Sunday's Weekly Book Recap #17

Here's my recap of books that I'm reading or have acquired this week, which I am sharing on the following blogs:
    hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer
   hosted by the team at Tynga's Reviews 

    hosted by Vicky at  Books, Biscuits, and Tea  

My Week in Books . . . May 5-11, 2013  

Finished reading...
   The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls by Anton Disclafani

Started reading...
   The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin

Ebooks downloaded...
     
Armored Hearts by Melissa Turner Lee and Pauline Creeden (Nook edition);  The Illegal Gardener by Sara Alexi (Kindle edition)

Borrowed from the library...
         
Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear, Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, The Promise of Stardust by Priscille Sibley

Which books did you get this week?

Enjoy life with books...  
 

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Sunday's Weekly Book Recap #17 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

Saturday Shorts: Weekend Words

 

 In honor of Mother's Day tomorrow...

 

"Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws."

Barbara Kingsolver, American author

 

 Read this and other Mother's Day quotes online at BrainyQuote.

 

List of books by Barbara Kingsolver.

 

 

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Saturday Shorts: Weekend Words was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

Friday Focus: Mothers and Mysteries

 

In tribute to Mother's Day, Mystery Scene magazine has a nice article on its website, Most Mysterious Moms and the Kids Who Write with Them, in which they profile four family teams and the books written by each.  The featured writers are Charles Todd, Victoria Abbott, Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson, and Mary and Carol Higgins Clark. 

And if you know a mom who loves to read mysteries, here is a link from criminalelement.com to the books which recently won major mystery awards: 2013 Edgar and Agatha Award Winners.

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Friday Focus: Mothers and Mysteries was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.  

Thursday Thoughts: New Thrillers and Crime Fiction

Grove Atlantic is one of the independent publishers that presented many exciting new books in the thriller, crime, historical fiction, and non-fiction categories during last week's AAP Indie Buzz Books 2013.

Here are the forthcoming thrillers and crime fiction titles from Grove Atlantic highlighted at AAP Indie Book Buzz 2013, including new books from Joyce Carol Oates and Val McDermid:

   The Shanghai Factor by Charles McCarry (June 2013)  From one of the grandmasters of the spy novel comes a serpentine story about a young American operative caught in a web between the United States and Chinese governments, where nothing is as it seems, and nobody can be trusted.
  The Rules of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake (July 2013)  LA Times Book Prize-winning author James Carlos Blake delivers a relentless thriller about a young man from a family of Texas outlaws who falls for the wrong woman, and ends up on the run from a ruthless drug cartel and a deadly bounty hunter.
  The Dying Hours by Mark Billingham (August 2013)  A dark and gripping new installment in the Detective Inspector Thorne series from world-class crime writer Mark Billingham.


   Evil Eye by Joyce Carol Oates (September 2013)  In Evil Eye, Oates offers four chilling tales of love gone wrong, showing the lengths to which people will go to find love, keep it, and sometimes end it.

  Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton (September 2013)  In this gripping, meticulously researched and richly detailed historical thriller a World War II orphan becomes a spy and is soon unwittingly involved in the secret machinations between intelligence agents at the start of the Cold War.
  Cross and Burn by Val McDermid (October 2013)  The follow-up to The Retribution, a new, heart-pounding thriller from world-class crime writer Val McDermid pits her immensely popular series characters--Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan--against a terrifying serial killer of women.

   The Star of Istanbul by Robert Olen Butler (October 2013)  Christopher Marlowe Cobb crosses paths with a sultry and mysterious actress hiding a secret agenda that may be the key to saving--or toppling--two empires during World War I in the second installment in the series.

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Thursday Thoughts: New Thriller and Crime Fiction was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.  

Waiting on Wednesday: Changing Lanes

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature of the Breaking the Spine blog.  It's a great way to share information about a forthcoming book with other readers.

 

This week's anticipated book:

 

  Changing Lanes by Kathleen Long

Publication Date:  May 14, 2013

Publisher:  Amazon Publishing

Preorder now from online and bricks and mortar bookstores

 

From amazon.com:

Abby Halladay has the perfect life. Or, rather, she will…as long as everything goes exactly according to plan. Abby never leaves anything to chance—not her job as a syndicated columnist, not her engagement to her fiancé, Fred, and certainly not her impending wedding in Paris (New Jersey, that is).

Unfortunately for Abby, even the best-laid plans often go awry—like when Fred runs away to Paris (France, that is), her column is canned, and her dream home is diagnosed with termites. Forced to move back in with her parents and drive her dad’s cab, Abby’s perfect life has now officially become the perfect disaster.

Then a funny thing happens. Slowly but surely, Abby begins letting go of her dreams of perfection. As she does, the messy, imperfect life she thought she never wanted starts to feel exactly like the one she needs.

Poignant and heartfelt, Changing Lanes celebrates the unexpected joys of everyday life—and the enduring promise of second chances.

 

My thoughts: This sounds like another perfect late spring/early summer novel where fate intervenes to change the experiences of a controlling personality into amusing and unexpectedly joyful moments.

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Waiting on Wednesday: Changing Lanes was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #12 and Tuesday Teaser

 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly meme hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea. It's an opportunity to share the first paragraphs of a book I am currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

This week I'm featuring the opening paragraphs of The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin, a book I recently purchased and am currently reading for an upcoming book club meeting. 

Read on after the intro for my Tuesday Teaser.

 

 From Random House Publishing Group 

Publication date: 1/15/2013

 1974

"HE IS FLYING.

Is this how I will remember him?  As I watch him lying vanquished, defeated by the one thing even he could not outmaneuver, I understand that I will have to choose my memories carefully now.  There are simply too many.  Faded newspaper articles, more medals and trophies than I know what to do with; personal letters from presidents, kings, dictators.  Books, movies, plays about him and and his accomplishments; schools and institutions proudly bearing his name.

Tearstained photographs of a child with blond curls, blue eyes, and a deep cleft in his chin.  Smudged copies of letters to other women, tucked away in my purse.

I stir in my seat, trying not to disturb him; I need him to sleep, to restore, because of all the things I have to say to him later, and we're running out of time.  I feel it in my very bones, this ebbing of our tide, and there's nothing I can do about it and I'm no longer content simply to watch it, watch him rush away from me, leaving me alone, not knowing, never knowing.  My hands clenched, my jaw so rigid it aches, I lean forward as if I could will the plane to fly faster."

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?  I am half-way through this historically-researched fictional account of the marriage of Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh, and find it to be an engrossing story.  This bestselling novel is beautifully written, and offers an insightful look into the Lindbergh relationship, family life, and major events of their time.

------------------------------------

Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading, is a weekly event where bloggers open to a random page of their current reads and share a teaser from somewhere on that page--no spoilers allowed.

Here's my teaser from The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin:

"Still the unanswered questions, so many I can't gather them to me in any order, in any list, oh, his damned, disciplined lists!  Now, finally, I have need for one and I can't even pick which question with which to start.  So many demand answers.  Why them?  Why all of them?  Did he love them?  Has he ever loved me?"

~ p.4

Enjoy life with books . . .

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #12 and Tuesday Teaser was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.

 

Monday Musings: Memoirs

    

Welcome to my 200th post!!  

       

 Sourcebooks is one of the independent publishers that presented many exciting new books in the memoir, fiction, and historical fiction categories during last week's AAP Indie Buzz Books 2013.

Here are the interesting new memoirs of two courageous women working to make a difference in the world, which Sourcebooks highlighted at AAP Indie Book Buzz 2013:

Shakespeare Saved My Life by Laura Bates (April 2013)     

From sourcebooks.com:

Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before — supermax solitary confinement. In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars.

Thus begins the most unlikely of friendships, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years—a friendship that, in the end, would save more than one life.

   

 Zen Under Fire by Marianne Elliott (June 2013)

From sourcebooks.com: 
In the tradition of Dear Zari and Barefoot in Baghdad, Zen Under Fire lays bare the struggles of a war-torn region from a uniquely female perspective. Marianne Elliott must defuse situations before they lead to widespread bloodshed, despite the shattering effect that the high-stress environment has on her and her relationships—redefining the question of what it really means to do good in a country that is under siege from within. Zen Under Fire is an honest, moving, and at times terrifying true story of a woman's experience at peacekeeping in one of the most dangerous places on earth.

 

Enjoy life with books...

Catherine

Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader

Monday Musings: Memoirs was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.