Review: The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins

Christy is a young Pavee gypsy boy traveling with his family in Ireland when his grandfather dies. As a traveler who feels claustrophobic when he is indoors for any length of time, he is horrified to find out that his grandfather's body is going to be buried and his wagon and all his belongings lit on fire. And so Christy and his cousin concoct a plan to burn their grandfather's body in the wagon instead of consigning him to the tiny underground space of a coffin. The intended conflagration doesn't quite have the intended effect, both depriving his grandmother of the comfort of long-standing tradition and making the adults angry. And because they are angry, Christy decides that he will not show anyone the newspaper clipping that fluttered, still intact, out of the fire. The clipping shows his mother, an unknown man, and a baby. Meanwhile, Christy's father and aunt have determined that it is time for Christy and his cousin Martin to make their first communion and so they stay in one place far longer than they ever have before, giving Christy time to unravel the mystery of the mother who died in giving him birth.

Cummins has drawn a beautiful and eloquent picture of gyspy life in Ireland and created a charming and insightful character in young Christy. Christy tells his own story in the vernacular but it is fairly easy to adapt to this non-traditional narrative voice. In searching for his mother, Christy is, in many ways, searching for himself and his place in the world. He both envies a settled life and he scorns it as unthinkable. He faces prejudice from the local townspeople, causing him to carefully evaluate the lifestyle in which he has been raised. He knows his father is a good man but what of the loose interpretation of morality as compared to the town folk? He finds good and caring people who value and accept him despite his gypsy heritage. And he finds the help he needs to unravel the threads of his personal history.

Christy is on a quest and what he finds will shake many of his assumptions, shaping who he will become as he goes forward in life. This novel of exploration, mysteries long-buried and unacknowledged, and a way of life slowly dying out is an unexpected delight to read. Cummins has written an engaging and evocative coming of age novel about an unusual boy. Thoughtful and respectful, loaded full of gyspy tradition and reasoning, this story happily satisfies.

Thanks to Angela at NAL for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review and Giveaway: How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon

The ancients lived in a world made up of an intriguing mix of superstition and science. They gave us the true and firm basis for many scientific theories today and yet they also believed some wildly incorrect things as well. Oftentimes superstition and science were married in the same person, even one who we remember today as the father (or less commonly, mother) of some branch of science or math we still study. Vicki Leon's How to Mellify a Corpse is a readable and interesting look at this combination.

With chapters organized by geographic area, Leon focuses on the various schools of thought that sprang up in the Greco-Roman world and predominated thought for centuries. Her writing is accessibly and can verge on the breezy. This is definitely not a textbook, nor is it meant to be an in-depth look at the people and beliefs of the time, instead functioning as a general overview. Occasionally the colloquialisms used in the text bring the reader up short and throw them out of the information stream but they also serve to offer a bit of levity in the reading. Since the chapters are arranged by area, there are some needless repetitions about historical figures and their schools but this is only evident on a straight through reading. If the book were to be used more as a dip and delve, this would cease being a problem.

Also, and this is no reflection on Leon at all, just as in school, I found it nigh impossible to keep the people straight. Can I chalk this up to not being scientifically or mathematically inclined myself? As such, I found the information on the superstitions to be most interesting. I'm certain I'd already run across all the scientists and mathematicians who contributed to our current understanding today while in school. But the failed or wrong thinking is usually kept out of books, depriving us of some of the fascinating quirks that make past civilizations so intriguing and human. Leon has re-animated these interesting tidbits here for the lay person. Armchair scientists will enjoy the heck out of this book of equal parts history, science, and just plain crazy ideas.

Thanks to Inkwell Management, I have two copies of this book to give away. To enter, leave a comment below with a valid e-mail address and I will choose the two lucky winners on August 9th.

Review: Rainy Lake by Mary Rockcastle

Little did I realize as I sit here at my own cottage that this novel takes place over several successive summers at a lake cottage. I'm certain that that description so many years ago was a major selling point for me in buying the book but it's been so very long since I bought it and consigned it to the unread bookshelves that I had forgotten. I have a deep and abiding love for our own summer place so there are very few things more appealing to me to read than something set in a similar place. The fact that this book also hints at darker themes does nothing to diminish the appeal even as I hope that none of the darkness looming in this novel ever pervades my own summer idyll.

Danny is a young teenager when her family decides to stop renting at Rainy Lake and to invest in a cottage of their own. Her mother falls for a slightly ramshackle home, trusting that her architect husband will be able to repair and renovate the place. And at first that is what happens. But the pressures of the times start to wear on everyone and the undercurrents threaten to swamp the family. Danny's father is unhappy at his firm and leaves to start his own business. Her adored older brother, extremely liberal in his thinking (he is furious when the local community club automatically votes to exclude a black family and he is adamantly against the Vietnam War), becomes as unbendingly rigid as those idealogues whom he opposes. Unable to hide his growing contempt for their father's compromises and increased drinking, he is growing angrier and more distant from the family. Their mother holds desperately to some new semblence of normal, trying to weather the brewing storm and make it through to calm waters.

Told in Danny's voice through several summers, the book skips through life at home, showing flashes of the discord that, at least in the beginning, dissipates once they hit Rainy Lake. But even the magic of the summer and the lake cannot hold off the rising tension that threatens to take them all under. Not only does the novel detail the disintegrating family but it also captures Danny's coming of age from the first time she lays eyes on Billy Dove, the half black, half white boy who challenges her brother's and friends' proclaimed color-blindness, to the day when she says goodbye to Rainy Lake as she prepares to leave for college.

There is a lot of humor in the telling of this book, despite the themes of racism, alcoholism, the rightness of the Vietnam War, and how liberalism can ultimately fail when embodied in people who only know privilege. Danny's desire to protect the nesting bats who have been in their cottage far longer than they have will ring true for anyone who has ever inhabited an old home. And her mother's raging fear of those same bats, driving her to sleep under the covers with her hair wound into a bath towel will make many summer home denizens chuckle.

Rockcastle has managed to evoke the halcyon days of summer on a lake while still showing the ways in which the lake is not as insulated from the outside world as a young teenager might perhaps think. And when the completely unthinkable happens and anger and tragedy and grief invade the idyll, Rockcastle has managed to be completely pitch perfect. This a coming of age in a time when so much roiled beneath the surface and so much more wasn't spoken about and yet through her wonderful and insightful narrator, we, the readers, are privy to not only the adult takes on each issue but the uncomplicated and innocent children's view as well. This is a wonderful read at any time but is particularly apt right now in the hazy, lazy days of summer.


This review is part of the Spotlight Series to spotlight books published by Graywolf Press.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.
For me, I can't wait to read: Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt. Due out January 25, 2011 from Algonquin Books, amazon says this about the book:

Two women running away from their marriages collide on a foggy highway, killing one of them. The survivor is left to pick up the pieces, not only of her own life, but also must go back and deal with the devastated husband and fragile, asthmatic son the other woman left behind. Together, they try to solve the mystery of where April was running to, and why. By turns riveting and unsettling, Pictures of You looks at the choices women make-the roads they choose-to be loved.

Interview with Holly Christine, author of Tuesday Tells It Slant

Author Holly Christine, whose latest book is Tuesday Tells It Slant, stopped by to answer a few of my questions.

Which book or books are on your nightstand right now?
Right now I’m rereading Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. I’m also enjoying Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot and just recently finished Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Ah! I loved Nancy Drew and the Babysitter’s Club books. I think I read every book in every series when I was younger. When I was really young, I had these cassette books, where you could pop in a tape and some voice would read the words to the corresponding book to you. My favorite was Cinderella. I couldn’t read yet, but I fooled my parents by memorizing the tape and when to turn the pages. That’s how well I know the story of Cinderella.

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?
I loved Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves. I’ve read it a few times now and fall more in love with his work each time. It’s creepy and beautifully crafted at the same time.

How did you get started writing?
When I was in grade school, I would come home and my parents would ask me to tell them a story about class. I never told the truth. I would tell stories about kids getting hit by cars, someone sticking his arm in the washer and having to go to the hospital, and the whole time my parents are thinking... What is going on at that school? I started to put my stories on paper as soon as I could understand how to get them down.

If you heard someone describing your books (or just the latest book) to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe them/it?
I would hope to hear that they enjoyed the book and that it made them think.

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you since becoming a published author?
I became more confident in my work. I also began to network with other authors. It’s always fun to pick the brain of another storyteller.

What was the first thing you did when you heard that you were going to be published?
I self-published, and publishing traditionally didn’t even occur to me. I made Tuesday Tells it Slant available for Kindle download after the second or third edit, and when sales proved successful in the eBook world, I made it available as a paperback.

Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.
I sing in the car. Loudly. I’m also an aggressive driver (I have no idea where this comes from... I’m so passive in normal, walking life). I’m a terrible dog trainer.

If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why?
I would choose something that challenged my creative side and gave me space to thrive both individually and artistically. Something that mimics writing, I guess.

What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?
Separating yourself from your words a bit. A writers group really helps with the critiquing and editing side of writing. It helps to open your mind and take your work to the next level.

Are you working on something new now? If so, give us a teaser for it.
I’m working on creating a few modern parallels to well known and lesser known stories in Greek mythology. The concept came about after a friend told me about the Library of Celsus. I plan to somehow make the work mimic the architecture of the building.

Be sure to check out Holly's webpage, her Facebook page, and follow her on Twitter.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.
For me, I can't wait to read: The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia by Mary Helen Stefaniak. Due out August 31 from Walker and Company, amazon says this about the book:

A big-hearted story of a Depression-era small town turned upside down by a worldly teacher. Narrator Gladys Cailiff is eleven years old in 1938 when a new, well-traveled young schoolteacher turns a small Georgia town upside down. Miss Grace Spivey believes in field trips, Arabian costumes, and reading aloud from her ten-volume set of The Thousand Nights and a Night. The real trouble begins when she decides to revive the annual town festival as an exotic Baghdad bazaar. Miss Spivey transforms the lives of everyone around her: Gladys's older brother Force (with his movie-star looks), her pregnant sister May (a gifted storyteller herself), and especially the Cailiffs' African American neighbor, young Theo Boykin, whose creative genius becomes the key to a colorful, hidden history of the South.

Populated by unforgettable characters—including three impressive camels—The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia rides a magic carpet from a segregated schoolroom in Georgia to the banks of the Tigris (and back again) in an entrancing feat of storytelling.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Some decent reading but again not so much reviewing. Maybe this is the new normal for me? This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

Tuesday Tells It Slant by Holly Christine
How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
The Laments by George Hagen

Reviews posted this week:

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais
Tuesday Tells It Slant by Holly Christine

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins
Bite Me by Christopher Moore
Old World Daughter, New World Mother by Maria Laurino
South Beach Sizzle by Suzanne Weyn and Diana Gonzalez
Look at Me Now by Thomas Hubschman
Water Wings by Kristen den Hartog
The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle
A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi" by Chloe Rhodes
Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart
Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
The Last Rendevous by Anne Plantagenet
Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
The Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan
Miss You Most of All by Elizabeth Bass
How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye

Monday Mailbox

This is likely my last Monday Mailbox until next month as I won't be home to see what all arrives. But I am looking forward to coming home to another collection as good as this week's. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Valeria's Last Stand by Marc Fitten came from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
The village grouch finds love. How can this not be an entertaining idea?

I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee came from Kristin at Gallery Books.
Personal essays by a comedian. This is so totally my cuppa that I can't wait!

Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson came from Gallery Books.
A chef destroyed by a scathing review, a cancelled wedding, and a trip to Italy to heal her heart and add to her culinary skill, this has all the ingredients of a fantastic food novel. Wonder what it'll make me crave when I read it?!

One Season of Sunshine by Julia London came from Ayelet Pocket Books.
I have liked London's historical romances so I was curious about a contemporary romance, especially one with a heroine searching for her birth mother and a recently widwed hero with two children.

And One Last Thing by Molly Harper came from Gallery Books.
Sometimes I just like to sink into a good chick lit. The fact that this one's heroine has the same last name as one of my children's second grade teacher has nothing to do with the appeal (okay, it does). But on top of the name, the main character finds out her husband is cheating, sends an ill-advised e-mail as a result, and has to retreat for some peace and quiet to her family's cabin. Sounds delightfully escapist, doesn't it?

One Day by David Nicholls came from Vintage.
A single day each year in the life of two very different people, this is incredibly intriguing sounding.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page and Kristi at The Story Siren and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: The Well-Traveled Book

I used to drag my textbooks home for each and every holiday from college. Before I left my dorm room, I would dutifully tuck them into my luggage and fly home with them. If they left my luggage at all, it was only so I could stow the suitcase away for the duration of my visit home. Mostly though, they just few back and forth across the country, weighting down my suitcase. (Thank heavens the airlines didn't charge for baggage way back then in the dark ages.) Once I graduated from school, I only ever took books on vacation, and for pleasure, so they were generally read in a timely manner. The book that white water rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with me (Edward Abbey's The Fool's Progress) is water-stained and stuffed with a few sparse pressed leaves and blooms. I dragged 10 books on my honeymoon with me to Turkey (and actually read most of the 10 so feel very sorry for my long-suffering husband, who had to lug my heavy suitcase and lose my attention to book after book after book after... well you get the picture). And I've already written in a previous Sunday Salon how much joy it gives me to sit down and decide which books make the cut to go on my annual summer vacation. So it's clear that many of my books are quite well-traveled. I even enjoy Bookcrossing so that I can see where some of my books might be traveling without me.

But today an era came to an end. One of my very well-traveled books, one that I have continuously had a bookmark in for well over a year, is finally finished and will cede its place in my luggage to other books. And a great shout was heard in all the land! I turned the last page of The Far Pavilions this morning. That book started traveling with me sometime last year and it was no tiny, compact darling to carry around. No, this book caused carpal tunnel just thinking about lifting it, weighing in at a whopping 955 pages. My copy also happened to be one of the books that went down with the ship last summer and so it was even larger than it appeared, swollen to twice its size. M.M. Kaye and company went to Savannah for Christmas and Easter with me (twice). It went to my summer cottage, also twice. It came home from the cottage dripping wet last summer and then went back up there again the same year, dried out. It hid in my luggage on our anniversary trip to Asheville (if I took books on our honeymoon, D. should have expected me to take them on our anniversary too, right?!). It went back north with me this year and flew home to attend my daughter's last dance competition of the season. And that is where the final page was turned. Because it was time. And by golly, I was tired of schlepping it back and forth and forth and back in suitcases and bags and sliding around on the passenger seat of my car.

I wonder what the next well-traveled book from my collection will be. There's just no telling what I'll start and set aside to be dubbed the book permanently on my bedside table no matter where in the country or the world that bedside table happens to be. Do you have books that you cart around with you and yet never seem to finish or am I the only one?

In addition to India under the British Raj, books took me to many more places this week than I took them. I altered the past by re-writing it in order to change my present. I went to the ancient world to learn about their foremost thinkers and scientists. I lived in an 11x11 room with a five year old boy and his mother, who was kidnapped years prior while a college student. And I learned the truth behind the authorship of Shakespeare's best plays as confided by his much maligned wife.

Saturday Shout-Out

On my travels through the blogging world, I find many books that pique my interest. I always add them to my wish list immediately but I tend to forget who deserves the blame credit for inspiring me to add them to my list (and to whom my husband would like to send the bill when I get around to actually buying them). So each Saturday I'm going to try and keep better track, link to my fellow book ferreter-outers (I know, not a word but useful nonetheless), and hopefully add to some of your wish lists too.

Finny by Justin Kramon was mentioned on Beth Fish Reads.

Commuters by Emily Gray Tedrowe was mentioned on Beth Fish Reads.

The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell was mentioned on Caribousmom.

Packing For Mars by Mary Roach was mentioned on books, the universe, and everything.

What goodies have you added to your wish lists recently? Make your own list and leave a comment here so we can all see who has been a terrible influence inspiring you lately.

Just a quick note

Just a quick post to let you know that I am headed off the grid again. Hopefully there will be at least a few opportunities to post things for your reading pleasure but that depends on the vagaries of the weather and the availability of the computers at the library in town. Until I get back to my own more consistent computer, have some lovely, restful, book-filled summer days.

Review: Tuesday Tells It Slant by Holly Christine

Who among us doesn't have a moment or two in our past that we wish we could change? Perhaps a moment where we were unnecessarily unkind or made the wrong choice. Or perhaps a time when we were bullied or overlooked. Short of a movie like Groundhog Day though, this is completely unrealistic. But what if you could take an old diary and re-write your life, re-write it to the point that it changes your current life? If your past experiences are suddenly different, how are you a different person in the present?

Tuesday Tells It Slant takes this very premise. Tuesday Morning is a book reviewer for an up and coming literary magazine when her boss has finally had it with her inability to come to work on time. Unemployed and barely hanging on emotionally, she manages to find a job at a local bookstore where she unexpectedly bumps into childhood friend and former boyfriend, Billy. With Billy's re-appearance in Tuesday's life, her forgotten and discarded past is about to have a shocking meeting with her present.

Told through a series of flashbacks, old (and newly created) diary entries, and scenes from the present, the reader is taken along as Tuesday orchestrates the past she wants to have lived, perhaps losing the person she was meant to be in the present. Besides Billy, other characters spiral through Tuesday's narration (the whole story is from her point of view): her twin sister Monday, her best frenemy Katie, and her parents Mitch and Miranda. Several of Emily Dickinson's poems are also used in the novel, both to explain Tuesday's inspiration and to foreshadow the coming revelations.

Unfortunately, the narrative time jumps, although prefaced by dates, were terribly confusing to me as a reader. I suspect that this is because there seem to be three or four main times to keep straight and a couple of them are not so far removed in time as to be immediately and obviously different from each other. I kept having to check back to see when it was in time that I was reading about. Also, it takes a fairly long while before it becomes obvious which of Tuesday's diary entries are original and which are rewrites (and perhaps I never did get them straight). I suspect that Christine was trying to play around with non-traditional narrative structure but it ended up being too jumbled to easily follow.

The characters, aside from Tuesday, were lightly sketched so their portrayals really only explained more of who Tuesday was than them being full characters in their own rights. And somehow I expected the re-writing of the past to be very different than it was, perhaps wanting more a touch of magical realism than the pragmatic explanation given. Although, when the reason for Tuesday's desire to rewrite the past is finally made clear, I certainly had more sympathy for the lengths to which she went to truly believe in her created past. Over all, while the book had an intriguing premise, in the end it didn't work for me. For alternative views, check out some of the amazon reviewers who connected to this better than I did.

Thanks to Amanda at InkWell Management for sending me a review copy of this book.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.
For me, I can't wait to read: Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows. Due out August 31 from Walker and Company, amazon says this about the book:

Deborah Fallows has spent much of her life learning languages and traveling around the world. But nothing prepared her for the surprises of learning Mandarin, China's most common language, or the intensity of living in Shanghai and Beijing. Over time, she realized that her struggles and triumphs in studying the language of her adopted home provided small clues to deciphering the behavior and habits of its people,and its culture's conundrums. As her skill with Mandarin increased, bits of the language—a word, a phrase, an oddity of grammar—became windows into understanding romance, humor, protocol, relationships, and the overflowing humanity of modern China.

Fallows learned, for example, that the abrupt, blunt way of speaking that Chinese people sometimes use isn't rudeness, but is, in fact, a way to acknowledge and honor the closeness between two friends. She learned that English speakers' trouble with hearing or saying tones—the variations in inflection that can change a word's meaning—is matched by Chinese speakers' inability not to hear tones, or to even take a guess at understanding what might have been meant when foreigners misuse them.

In sharing what she discovered about Mandarin, and how those discoveries helped her understand a culture that had at first seemed impenetrable, Deborah Fallows's Dreaming in Chinese opens up China to Westerners more completely, perhaps, than it has ever been before.

Question and Answer with Richard Morais

Richard Morais, the author of The Hundred-Foot Journey was kind enough to sit down and answer my crazy questions for you all.

Which book or books are on your nightstand right now?

RCM:
SPOONER (in Kindle) by Pete Dexter.
MYSTICISM: CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST by D. T. Suzuki
BEST NEW AMERICAN VOICES 2007 (Selected by Sue Miller)
RIVER OF FIRE, RIVER OF WATER by Taitestu Unno
DON CAMILLO TAKES THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL by Giovanni Guareschi (finished)
DON QUIXOTE – by Miguel de Cervantes (finished)
THE BIRD ARTIST by Howard Norman (finished)
BUDDHA OF INFINITE LIGHT by T.D.Suzuki (finished)

Can I just say that I love that finished books are included? On my own nightstand, finished books have to be removed immediately in order to lessen the risk of injury should the pile topple over though.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?

RCM: MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS by Gerald Durrell

I just read this one and I have to say that I loved it, even though I am far, far, far past childhood. I wish I had discovered it earlier and I fully intend to introduce my own crew to it as soon as I can bully them into it.

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?

RCM: WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy

Interestingly enough, I read this one for the first time last year. I don't know that I would go for reading it over again soon though given how much of my reading life it consumed.

How did you get started writing?

RCM: I wrote a play about Richard I (The Lionheart) in first grade.

I'm impressed you remember what you wrote about. I wrote stories all the time when I was small but they are (blessedly) lost to the mists of time. I do have school papers dating back to fifth grade though and I refuse to get rid of them, occasionally threatening my children with being forced to read them.

If you heard someone describing your book to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe it?

RCM: It’s about a human being finding his place in the world.

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you as a published author (either as a magazine writer or now that you have a full-length novel)?

RCM: THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY was picked as one of their best reads of the 2010 summer by some heavy hitters I deeply respect: O, The Oprah Magazine; (“favorite summer reads”); the American Booksellers Association (“Indie Next Great Reads”); the American Library Association (“starred” review); and the editors of Amazon-Kindle (“Ten Best” books of June.)

I see that The Hundred-Foot Journey is in active film development. Who would be your dream cast?

RCM: I originally imagined India’s Shashi Kapoor as Abbas Haji and France’s Jeanne Moreau as Gertrude Mallory. But I think both are little too old and unwell for the roles now. So I have since warmed to the frequently floated notion of Meryl Streep as Madame Mallory – the only American actress I think who could pull her off – and blank-faced Dev Patel as Hassan Haji (during his youthful years). Luckily, India, France and Britain all have many fantastic actors to fill the book’s rambling cast.

If it was my book, I would be pushing hard for a combo Bollywood/food porn flick but I'm weird that way. Plus I love the enormous and cheesy production numbers in Bollywood movies. Just think how great all that singing and dancing could be around food! Of course, I have no idea who I'd cast for any of the parts but I agree that Meryl Streep is the only actress I can think of who could pull off Madame Mallory.

Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.

RCM: I think I am rather conventional, but my daughter and wife insist I am eccentric.
I have been fly fishing In Iceland for salmon since I was 14 years-old
I weep easily in movies. Even during puerile Disney films. Very embarrassing.

If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why?

RCM: An actor – I love pretending, for a little while, that I am someone else far from my own skin.

Can you give us a teaser of your next book, Buddhaland Brooklyn?

RCM: The book is in the form of a diary kept by Reverend Seido Od, a Japanese priest, sent to Brooklyn to build a Buddhist temple. The motley crew of characters the repressed Buddhist priest meets in Brooklyn change him profoundly over the course of the year. One character, Jeanette, is a neurotic American woman hell-bent on seducing the Japanese priest. But the perplexed Reverend Oda, not understanding what is going on after one loaded exchange with Jeanette, asks his American assistant, Jennifer, why the woman with the big hair appears to be stalking him. Jennifer uses a vernacular American expression to explain what is going on, but Reverend Oda still doesn’t get it. Here their brief exchange:

“Jump bones?”
Miss Jennifer pause briefly, before she add, much more gently, “Jeanette is hoping to see what you have under your robes, Reverend Oda.”
I blush. Deep red.
I not say another word, but at next corner, I curtly excuse myself and head over to Smith Street, allowing Miss Jennifer to continue down Court Street by herself.
Imagine this. I am speechless.

This scene totally cracks me up.

What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?

RCM: Actually enjoyed these questions. Writers LOVE talking about themselves, so no hardship here. The hardest part is the day-to-day monotony of working through all my bad writing - all necessary in order to get to that good place where the characters come to life and start doing their own thing on the page.


Thanks so much to Richard for sharing all of that. Read my review of his book, The Hundred-Foot Journey, pick up your own copy over which to salivate, and be sure to visit Richard's author blog for more interesting information about his books and his life.

Now for the giveaway part. Yes, I know you've all been waiting for this bit but wasn't it interesting to read Richard's answers to get to this point? Thanks to InkWell Management I have three copies of this book to give away to US residents. Leave a comment below with your e-mail address to enter. No entries after midnight July 20th. Winners will be chosen and posted just as soon as I can get myself off the island and into a place with working internet (hopefully the 21st but no promises).

Review: The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais

I love food. I love books. And books about food? Well, butter my buns and call me biscuit, or in the case of this book, slather me with creme fraiche and call me a croissant. OK, so the colloquialism doesn't translate from deep south to French food but the sentiment behind it definitely still stands. This is a delightful feast of a book.

Hassan Haji's earliest memory is of the smells wafting upstairs to his cot from the restaurant his family ran in India. Is it any wonder then that food and cooking would be in his blood? His early childhood was filled with a raucous family and food. But after the death of his well-respected grandfather, an out of control mob attacked and burned the restaurant, killing Hassan's mother in the process and so the family fled. Spending two years in London, Hassan seemed poised to become another disaffected youth until the family is once again driven onward, this time to Europe, leading a peripatetic life. And then a car breaks down, depositing the Haji family in the small French town of Lumiere, where Hassan's life starts back down the path for which he was born: to become a world class chef.

Across the street from the noisy and vibrant Haji family restaurant, located on the ground floor of a gracious mansion, is a quiet, stately two-star French restaurant and its crusty owner, Madame Mallory. Declaring war on the Hajis, Mallory tries everything under the sun to get the better of Abbas Haji, Hassan's father. She is completely stricken when she discovers that Hassan, now the head chef in his family's restaurant despite his youth, has the raw talent that she herself lacks and so she ramps up her campaign to drive the outsiders out. But a near tragedy changes her mind and she offers to teach Hassan to cook traditional French food, grooming him to become what she could not, a rising star in the French culinary world.

Taking place from Bombay to London to Paris, the sights and sounds of food and cooking permeate every aspect of the novel. I salivated my way through much of it although I freely admit that I like Indian food a whole lot more than I like French food so I was a bit disappointed that Hassan didn't create a fusion of sorts between the comfort food of his childhood and the elegant French food of his chosen adult life. Morais has managed to capture the essence of the culinary profession, the life in kitchens, and the professional worries that are all part and parcel of a chef's life.

The novel is fiction but it reads like a memoir. Certain of the characters like Madame Mallory and Abbas Haji are larger than life, utterly colorful and thoroughly entertaining. The section on London addresses the issue of immigrants better than the later section set in France although there are still moments where racism realistically rears its ugly head. Hassan's character is singularly focused so much of the narrative follows him from kitchen to kitchen, losing a bit of the larger than life quirkiness that defined the Haji family and then life at Madame Mallory's. This was a novel full of joy, contentment, and destiny fulfilled. Hassan found his calling, devoted his life to it, and made the most of his amazing talent, richly rewarded with friends and accolades alike. His early life and family determined his path for him, both personally and in the kitchen, and he embraced his role.

The writing here is descriptive and frequently mouth-watering. I only wish there had been more detail, a more complete description of the people so instrumental in Hassan's life in the second half of the book. Overall, this is a book that will appeal to food afficionados, anyone who enjoys reading about the making of a chef, and those who search out books with a hint of the exotic and the vibrant. Morais was a friend of the late Ismail Merchant and this could easily be a Merchant Ivory film, lush and decadent, just as it is written.

Thanks to Inkwell Management for sending me a review copy of this book. Check back tomorrow for an interview with author Richard Morais.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

You'd think a week away would translate into some serious reading and reviewing time, wouldn't you? Not in this case. The week started with two 9 hour driving days back to back and then culminated in the terrible news that my grandmother is in the hospital after a serious stroke. This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
The Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan
The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais
Miss You Most of All by Elizabeth Bass

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon
The Laments by George Hagen
Tuesday Tells It Slant by Holly Christine

Reviews posted this week:

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
Free to a Good Home by Eve Marie Mont
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins
Bite Me by Christopher Moore
Old World Daughter, New World Mother by Maria Laurino
South Beach Sizzle by Suzanne Weyn and Diana Gonzalez
Look at Me Now by Thomas Hubschman
Water Wings by Kristen den Hartog
The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle
A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi" by Chloe Rhodes
Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart
Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
The Last Rendevous by Anne Plantagenet
Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
The Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan
Miss You Most of All by Elizabeth Bass

Monday Mailbox

Home for a brief break in my vacation, I found a bunch of wonderful books waiting for me (or as my husband said when he picked me up at the airport: "your leaning tower of books"). This past week's mailbox arrivals:

A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis came from Angela at NAL.
A book about sisters and how they must cope when one is faced with losing language due to a devastating disease, this sounds like both my worst nightmare and a marvelous reading experience.

Tuesday Tells It Slant by Holly Christine came from the author for a blog tour.
Being able to change diary entries and change your life? How cool does that sound?!

Flatmates by Chris Manby came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
I so love British chick lit! This one is about three flatmates and the trouble that one's boyfriend causes. Yum!

Maximum Diner by Christopher Nye came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
The tale of starting up a diner in a smallish English town, this one appeals to my anglophilia and my addiction to food porn.

Swahili for the Broken-Hearted by Peter Moore came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
An African travelogue, this one will keep my armchair traveling passport moving along.

Switchboard Operators by Carol Lake came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
Short stories centered around switchbord operators. Historical and a cool concept to boot!

Looking for Andrew McCarthy by Jenny Colgan came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
Having grown up watching the brat pack movies, the title grabbed me on this one first. Then the plot summary telling that it's about a woman who has discovered that life doesn't really turn out like those movies and who decides to chase down Nadrew McCarthy solified my desire to read this one.

That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
A fictional year in the life of a couple who move to rural Ireland, this sounds like a quiet and beautiful book.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page and Kristi at The Story Siren and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: Obstacles to reading and other disgruntlements

Have you ever had a day, a week, a month, or longer, where every time you tried to read, something came up and prevented you from cracking open that book? I don't mean being in a reading slump although some of the things that prevent a reader from reading can certainly throw you into a slump, taking over your thoughts to the point that you can't concentrate on the page. This past week has been a rough one for reading for me. First, after all that dithering about which books to take with me and the eventual choice of 60+, we left on vacation. This means that I drove two consecutive nine hour days. Despite the fact that I have been known to read at stoplights, I didn't get any reading done either of those two days.

The kids and I did listen to two books though. The first, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, was one that all of us had read previously. Now I freely admit that audio books are a tough sell for me so take my opinions with a grain of salt. I didn't love the narrator on the audio. And having read the book already, I know that it wasn't the book itself that was irritating me. I think it was the reader's voice. But if that was a minor irritation, the second book, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, provided major irritation. I had high hopes but found it duller than ditch-water with characters who are supposed to be highly intelligent but in actuality are slower than molasses in January. It was painful to listen to a book so incredibly boring, an opinion with which my daughter concurred. My boys thought it was interesting though so I guess that tells you who the better target audience is. (We actually finished the second book on the five hour drive back from the cottage to the airport to come home again.) So two audiobooks and two strikes of varying degree.

Once we were actually on vacation I did do some actual physical reading but then got blindsided by the news that my 90 year old grandmother was taken to the hospital after a suspected stroke. Later that same day my parents found out that their beloved dog has cancer. Nothing like an emotional earthquake followed by a nasty aftershock to snuff out any interest in reading. I have since walked out the door several times without a book in hand. I was even unmoved by the selection of books at the airport bookstore, buying one for each of my children but none for myself. Of course, it doesn't help that an overwhelming majority of what was available there was all about vampires. Frankly I wish the publishing world would bury the undead and be done with it. I know that eventually the fog I seem to be living in will lift and I will get back to books, but in the meantime, I'm just going to sit and stare and hope that I can see over the top of these reading obstacles to a time in the future where I am happy to settle down into my comfy chair with a book in hand.

I did read a few books this week in addition to starting and setting aside a slew more. I spent time in Duluth with a father and son as the father told the story of the freighter shipwreck he survived and that has destroyed his life and his relationship with everyone he cared about ever afterwards. I peeked in on a romance kindled on the set of those newfangled movie-things being created out in California. I nurtured an inborn talent for cooking, moving from a restaurant in India to Michelin starred restaurants in France. And I visited Sassy Spinster Farm, where an extended family, cantankerous and loving, lives their lives together.

Saturday Shout-Out

On my travels through the blogging world, I find many books that pique my interest. I always add them to my wish list immediately but I tend to forget who deserves the blame credit for inspiring me to add them to my list (and to whom my husband would like to send the bill when I get around to actually buying them). So each Saturday I'm going to try and keep better track, link to my fellow book ferreter-outers (I know, not a word but useful nonetheless), and hopefully add to some of your wish lists too.

I am on vacation this week, which for me means I am in "the place of my heart." What this also means is that the cottage is in the back of beyond so we have no internet access. Not such a bad thing really. But that means I haven't been able to poke around looking for books to add to my wishlist (also not a bad thing!). By all means though, if you have some to bring to my attention, please post what you've found lately in the comments and I'll check it all out when I get home from my bliss.

What goodies have you added to your wish lists recently? Make your own list and leave a comment here so we can all see who has been a terrible influence inspiring you lately.

Review: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

I am quite probably the last person on the planet to have read this book. And despite all the rave reviews (are there any detractors at all?), I was planning to hold out even longer (forever?) until I decided to use this graphic novel as my book to challenge my preconceptions about a genre for the Take Another Chance Challenge. Because you see, I am not a fan of the graphic novel. Somehow, the whole comic panel thing detracts from the story for me. But I thought this universally praised graphic novel might be the one that made me understand what all the hoopla is about over these books. Sadly, that was not to be.

Telling of Satrapi's childhood in Iran, this is a simple but direct tale about the overthrow of the Shah and the beginning of the Islamic Revolution. Satrapi grew up learning that no one was safe, not family, not friends, no one. They could and did just disappear. And yet both her family and she as a young girl stayed politicized, quietly (and sometimes, in the manner of children, not so quietly) questioning the official line. The graphics are blocky and starkly black and white, reflecting the simplicity of a child's memories and also the growing horror of life under the regime.

While this sounds promising, I was unable to get myself past the prejudice I was trying to challenge. I simply don't love graphic novels. Having to stop and examine the art broke the flow of the narrative for me. I would have prefered more detail in words than the simplistic comic panels offered. While I do recognize that condensing a powerful tale into a book as minimal as this takes skill, I'm much happier with my wordier, less illustrated texts. I do have the second book sitting here and because I am this way, I am certain I will be reading it as well but unless something finally clicks for me, that will likely be my last graphic novel.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.
For me, I can't wait to read: The Blueberry Years by Jim Minik. Due out August 31st from Thomas Dunne Books, amazon says this about the book:

The Blueberry Years is a mouth-watering and delightful memoir based on Jim Minick’s trials and tribulations as an organic blueberry farmer. This story of one couple and one farm shows how our country’s appetite for cheap food affects how that food is grown, who does or does not grow it, and what happens to the land. But this memoir also calls attention to the fragile nature of our global food system and our nation’s ambivalence about what we eat and where it comes from.
Readers of Michael Polland and Barbara Kingsolver will savor the tale of Jim’s farm and the exploration of larger issues facing agriculture in the United States—like the rise of organic farming, the plight of small farmers, and the loneliness common in rural America. Ultimately, The Blueberry Years tells the story of a place shaped by a young couple’s dream, and how that dream ripened into one of the mid-Atlantic’s first certified-organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms.

Review: Free to a Good Home by Eve Marie Mont

Noelle Ryan is a vet tech at an animal shelter. She loves finding homes for the dogs in her care, drawn to the innocent and needy. At home she has a rescue dog herself, Zeke, a friendly Great Dane upon whom she lavishes the love for which, thanks to the collapse of her marriage, she has no other outlet. Recently divorced, despite still loving her ex-husband, she and Jay continue to keep in touch as he builds his new life. Noelle still can't say no to Jay so when he asks her to give his mother, the eptiome of the evil mother-in-law, injections, she says yes, reluctantly but still she says yes. Noelle is the person everyone turns to when they need a favor, taking advantage of her giving heart, never stopping to consider that she might be reeling from the double whammy of discovering that she can't have children and that her ex-husband is gay. Even while she continues her caretaking of strays, surrendered animals and her cantakerous ex-mother-in-law, she meets Jasper, a relaxed musician who offers her the chance to be happy simply for the sake of being happy if only she can find the courage to take it.

Noelle as a character is good and kind and loyal but she's also a bit of a lost soul. Luckily canine Zeke and the other shelter dogs help ground her a bit. Ex-husband Jay is selfish and thoughtless. He never stops to consider what his requests and suggestions do to Noelle emotionally, keeping her inadvertantly tied to him. As a boyfriend, Jasper is almost too perfect, giving Noelle the space she needs to find closure with Jay and to trust in her own feelings again. There was just such a charming feel throughout this book about second chances. So many of the characters had to accept the curves life threw at them and go on to create a different life, perhaps not the one once envisioned, but one that contained the potential for much happiness nonetheless and this same theme was reflected in the lives of the shelter dogs with whom Noelle worked. The dogs took what happened to them and in most cases, were rehabilitated to find love and caring in new homes.

The novel tackles a lot of weighty topics (terminal illness, homosexuality, infertility) but retains an air of pervading hope and a sense of happiness just around the corner throughout. This is a perfect book for dog lovers (although one set of Noelle's neighbors will make you mad) and for those who appreciate stories about new beginnings and genuinely nice characters coming into their own and fitting in their skin. I read this in a day so it's a quick and delightful book and would be perfect to tuck into a beach bag.

(For those of you who worry when a dog is on the cover of the book--after all the general rule of thumb is that the dog dies--I will ease your mind and say that Zeke is alive and licking at the end of the book. Not really a spoiler, I promise. Just a reassurance.

Make sure to visit Eve's website where you'll find her blog and all sorts of fun information. And don't forget that the book releases today so you too can have a copy of this charming story.

Thanks to Kaitlyn at Berkley for sending me a review copy of this book.

Review: Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

The high school I went to had a very different curriculum from most. The overwhelming number of choices we had for classes was amazing, and for an English and history loving geek like me, the best thing ever. I took elective classes like 20th Century Wars, an Asian history class, the Hero in Literature, Literary Outcasts, and Russian-Soviet Life. The latter class was a cross-departmental english and history class and we read some of the great Russian and Soviet authors. I still have my copy of The Complete Prose Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin on my shelves. But as the title suggests, we never did read Pushkin's poetry, not even his most famous work, the novel in verse, Eugene Onegin. But because I have long been susceptible to buying all the works I can find by an author I enjoy, said novel in verse has been sitting on my shelves unread for literally decades. Note I said I acquire the books, not actually read them. Although in this case, I did finally tackle this most Russian of poems. And it was surprisingly accessible.

Eugene Onegin's eponymous main character is a young man who enjoyed the social whirl and was a hit with women but he became jaded and tired of this life, retreating to his country estate and a fairly hermetic life there until Vladimir Lensky, a young poet moves into the area and the two men strike up a friendship. Lensky takes Onegin to dinner with his love Olga's family where Olga's older sister Tatyana falls for the experienced Onegin. She writes him an impassioned letter and is coldly and effectively rebuffed. After a disastrous evening at a country ball where Onegin unthinkingly flirts with Olga, Lensky calls him out and a duel ensues. Our hero flees the countryside, wandering for a couple of years, during which time Tatyana goes to St. Petersburg and marries, becoming a cosmopolitan young woman. And now Onegin falls head over heels in love with her, now that she is unavailable.

I expected this to a tough read for a couple of reasons. I am (too many to count) years out of school and so not liable to find anyone willing to discuss this with me to help tease out meaning. I have never been a wild poetry fan and the thought of an entire novel in verse was daunting (Sharon Creech's lovely middle grade book Love That Dog being my only other attempt at it and while charming, that one is hardly in the same league as this one). I have to be in the proper mood for the dour Russians (which is why a class for moody high schoolers was genius, I tell you, genius). But I was pleasantly surprised. While tragedy and frustrated love abound here, the mood of the poem is not bleak and unremitting. There is much playfulness and light in it. The depictions of Russian society are detailed and wonderful as are the contrasting depictions of the regular Russian. I know much has been made of the difficulty of translating this poem in particular given the unnaturalness of the rhyme in English but I hardly noticed the oddness of the Pushkin stanza and since my own Russian was never very good, I'm unlikely to ever read it in the original to make an unflattering comparison. In any case, this Johnston translation captures the romance and the heartbreak of this long but engaging work. Those not too intimidated by poetry who want a less dense entry into Russian classics would be smart to start here.


I read this book as a part of the Classics Circuit White Nights on the Neva: Imperial Russian Literature Tour.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This getting ready for vacation thing plus a fifteen hour drive to said vacation really cuts into the reading and reviewing time. Ah well. I'll get caught up someday! This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

Eugene Pushkin by Eugene Onegin
Free to a Good Home by Eve Marie Mont

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon

Reviews posted this week:

On Folly Beach by Karen White
Cheap Cabernet by Cathie Beck
Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart
How to Tame a Modern Rogue by Diana Holmquist
Street Gang by Michael Davis

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins
Bite Me by Christopher Moore
Old World Daughter, New World Mother by Maria Laurino
South Beach Sizzle by Suzanne Weyn and Diana Gonzalez
Look at Me Now by Thomas Hubschman
Water Wings by Kristen den Hartog
The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle
A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi" by Chloe Rhodes
Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart
Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
The Last Rendevous by Anne Plantagenet
Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
Honolulu by Alan Brennert

Monday Mailbox

Another fantastic week in the mail here at chez BookNAround. I'm always amazed at how delectable everything that lands in my mailbox is! This past week's mailbox arrivals:

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli came from Shelf Awareness.
Set against a backdrop of the Vietnam War, this novel of loss and relationship looks utterly haunting and powerful.

The Outer Banks House by Diann Ducharme came from Shelf Awareness.
I'm not even a sand-loving person, but there's something about a stretch of almost deserted beach on covers that is eminently appealing. Set just after the Civil War on the Outer Banks, I am looking forward to this tale of a young woman and her two very different suitors.

Valley of Grace by Marion Halligan came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
Described as "A lyrical work full of hope and children set in lustrous modern-day Paris," I decided I couldn't wait until this one releases here and bought it my own little self.

Mixed Doubles by Jill Mansell came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
I thoroughly enjoy Mansell's light fare and have had this on my wish list for years. I got tired of being patient waiting for it to be released here in the States.

Going Too Far by Catherine Alliott came from The Book Depository and my own check book.
I read a couple of Alliott's books eons ago and thoroughly enjoyed them so in my buying fit, I decided to get this Brit chick lit as well.

The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart came from Doubleday.
Described as whimsical, this story about a Beefeater and his wife who live in the Tower of London with a veritable menagerie of quirky animals sounds perfectly charming.

The Jewel of St. Petersburg by Kate Furnivall came from Erin at Berkley.
Tsarist Russia has always had a hold on my imagination. And a book about a young woman in love with a Dane (oh the horror!) rather than a Russian and pushed into an engagement with a much more suitable man during all the tumult of the pre-Revolution years really captures me.

What We Have by Amy Boesky came from Lisa at TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.
The memoir of a woman whose body is a ticking time bomb, this book about the year in Boesky's life as she tries to live to the fullest and enjoy what she has even while knowing that she is reaching the deadline cancer has imposed on every woman in her family sounds amazing.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page and Kristi at The Story Siren and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.