all the emotions that only love can make possible.

What was in YOUR mailbox last week?



Saturday, June 12, 2010

On My Wishlist #11




On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where you can list all the books that you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.


In The Weight of Shadows, by Alison Strobel:

After a difficult childhood, Kim has built a successful life for herself ... but she'd leave it all if it meant being rid of the guilt she harbors over a tragic mistake she made years ago. When she meets Rick, she finds everything she needs---including a way to pay for her sins every time he hits her. Kim and Rick's new neighbor, Joshua, knows more than Kim realizes about Rick, but Joshua has battles of his own to fight. Soon to intersect Kim's and Rick's lives is Debbie, who has saved countless women from abuse through the shelter she runs, but Debbie might be as desperate for love as the women she serves. Meanwhile, as Rick's wrath extends to their baby, Kim must decide if her penance is more important than protecting that innocent life---and if she should dare leave Rick when he has the power to bring her hidden crime to light.


Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into Family by Glenn Plaskin

A personal memoir by bestselling author and celebrity journalist Glenn Plaskin, KATIE is a moving story about a man who discovers the true meaning of family after adopting a Cocker Spaniel puppy. Through the magnetic personality of his mischievous dog, the author soon makes powerful connections with several of his down-the-hall neighbors in a high-rise located in the unique Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. First, Katie trots into the lives of Pearl and Arthur, a warm-hearted elderly couple just a few doors down from Glenn. Later, John, a single Dad, and his rambunctious young son, Ryan, also move in and are seduced by Katie's charms. All of their lives are profoundly changed as they are transformed from neighbors to friends to family, with Pearl as matriarch. The motherless boy finds a "Granny"; his Dad inherits a mother, Glenn discovers a confidante. Set in New York City, we witness nearly sixteen years of antics and family adventures spanning Hollywood high times, bad health, accidents, blustery winters, even the terrors of 9/11. Through it all, the family clings to each other, sharing a deep bond that give each comfort, support and security. Based upon a widely-read article in Family Circle, here is an unforgettable story about the love that makes a family-one that transcends the hard realities of time, tragedy, and inevitable loss.

What's on YOUR wishlist this week?


Thursday, June 10, 2010

It's Finally Friday!





Since I am reading Please Excuse My Daughter by Julie Klam (and really enjoying it!) I have added another one of her books to my wish list:

You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness
by Julie Klam:

The hilarious and heartfelt chronicle of a woman learning the secrets of love, health, and happiness from some very surprising teachers: her dogs. This title will be released in October 2010.

Cruddy
by Lynda Barry:

From Goodreads:
Lynda Barry's illustrated novel Cruddy has not one but three equally alarming openings. The first is a suicide note: "Dear Anyone Who Finds This, Do not blame the drugs." The next is a description of the lurid crucifix that hangs over the narrator's bed: "Some nights looking at him scares me so bad I can hardly move and I start doing a prayer for protection. But when the thing that is scaring you is already Jesus, who are you supposed to pray to?" The third is worthy of a nightmare fairytale, beginning "Once upon a cruddy time on a cruddy street on the side of a cruddy hill in the cruddiest part of a crudded-out town in a cruddy state, country, world, solar system, universe..."

She's not exaggerating. It's 1971, and 16-year-old Roberta Rohbeson lives in what looks very much like hell. It's five years after the Lucky Chief Motel Massacre, after which Roberta was found wandering the desert, covered with blood and clutching her dog, Cookie, who suffers from "incurable skin problems." Even now, Roberta still won't talk about what happened. She lives with her mother and sister on the aforementioned cruddy street, hides in the weeds during her lunch period, and eventually befriends some suicidal misfits like herself. The novel intercuts their chemically enhanced adventures with scenes from a gore-filled road trip taken five years before. Hint No. 1: Roberta's father used to run a slaughterhouse. Hint No. 2: The maps inside the front covers have keys that read "Dead People We Left Behind" and "Places There Were Blood."

Barry came to fame as a cartoonist, and though the humor in her strip Ernie Pook's Comeek is dark, nothing in it could prepare her fans for the sheer horror of Cruddy. The novel is funny, sort of, as long as you think naming a knife Little Debbie is funny, or lines like "A man who has been dead for a week in a hot trailer looks more like a man than you would first expect." What's more, it's compulsively, almost harrowingly, readable, written with the kind of velocity that makes you keep turning pages even when you don't want to. Despite the hallucinogenic quality of the violence around her, Roberta is never anything less than real, and her story will strike chords in anyone whose childhood was marked by ugliness and fear. Cruddy may be a bad acid trip, but if you can stomach the ride, it's a very good book.

What did YOU find today?



Tuesday, June 8, 2010

An Award For Lil' Ol' Me!


Cmash at CMash Loves To Read has presented me with the Versatile Blogger award! Thank you SO much for this award....it is a new one for me!

The Rules for the award are:
1. Thank the person who gave you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (in no particular order…)
4. Contact the picked and let them know about the award.

1. I was born and raised in NY, but consider myself a Southern Gal at heart!
2. My new favorite ice cream flavor is Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie.
3. My husband is 13 years younger than I am (I am a Charter Member of The Cougar Club)
4. I love pizza....I could probably eat it every day.

5. I have an overwhelming desire to own a condo at the beach and will stop at nothing to get one.
6. My favorite season is Fall, and my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.
7. I wanted to own my own pet grooming salon at one time in my life.

Now, I am passing this award on to:

LibraryCat Booklist

Shan at Curled Up With A Good Book and A Cup of Tea
Cecile at All I Want And More
Cat at Tell Me A Story
SenoraG at Reading, Reading and Life


Teaser Tuesday


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*

*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser today comes from Please Excuse My Daughter: A Memoir by Julie Klam:

~We stopped at a red light, and my mother coolly critiqued each person crossing the street, like Howard Cosell at a run-way show. "What was she thinking this morning - 'I think I'll wear everything brown that I own'? Brown ain't going to cover that ass, honey. You need a tarp."

I am already laughing-out-loud at this memoir....Julie Klam is just what I need to chase away my post-vacation blues! What's YOUR teaser today?

Sunday, June 6, 2010

The Sunshine Award





A big hug for Yvonne at Socrates' Book Reviews for passing The Sunshine Award on to me!



This award is given to bloggers who inspire others and show positivity and creativity.



The Rules:


1) Put the logo within my blog or on my post


2) Pass the award on to up to 12 fellow bloggers


3) Link the nominees within my post


4) Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog


5) Share the love and link to the person whom you received this award from.


I would like to pass this award on to the following bloggers:




Kate at Kate's Library

Julie P. at Reading Without Restraint

Pinkilili at Sandals and Snowshoes

Carin at Caroline Bookbinder



Vacation, over ~ Books in my Mailbox


After a week of sun, sand, good food and lots of reading, we are back home. It is hard to switch gears back into "reality mode". At least I have today to do laundry and rest before it is time to go back to work tomorrow.

I finished two books while I was gone....In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White, and Hide and Seek by Jack Ketchum. I will be posting reviews for those some time this week. I brought 10 books with me, and thought that I would get through more than 2, but it didn't work out that way. Two of the books that I started I couldn't get into....big disappointment. I did have a nice, relaxing week, though. Vacationing and reading at the beach is always good therapy!

While I was gone, I received a few books in the mail:

Blood Echoes by Thomas H. Cook:

Alternately horrifying and deeply moving, this fast-paced true-crime report by Cook (Early Graves, The City When It Rains- -both 1990, etc.) focuses on the murder of six members of the Alday family of rural Seminole County, Georgia, on May 14, 1973. The slaughter was the work of three brothers--Carl and Billy Isaacs and Wayne Coleman--and of a slow-witted black man, George Dungee. The quartet were on the lam from Baltimore, where Carl, Wayne, and George had recently escaped from prison. Billy, the youngest, was along for the excitement. Spotting the trailer home of Jerry and Mary Alday, the four men, short on cash, pulled into the yard and began rifling the place. In the midst of the burglary, Jerry and his father arrived home and were promptly shot to death. A while later, other family members arrived: each was murdered. The last to appear was Mary, who was killed after being raped repeatedly. Then the murderers took off in her car and began roaming the South, staging holdups and stealing cars. Eventually arrested in West Virginia, they were returned to Georgia to stand trial. Billy turned state's evidence, and the three others were given death penalties--but the sentences were appealed, with two overturned. Today, a totally unrepentant Carl is apparently still manipulating the system and issuing statements such as, ``What did [the victims] ever do? No one would have ever paid any attention to them, if I hadn't come along and killed them.'' In Cook's capable hands, the cumulative effect is shattering. And when the author writes of the sufferings of surviving Alday family members--the loss of their farm, or their reliving of the tragic events with each new judicial maneuver--his words prove sensitive and resonant. An immensely involving work that shifts from the repellent to the heartwarming and back and asks important questions about the clash between criminals' and victims' rights.

Please Excuse My Daughter by Julie Klam:

A woman's hilarious, bittersweet account of growing up in a family of career-shunning, dependence-seeking women and her journey to a state of twenty-first-century self-reliance.

Julie Klam was raised as the only daughter of a Jewish family in the exclusive WASP stronghold of Bedford, New York. Her mother was sharp, glamorous, and funny, but did not think that work was a woman's responsibility. Her father was fully supportive, not just of his wife's staying at home, but also of her extravagant lifestyle. Her mother's offbeat parenting style-taking Julie out of school to go to lunch at Bloomingdale's, for example-made her feel well-cared-for (and well-dressed) but left her unprepared for graduating and entering the real world. She had been brought up to look pretty and wait for a rich man to sweep her off her feet. But what happened if he never showed up?

When Julie gets married to a hardworking but not wealthy man-one who expects her to be part of a modern couple and contribute financially to the marriage-she realizes how ambivalent and ill-equipped she is for life. Once she gives birth to a daughter, she knows she must grow up, get to work, and teach her child the self-reliance that she never learned.

Delivered in an uproariously funny, sweet, self-effacing, and utterly memorable voice, Please Excuse My Daughter is a bighearted memoir from an irresistible new writer.

It Takes A Worried Man
by Brendan Halpin:

Will people really want to read the rantings of a pouting, grouchy, grumbling, whiny 32-year-old? They will when they meet Halpin, a teacher in a Boston charter high school and the husband of a 32-year-old woman with Stage 4 breast cancer. Few books on breast cancer feature the husband's perspective (David Tillman's beautiful In the Failing Light, LJ 5/15/99, is a rare exception). Halpin's view is so in your face, so funny, so foul-mouthed, and so honest that everyone will want to read this and cheer for his wife, Kirsten, and their four-year-old daughter, Rowen. This is the yearlong diary of Kirsten's ordeal, which included high-dose chemotherapy and stem-cell replacement. Halpin describes every day, every complaint, every fear, along with his favorite (and not so favorite) music (loves the Carter Family, hates Dan Fogelberg), TV shows, movies, and food (especially food). He doesn't let family or friends off the hook except maybe the folks from the Unitarian Church where he belongs who do his housework, even cleaning the toilets, and his students, whom he truly loves teaching. Fortunately, there is no ending to his story. Kirsten is alive, her tumors are still palpable but considerably smaller, and she celebrated her 33rd birthday. According to Halpin, that "has to be enough." The language is graphic, which is to be expected of most 32-year-old males, but this book should not be missed. Highly recommended. Bette-Lee Fox, "Library Journal"

What about you? Did you get any good books last week?



Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Teaser Tuesday



My teaser this week comes from In the Sanctuary of Outcasts:
A Memoir by Neil White:


~Then the man who stared at me put his hand in the air and turned back toward the front. "I heard there was a 50 percent chance we was gonna be leopards when we get out of here." pg. 34~


I am loving this book! Althought it deals with a serious subject, Neil White is able to turn his prison experience into something comical and memorable.
What's YOUR teaser today??

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin
 
Blog Design by Use Your Imagination Designs Enchanted Neighborhood kit by Irene Alexeeva