BOOKFINDS

Joyce Carol Oates is a literary phenomenon. She has the ability to write with the speed of a commercial fiction bestseller and the precision and authenticity of a seasoned literary legend. Her latest addition to her ever-growing list of titles is our final selection for Mother’s Day.

WILD NIGHTS

by Joyce Carol Oates

This description and review comes from Barnes & Noble Review:

In this unsettling volume of stories, Joyce Carol Oates imagines the last days of six American writers as they consider their legacies. The writers are alternately vain about their work and unsure of its value; they regard their writing persona as a monstrous appendage whose fame colors their every interaction with the outside world. Edgar Allan Poe, holed up in a lighthouse after the death of his wife, is a meek vegetarian paradoxically given to both grandiose prose and a bloodlust against creatures both real and imaginary. Samuel Clemens, a doddering old man, starts up emotionally manipulative friendships with young girls under the disapproving eye of his only living daughter. Henry James attempts to make up for a perceived life of useless comfort and privilege by volunteering at an army hospital where he hopes to attain a vigor he believes he never had. Papa Hemingway, never one to shy away from a corpse in his writing, imagines himself a life-long captive of women, and prepares his shotgun for its final action. The sole woman in this collection is literally a captive and, in a plot device reminiscent of George Saunders, not even technically the poet Emily Dickinson. As EDickinsonRepliLuxe, part manikin, part computer, she becomes the victim of her resentful master, who does exactly what one would expect from a man in a Joyce Carol Oates story who has been assured a woman is his property. The author herself will turn 70 in June; her collection suggests a pretty grim prognosis for the outcomes of a literary life. –Amy Benfer

We have suggested some lighter fare for our dear readers to purchase for their beloved mothers (or the important women in their lives). Books that will make them laugh and enjoy those few moments they have to seep into the pages of a novel. Now we have a suggestion that runs deeper.

Editors Choice: THE SENATOR’S WIFE by Sue Miller

In The Senator’s Wife, we are introduced to two women at very different stages in married life; Meri is a new wife and soon-to-be mother, and her neighbor, Delia Naughton, an older woman who is carrying on a very “convenient” marriage with her political husband (a former senator with hints of Kennedy-esque history). The two women are both learning to navigate life at entirely different stages and along the way form a completely unique and unpredictable friendship that both desperately need at this tumultuous point in both their lives.

Meri becomes obsessed with the relationship between Delia and Tom, while we learn about Delia’s own obsession with Tom and the power of trust and betrayal in a relationship. This novel will open your eyes to the various elements that make up love and the ease with which the walls we build in our lives, the foundations we create, can be broken down.

Our next selection is by a delightful writer who is a great example of a reader who loves to write. Megan Crane writes daily in her highly enjoyable blog about her reading tastes, which are wide-reaching. Her newest release is NAMES MY SISTERS CALL ME.

Here is the book’s description:

Courtney, Norah and Raine Cassel are about as different as three sisters can get. Norah, the oldest, is a typical Type A obsessive who believes there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. She maintains a constantly-updated spreadsheet of slights and alliances, and six years later has not forgiven Raine, their middle sister, for ruining her wedding day.

Raine is Norah’s opposite – wild child, performance artist, follow-your-bliss hippie chick who fled to California after the wedding fiasco. The only thing the two sisters have in common is their ability to drive Courtney, their youngest sister, crazy.

When Courtney’s long time boyfriend proposes, she decides it’s finally time to call a family truce and bring the three sisters together. After all, they’re all grown ups now, right? But it turns out that family ghosts aren’t easily vanquished, and neither are first loves. Reconnecting the sisters also means re-examining every choice Courtney has made in the last six years, right down to the man she’s about to marry.

Anyone who understands the complex dynamics of siblings (or would like to see it in all of it’s gritty glory) will LOVE this book! You will find yourself mentally comparing yourself to one (or all) of the three Cassel sisters and routing for all of them to reconnect in whatever way possible. Publishers Weekly wrote ” Crane’s brisk voice and knack for finding the humor in Courtney’s angst keep the mood upbeat all the way to the rosy resolution.”

Our second selection for a wonderful gift for the mother’s in your life is SUMMER BLOWOUT by Claire Cook! The book doesn’t officially hit the shelves until June, so pre-order this gem and in the meantime, pick up some of Claire Cook’s earlier titles and get your mom started with this charming writer!

Booklist recently wrote that SUMMER BLOWOUT is “primed to become a big-screen romantic comedy.”

Summer Blowout is the story of Bella Shaughnessy and her large, exuberant Boston-based family. Bella is trying desperately to find her place in her family…and her life. Unfortunately her life in her family’s beauty salon is not as gorgeous as Bella had hoped. Her half-sister Sophie is currently dating her ex-husband, Craig, and living the charmed life while Bella is barely scraping by. Bella decides it is time to swear off men…and you can only imagine what happens when a cute entrepreneur enters her life. Cook always likes to show that good things really do come to those who wait…and those who wait are typically likable characters with charming, quirky and engaging personalities. Cook has the ability to create characters and plots that jump off the page and read like a roller coaster ride of fun, excitement, emotional upheaval and hilarity. Cook’s stories are exactly what you need to escape from the heartbreaking stories we face every day in the news. It’s also nice to see a writer become a bestseller without writing about death, destruction, murder and heartbreak. SUMMER BLOWOUT is a must-read and one that everyone will enjoy! You can also follow Claire Cook’s real life adventures daily on her website!

We are putting together a list of books for Mother’s Day. Every day this week, we will be posting a new suggestion that will entertain, delight and appeal to mother’s (and women) everywhere.

Today’s suggestion: THE BEST DAY OF SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE by Kerry Reichs

Despite being cursed with a boy’s name, Kevin “Vi” Connelly is seriously female and a committed romantic. The affliction hit at the tender age of six when she was handed a basket of flower petals and ensnared by the “marry-tale.” The thrill, the attention, the big white dress—it’s the Best Day of Your Life, and it’s seriously addictive. But at twenty-seven, with a closetful of pricey bridesmaid dresses she’ll never wear again, a trunkful of embarrassing memories, and an empty bank account from paying for it all, the illusion of matrimony as the Answer to Everything begins to fray. As her friends’ choices don’t provide answers, and her family confuses her more, Vi faces off against her eminently untrustworthy boyfriend and the veracity of the BDOYL.

Eleven weddings in eighteen months would send any sane woman either over the edge or scurrying for the altar. But as reality separates from illusion, Vi learns that letting go of someone else’s story to write your own may be harder than buying the myth, but just might help her make the right choices for herself.

Kerry Reichs hits the scene with a delightful debut novel! It captured my attention on page one. Considering I had just finished watching 27 Dresses and had reached my capacity of wedding-related stories, the fact that the book held my interest long into the night and even prevented me from getting to sleep at a reasonable hour should be a strong testament to the charm of this novel. The writing is sharp, the characters are believable and the setting is so detailed that you want to go in search of the bookshops that Vi frequents. I may have to bring this book with me on my next trip to Washington.

I think Kerry Reichs is going to follow in her famous mother’s successful footsteps (New York Times Bestselling author, Kathy Reichs). I look forward to her next novel with eager anticipation.

You have to both admire and wonder about someone who has the ability to say whatever they are thinking without fear of repercussions. Just when he was starting to bring light to the “Oprah incident” and prove his innocence with regards to that matter, he’s back in the news. If you Google Jonathan Franzen under the Google News category, this is the first item that appears.

“The stupidest person in New York City is currently the lead reviewer of fiction for the New York Times” -Jonathan Franzen

Curtis Sittenfeld, who burst onto the literary scene with PREP and then went on to create a lot of debate over her negative view of Chick Lit (I believe she said something about chick lit being like the slutty step-sisters to “Literary Fiction”) is coming out with her third novel, AMERICAN WIFE in September.

According to Trashionista, American Wife will be out in September and is narrated by what sounds very much like a fictional version of Laura Bush. Alice Blackwell is married to a man who becomes president of America in 2000 -  even though his opponent receives more popular votes.

I have to say that I absolutely love the cover!

I know that I am going to come off as the little cheerleader for debut author, Tiffany Baker, but I just love when authentic stories come out of major publishing houses. Baker’s book THE LITTLE GIANT OF ABERDEEN COUNTY, may just be one of those books. I haven’t read the book yet and am purely basing my opinions on the description of the novel and the phenomenal early reader reviews she has received from amazing authors like Joshilyn Jackson and Sara Gruen. The book was pitched as Wally Lamb meets Elizabeth McCracken, about a girl who grows physically and emotionally beyond her small town’s wildest expectations, and was sold to Caryn Karmatz Rudy at Warner, in a significant deal, in a pre-empt, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House.
Here is the description of THE LITTLE GIANT OF ABERDEEN COUNTY.

When Truly Plaice’s mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how recordbreakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother’s death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of femine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated–Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers.

Serena Jane’s beauty proves to be her greatest blessing and her biggest curse, for it makes her the obsession of classmate Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest in a line of Robert Morgans who have been doctors in Aberdeen for generations. Though they have long been the pillars of the community, the earliest Robert Morgan married the town witch, Tabitha Dyerson, and the location of her fabled shadow book–containing mysterious secrets for healing and darker powers–has been the subject of town gossip ever since. Bob Bob Morgan, one of Truly’s biggest tormentors, does the unthinkable to claim the prize of Serena Jane, and changes the destiny of all Aberdeen from there on.

When Serena Jane flees town and a loveless marriage to Bob Bob, it is Truly who must become the woman of a house that she did not choose and mother to her eight-year-old nephew Bobbie. Truly’s brother-in-law is relentless and brutal; he criticizes her physique and the limitations of her health as a result, and degrades her more than any one human could bear. It is only when Truly finds her calling–the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques–hidden within the folds of Robert Morgan’s family quilt, that she begins to regain control over her life and herself. Unearthed family secrets, however, will lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually break the Morgan family apart forever, but Truly’s reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.

Here is some of the early praise:

A beautiful, startling and wholly original novel, LGOAC is infused with magic, lush language, and surprises on every page. Tiffany Baker has given us a flawed, prickly, enchanting heroine in Truly–part Cinderella, part Witch, part Behemoth. In ther timeless story of small town life, the boundary between reality and fairy tale does not exist, and happy endings are possible but hard-won. This book is a treasure.

—Stephanie Kallos, author of BROKEN FOR YOU

TLGOAC read so fresh and unfolded in such surprising ways that I was captivated from start to finish. It’s a bracing, bright, masterful debut, and Tiffany Baker is a writer to watch.

—Joshilyn Jackson, author of THE GIRL WHO STOPPED SWIMMING.

“THE LITTLE GIANT OF ABERDEEN COUNTY grabs you from its astonishing beginning to its riveting conclusion. Its charms are multitude– a wholly unique love story, a devastating friendship, a bewitching multi-generational history, all brought to an apex in the larger-than-life personage of Truly, a heroine simultaneously infused with a quiet and dignified grace and peculiar sense of purpose. This dark-yet-rolicking debut is a must-read.”

–Sara Gruen, author of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

Alice Hoffman breaks my heart…and builds it back together with her beautiful words and images. Her most recent release, THE THIRD ANGEL, is a breathtaking work and one that can not be ignored. If you have never read Hoffman’s work, start here! Here is a teaser from Ms. Hoffman’s blog.
I heard something at my window. I thought it was snow falling, or birds calling, or branches hitting against the glass. I had been betrayed by someone I loved. Because of that I was sick of human race. All I could think of was how people went behind your back, lied to you, gave you gifts that looked like gold but were made of straw.

I heard it again at my window. I knew someone wanted to come in. I wondered if I had lost my soul, if someone or something had now been sent to collect it. I had most certainly lost something in being betrayed. I couldn’t find it again because I didn’t know what it was.

I thought I heard someone say my name even though the window was closed. Not the name I went by now, but my childhood nickname, a name I didn’t use anymore. I looked out and saw a man. It was cold. The sky was filled with stars. I had one thing left from the person who had betrayed me. A black coat. When I thought of him I thought of that coat and how he looked in it. Now I grabbed it from the closet and brought it outside. The man in the snow was waiting for someone to save him, so I did. I helped him on with the coat.

When he walked away I thanked him for his gift. Now when I thought of that coat I wouldn’t remember my betrayer. Instead I’d think of the man in the snow and the way he came to save me.

Book Description:

This story follows three women in love with the wrong men. Headstrong Madeline Heller finds herself hopelessly attracted to her sister’s fiancé…Frieda Lewis, a doctor’s daughter who has run off to London, becomes the muse of an ill-fated rock star… and beautiful, reckless Bryn Evans is set to marry an Englishman while she’s secretly obsessed with her ex-husband, a dangerous and love-besotted New Yorker. At the heart of the novel is Lucy Green, who blames herself for a tragic accident she witnessed at the age of twelve in the same London hotel where the others have found themselves. Lucy has spent four decades searching out the Third Angel, the angel on Earth who will renew her faith.

Evoking the worlds of Notting Hill, Kings Road, and Kensington while moving back and forth in time from the 90s, to the 60s, and then to the 50s, The Third Angel charts the unique, alchemical nature of love.

Sara Nelson recently posted on Publishers Weekly’s blog that James Patterson held his launch for Sundays at Tiffany’s at…where else…Tiffany’s! I just received a copy of Patterson’s latest release in his “women’s fiction” genre. The other titles that preceded this release were Sam’s Letters to Jennifer and Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas. In my humble opinion, Suzanne’s story was much better than Sam’s. So now we will have to see where Tiffany lands in the mix.  Patterson’s co-author for Tiffany’s is Gabrielle Charbonnet. It appears Ms. Charbonnet has already started her own blog and with any luck, her own career will take off from her partnership with James Patterson.