Sunday Salon: 5 Best Books I Picked Up at BEA

I am still recuperating from the past week and can't seem to work up the energy right now for a complete BEA/BBC re-cap but thought I would feature 5 of my favorite books from BEA - I am focusing this list on books that are not yet published to whet everyone's appetite for what is coming in the next weeks and months.  I also received some great books which are already published and will feature those separately.  Cassandra from IndiereaderHouston hosts 5 Best Books each week and this week her topic is 5 best books picked up at BEA (check out her site for other's 5 Best Lists)

Here are the top 5 books (yet to be published) that I picked up at BEA:

1. The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly from Touchstone (Simon and Schuster)  - I love all things Little Women and this modern day story of Jo's great-great granddaughters sounds delightful (available for pre-order now and publishes June 7th)






2. Next to Love: A Novel by Ellen Feldman from Spiegel and Grau - this story follows three women as their husbands go off to WWII and chronicles their lives through a full generation later (available for pre-order now and publishes July 27th)






3. Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close from Knopf follows a group of women in their twenties as they navigate dating, careers and the many weddings of their friends.  The voice of the author is touted to be sardonic and witty which is a draw for me.  (available for pre-order now and publishes August 16th)

 4. Fathermucker: A Novel by Greg Olear from Harper is the story of a stay-at-home Dad who finds out his wife may be having an affair - the entire book is told in 24 hour period. (available for pre-order now and publishes Oct 4, 2011)






5. The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright from WW Norton is the latest novel from this Irish author who won the Booker for her novel The Gathering.  Like in the Gathering, Enright presents "the momentous drama of everyday life" - my kind of book! (available for pre-order now and publishes October 2011)







What books are you looking forward to?

Review: Faith by Jennifer Haigh

Faith by Jennifer Haigh is a powerful story of corruption in the Catholic Church and the difficulties of finding and holding onto faith - in religion and in others.  The narrator, Sheila McGann, is the daughter of Irish American parents who was raised in a Boston suburb and now lives in Philadelphia.  She is drawn home to Boston when her oldest brother, Art, is accused of molesting a young boy.  A scandal and devastating for both the accused, accuser and their families for sure - but even more so because Art is a priest.  This news breaks amidst the crisis in the Catholic Church as it becomes increasingly clear that the Archdiocese was aware of the trangressions committed by priests and the Church was complicit by moving known pedophiles to new parishes to prey on other unsuspecting parishioners. Haigh tackles this charged and controversial topic by developing richly drawn characters who demonstrate how difficult it is to know the extent of the complex story behind a headline. 

Sheila McGann, upon hearing the news of the accusations against Art, cannot believe the man she knows and grew up with could be capable of hurting a child.  She is certain that he has been wrongly accused and advises her brother to "come down off the cross" when he doesn't seem to want to vehemently defend his case.  He has put his faith in the Church and believes they will take care of him while Sheila believes the Church will take care of itself and sacrifice Art if necessary to avert further controversy.  As she helps Art move out of the rectory and into a rented apartment, she gains a peek into the inner life of her solitary brother, the priest, and begins to appreciate the loneliness he faces daily. 

As much as this story is about Art and the Catholic Church, it is also about the McGann family and the dynamics that have defined their interactions with each other.  In this quote, Sheils tries to explain the family in which she was raised:

Evasion comes naturally in my tribe, this loose jumble of McGann, Devine and Breen. . . . My Father is a man of shameful habits.  My Mother is lace-curtain Irish.  She will settle for correctness, or the appearance of it; but in her heart she only wants to be good. The space between them is crisscrossed with silent bridges, built of half-truths and suppressions.  The chasm beneath is deep and wide.

This quote perfectly describes the reticent McGann's whose matriarch is most concerned with what others will think while much goes unsaid and unacknowledged.  It is not hard to see why secrets are so pervasive in this family.  There are certainly parallels between the  McGann tribe and the Catholic Church  - the suppressions and the willingness to settle for the appearance of correctness if the achievement of it becomes too aspirational.  

My thoughts
I grew up Catholic and attended almost 12 years of Catholic school and am outraged by the sinister role the Church played in covering up the transgressions of some of its priests.  It certainly shakes my faith in an institution I took at face value as a child and believed was above reproach.  Haigh addresses the disappointment and anger felt by Catholics such as me but also exposes the collateral damage done by the scandal and the danger of prejudging everyone based on the acts of a few.   A priest in the novel says 

Meeting a woman, meeting a man.  God forbid, meeting a child.  I'm a priest, my dear.  In the current climate, any human interaction is suspect.

Haigh does a superb job of both portraying a complicated, complex family and addressing the controversial topic of the Church's pedophilia scandals.  She unravels the story and the characters slowly and keeps you wanting to turn the pages to learn just a little more about this collection of imperfect characters and to get the next installment in the story that is not as it seems in the beginning.  I cannot recommend this book heartily enough and it will definitely be in my top ten for 2011.

Mailbox Monday: May 23, 2011

Mailbox Monday is usually hosted by Marcia at the Printed Page; the meme will be doing a blog tour over the next few months - this month it is hosted by Mari from MariReads.  Mailbox Monday gives us a chance to feature the books that came into our homes over the past week (and of course to check out what came in to everyone else's!) It has been some time since I have done a Mailbox Monday so there is a lot in here (probably about 1 month's worth).  

Purchased

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - for an upcoming bookclub
Love and Summer: A Novel by William Trevor - this author was recommended to me a while ago and I finally picked up one of his books
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid - the title is a mouthful but an important topic
The Lacemakers of Glenmara  by Heather Barbieri - I saw a lot of great reviews about this book on the blogs last year
The Empty Family: Stories by Colm Toibin - I snap up anything by this author!
Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi -this is not a celebrity I ever took any notice of but I heard her read some passages from this book and they were so raw and I was surprised by how much I could relate (even though I struggle with a different eating disorder than she did)

Received For Review

The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair (from the author)
Only Mine (Hqn) by Susan Mallery (from Little Bird Publicity)
The Long Song: A Novel by Andrea Levy (from Picador)
Summer in the South: A Novel by Cathy Holton (from the author)
The Oregon Experiment by Keith Scribner (from Regal Literary)
Dreams of Joy: A Novel by Lisa See (from Library Thing Early Reviewers)


What came into your home this week?

The Sunday Salon: BEA Has Arrived!

 

May seemed very far away when I registered for BookExpoAmerica (BEA) and BookBloggerCon - but here we are on May 22nd and the festivities start next week!  I am looking forward to my second trip to both conferences - especially since I was hardly able to participate in last year's events.  We had a crisis (read: total meltdown) at work the week before BEA and as a result I only made it to the BBC on Friday and even then I was dashing out to take calls and find a place to log on to deal with urgent emails.  Fortunately, this week is much calmer and although I will likely not be able to get to the convention center on Tues and Wed, I will definitely be there on Thursday and at BBC (uninterrupted, please God) on Friday.  I am also going to be able to take part in some of the evening events since they take place after work hours.  I have been reading everyone's schedules and have finally pulled a tentative one together for my time at the events  . . .

Monday

Harper Perennial Book Blogger Lunch -  I am looking forward to hearing about how is book is "made" including editing and art.

Evening (I am either going to need a teleporter or make some choices for the evening - too many great things happening simultaneously)

Peter Hamill at the Soho Apple store (5pm)

Picador Reception (6-8pm)

Jonathan Tropper and Laura Dave at Corner Bookstore (6pm)

Tuesday

 Work :(

Wednesday

Work :(

 . . . but I may try to dash over to Javits for Marisa de los Santos's signing (9:30-10:30)

Harper Collins Book Blogger Reception (6pm) - I attended this last year and it was a great place to meet fellow bloggers

Thursday

Adult Author Breakfast (8:30-9:30am)

Anne Enright signing The Forgotten Waltz in booth 3424 (10-10:30am)

Jennifer Close signingGirls in White Dresses in booth 4420 (11:30)

Book Blogger Convention Reception - Javits (3-5pm)

Atria Reception (5-7pm)

Friday

Book Blogger Convention

All I can say is that it is a good thing this week is followed by a 3 day weekend - I will need rest and time to catch up on the all the work I ducked out on during the week!

What events are you excited about this year?  If you are going to BEA/BBC, please let me know - it would be great to meet in person! I look forward to meeting you all this week! And if you are looking for places in NYC to take a break and read a bit, check out my post on the Top Ten Places to Read in the City.

Children's Book Review: Three Hens and a Peacock

 In Three Hens and a Peacock, a brightly colored peacock arrives on the farm and the three hens are none too pleased.  They wonder how difficult it could be to preen and prance down by the road to attract customers to the farm's egg sale.  So the farm hound dog brokers a job swap and the peacock heads into the hen house to try to lay eggs while the hens get gussied up and head down to the road to lure in the passersby.  Everyone soon learns things are not so easy on the other side of the fence . . .

This delightful children's book conveys an important message about the dangers of making assumptions about others and also the importance of taking pride in what you do well rather then envying other's talents.  Beyond the story, however, are beautiful illustrations in bright colors which quickly captivate (I love the hens' expressions on the cover!).  In fact, the story became secondary to the illustrations - on each page, there is so much to explore and talk to a child about in the illustrations. I definitely recommend this book for the little ones in your life!

This book is recommended for Ages 4-8 (I think a 4 year old would enjoy the story and pictures while an 8 year old could read the story aloud)

Thank you to Emily at Peachtree Publishers for sending a copy of the book for review.

            

Review: The Lost Girls

The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. by Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, Amanda Pressner is a travel memoir written by three girlfriends who leave their lives in the Big Apple behind to travel the world for a year on a trip where they learn about different cultures, languages and customs. However, their most important lessons are the power of taking chances, the gift of self-discovery and the grace of great friendships.

Jen, Holly and Amanda are each firmly entrenched in the rat race of New York City working long hours and struggling to advance their careers; at the same time, however, they are approaching thirty and beginning to get restless.  As they face their quarter-life crises, they decide to take the trip of a lifetime together and travel around the world.  Their list of destinations is impressive and includes Bali, India, Peru and Kenya.

My thoughts
The chapters of the book alternate between Holly, Jen and Amanda as they chronicle their adventures in each destination - some destinations are told from the perspectives of all three girls while other destinations are told only from one girl's perspective.  The alternation gives the reader a well-rounded experience of each destination and the trip as a whole; however, at times, it seemed superfluous to have each girl recount their observations.  Their points of view were not remarkably different from each other so it wasn't always necessary to hear each girl's experiences of a particular destination.  The book is over 500 pages long and I feel it could have been shortened by about 100 pages without my losing very much of the girls' adventure.

This minor quibble with the length, however, in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the travel memoir - I loved seeing these destinations through their eyes.  I am an avowed travel addict and am most happy when I enter an airport, passport in hand.  As I read through the memoir, I found myself adding destinations to that mental list of "must see" places - for example, I definitely want to go to Peru and Kenya.  I have also been to many of the places the girls traveled to  -Vietnam, Bali, India, Cambodia and Thailand - it was such a thrill to relive those trips by reading about the destinations in this memoir!

The book, however, is more than a collection of city guides and tales of adventure in far-flung destinations.  It is really a story of how these three women took risks and left the safety of jobs and boyfriends behind to see a bit of the world and ensure they seized the chance to live life to the fullest.  Their commitment to turning their backs on the security of lives lived according to plan is what most inspired me about these women  - I am not sure I could to it which is why I admire it so much. Oh and one more thing - they have inspired me to take a trip to New Zealand!  Take a look at the blue sky in this picture below and you will understand why!

Credit: The Lost Girls

I read this book as part of the TLC Book Tour - check out the site for a list of other tour hosts and links to their reviews.  Thank you to Harper Collins for providing a copy of the book for review.

Sunday Salon: May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers!  I am will be leaving shortly to head down to see my Mom and celebrate with her.  It's a two hour bus ride so I will doing some more traveling with The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. - it is a fun travel memoir about three girls who abandon their hectic city careers to travel for one year.  I wish I had their gumption!

Sharing A Love of Reading With My Mom
Last year I wrote about how my Mom and I share a love of reading; here is an excerpt:

Reading was a big part of my childhood - I distinctly remember my Mom taking us to the library and reading us a book each night before bed. Eventually, I would go the library alone and was reading under the covers way past "lights out".  Interestingly, I rarely saw my Mom read a book - she read the paper but not books so I never considered my Mom a reader. What I didn't appreciate then was that she couldn't fit reading into her demanding schedule of work, childcare and homemaker - reading became one of many sacrifices my Mom made for her family.


A few years ago my parents retired early and Mom found herself with more time than she knew what to do with so she began reading. Knowing how much I read, my Mom would ask me for recommendations and I discovered the joy of sharing books with my Mom. Our tastes are a little different but there is definitely overlap . . .

. . .  my mother's and my shared love of reading brings so much more - it offers us a language in which we relate to each other as friends and peers as opposed to mother and daughter. I have discovered quite a bit about my Mom in our discussions about books - revelations I know would not have been shared in any other context.

I have included a book in my Mom's Mother's Day present - Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney.  I loved this book and think she will too.  







Some other reads that I will recommend to my Mom:

Do you share reads with your Mom (or children)?  What are your recommendations?