BEA 13- Speed Dating

Last year at BEA (Book Expo America), one of my favorite things was attending the Book Group Speed Dating, where publishers moved from table to table talking about books that would be perfect for  book clubs. It was hosted by Carol Fitzgerald of BookReporter.com, and it was a huge success.

I was so happy to hear that they were continuing with it this year and signed up right away. At my table, we had someone from Hachette Book Group, and their big upcoming book is Burial Rites, an historical novel about a woman in Iceland accused of murder in 1829. It is Hannah Kent's debut novel and has "great writing, great characters, and a great landscape." (September)

The other books from Hachette were:

• That Part Was True by Deborah McKinlay- a novel that will appeal to people who liked The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie & Literary Society, One Day & The Bridges of Madison County. (February)
• Schroder by Amity Gaige- This one we were told "will cause passionate conversations". It is a based on the Clark Rockefeller story, about a man who assumes the identity of a man from a famous American family and kidnaps his young daughter when things fall apart. (October)
• The Outcasts by Kathleen Kent- an adventure novel set in the 19th century west coast that "connects well with readers." (September)
• Eloise by Judy Finnigan- the debut novel from the co-host of Britain's answer to Oprah, The Richard and Judy Show. (September)

Harper Perennial showcased four books, highlighted by National Book Award winner, The Round House, by Louise Erdich, featuring stunning new cover art by Erdich's daughter. (Paperback in September)

The hardcover cover

Also from  Harper Perennial:

• Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon- This also has a gorgeous new cover for paperback, and it is about a white man and black man who own a used record shop in Oakland. (September)
• The Cutting Season by Attica Locke- Set in present day on a New Orleans plantation where a murder has occurred and may be tied into a murder that happened over 100 years ago. (September)
• The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell- The story of two young sisters who try to keep the mysterious deaths of their parents a secret. (October)

Berkley's books all had beautiful cover art that would encourage bookstore browsers to look further inside. The one that interested me most was Dollface by Renee Rosen, set during the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago about a flapper who becomes a gun moll.  (November) After reading The Other Typist and seeing The Great Gatsby,  I'm obsessed by this 1920s time period.

Other Berkley books are:

• The Serpent and the Pearl by Kate Quinn- a historical romance "from a brilliant storyteller" set during the rise of the Borgias in Rome in the late 15th century. (August)
• Between a Mother and Her Child by Elizabeth Noble- For fans of Elizabeth Berg, this novel tells the story of family in the aftermath of a tragedy, but is "not depressing." (September)
• The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister- is "foodie fiction" set in Seattle, coming in trade paperback. (November)
• You Knew Me When by Emily Liebert- A debut novel set in New England where two best friends who had a falling out inherit a house together. For fans of Jane Green and Emily Giffin. (September)

Picador had four books to talk about, including one that was chosen for the Editor's Book Buzz panel, Amy Grace Loyd's The Affairs of Others, about a young widow who owns an apartment building and becomes involved in the lives of her tenants. It should appeal to women in their 20s and 30s. (August)

Other books from Picador are:

• Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan- Sloan is a founder of Twitter, and this is the trade paperback version of the popular and quirky novel, also aimed at the younger reader. (September)
• The Good House by Ann Leary- is about remaking life in middle age, where the protagonist is a real estate agent who is in denial that she has become an alcoholic. (October)
• Havisham by Ronald Frame- tells the story of a young Miss Havisham from Dickens' Great Expectations  and how she ended up the way she did. (November)
• The Heart Broke In- by James Meek- is a "big, sprawling family novel about midlife crisis and marriage" set in present day London. (October)

For more information on these and all of the books presented by the 21 publishers, click on this link from Book Reporter.

Our Love Could Light the World by Anne Leigh Parrish

Our Love Could Light the World by Anne Leigh Parrish
Published by She Writes Press ISBN 978-1-938314-44-5
Trade paperback, $15.95, 192 pages

When I received an email asking me if I was interested in reviewing a book of linked short stories about a family with five children set in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, I jumped at the opportunity. I grew up in the Finger Lakes region and I am one of five siblings. The description intrigued me.

That is where most of the similarity ends, although many of these characters seemed like people we all have known. After introducing the five children- chunky teenage Angie, who "ruled her siblings with a steady stream of insults", Timothy, close knit twins Marta and Maggie, and Foster the youngest, a happy child born with a twisted leg, this wonderfully sums up their relationship:

"All in all, the five children didn't particularly care for one another, and they didn't dislike each other, either. One thing they knew was that they stood as a pack against the rest of the world."

Mrs. Dugan worked and Mr. Dugan didn't due to an injury. She worked long hours and came home only to have to do most of the housework that husband Potter wouldn't do because he wanted to spend the day drinking. When she gets the opportunity to attend a three-day work conference out-of-town, she jumps at it and it becomes a turning point for the family.

The title story takes place as Lavinia is off at the conference. Angie has to take charge when Potter won't; she does the laundry, and sends her siblings to the store to get detergent and other necessities. They return with an elderly confused man, but without the needed items.

It is here that we see Angie's compassion and kindness, something she seems to hide behind her gruff, green-haired, nose-ring wearing exterior. This trait comes into play in later stories as well, when she bonds with a child who has Down's Syndrome (and a mean grandmother), and in her choice of career.

Angie was my favorite character, I liked the arc of her growth; it felt authentic. She occupies many of the stories, and I had a real empathy for her. I loved Parrish's honest portraits of this family that you feel could have been your neighbors.

Lavinia is also in many of the stories, and I felt badly that she couldn't really be happy. Even when she got what she thought she wanted, it still didn't fulfill her. A character like her could be shrill and unsympathetic, but Parrish writes her so beautifully that we care about her, even if we can't relate.

The men in this novel- Potter, and his sister Patty's boyfriend Murph- don't fare as well. They are willing to live off the labors of the women they live with, and don't seem to want to contribute or better themselves. While they could have been one-note, Parrish gives you a reason to root for them as they try to grow.

The Dugan family are a group of flawed people, yet we care about them even as we want to throttle them. They have ties that bind them as shown in this passage.

"Angie knew that Potter couldn't stand Brett. She also knew that he'd never say so. They had always been like that, she thought. Aware of each other's truths without needing to say much."

That really gets to the essence of this family, and probably many other families as well. They might not say it aloud, but they know each other's truths. Maybe that is the definition of a family.

I found that this book and these characters wormed their way into my heart. This collection of linked stories deserves its place right up there with Elizabeth Stout's Olive Kitteridge.

rating 5 of 5

The publisher has provided a copy of Our Love Could Light the World as a giveaway. To enter, leave your name and email in the comments section. One winner will be chosen on June 26th. US/Canada entries only, please.

Thanks to TLC Tours for providing me with the opportunity to be on this tour. Other tour stops are:

Monday, June 3rd:  Tiffany’s Bookshelf

Wednesday, June 5th:  What She Read

Thursday, June 6th:  The Relentless Reader

Monday, June 10th:  Patricia’s Wisdom

Tuesday, June 11th:  Seaside Book Nook

Wednesday, June 12th:  Conceptual Reception

Thursday, June 13th:  Books Speak Volumes

Monday, June 17th:  The Best Books Ever

Tuesday, June 18th:  No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, June 18th:  BookChickDi

Wednesday, June 19th:  Camilla Stein Review

Monday, June 24th:  BookNAround

Anne Leigh Parrish's website is here.
You can buy Our Love Could Light The World  here.

My Planet by Mary Roach

My Planet by Mary Roach
Published by Reader's Digest ISBN 978-1-62145-071-9
Paperback, $14.99, 191 pages

I know Mary Roach as a bestselling author of books, like Stiff and Bonk, (wait, they sound slightly pornographic) that incorporate science with humor. But I never knew that she wrote humor columns for Reader's Digest, mostly about her life with her husband Ed.

These columns have been compiled in My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places, and it had me laughing so loud as I read it, my family stared at me as if I were crazy. I was crazy, crazy with laughter and recognition at Roach's observational humor.

From page one, I was a goner. She describes her first date with her husband Ed, who got up from the table to wash his hands almost immediately upon being seated at the restaurant "like a little raccoon, leaning over the stream to to tidy himself before eating."

She goes on to discuss their "hygiene gap". Ed immediately replaces the toilet seat when he moves to  a new place because "he didn't know who'd been sitting on it." (I'm with Ed on that one.) Mary flossed her teeth in bed and drank straight from the OJ container. (Again, I side with Ed.)

Mary used the "Designated Countertop Sponge to wash the dishes and the Designated Dishwashing Sponge to clean the bathtub" an act she describes as "tantamount to a bioterror attack", according to Ed. Ed had what Mary called "crud vision" and she didn't.

She said that "like any normal couple, we refused to accept each other's differences and did whatever we could to annoy one another." It just got funnier from there.

Mary makes lists: "daily, To Do lists, long-term To Do lists, shopping lists and packing lists." Ed reluctantly makes lists on the corner of newspapers that are illegible. Making lists keeps her anxiety levels down, while Ed controls his anxiety by forgetting to make lists.

Her best list is composed of party guests that dates from 1997. On occasion she updates it, deleting people who have moved away, adding new friends. They are never having this party, but just updating the list is a party for Roach. (I think I know some people like this.)

Her essay on relatives visiting struck a chord of recognition. After day six, she says that

You begin to view your guests through the magnifying glasses of the put-upon host. A TV set turned four decibels higher that you like it registers as "blaring." Making a 13-cent long-distance call is perceived as "running up my phone bill!"

She concludes this essay by saying

Family are people who live together- if only for a week at a time. They're people who  drop towels on your bathroom floor, put your cups and glasses in the wrong place and complain about your weather. You do it to them, they do it to you, and none of you would have it any other way.

One of the essays I most related to was about conjugal hearing loss that affects married couples. She says that married couples attempt to communicate with the other person is in a separate room or on separate floors, "preferably while one is running water or operating a vacuum cleaner or watching the Cedar Waxwings in the playoffs." (This is one of my pet peeves.)

Other humorous topics include entering the Age of Skirted Swimwear, dropping off her car at the mechanic because it won't start only to have him call her and tell her he's charging her $50 because "she is stupid" (the car was out of gas, but she praised him for not ripping her off by claiming it was something more serious), and arguing about buying a sofa.

Roach's essays reminded me of Erma Bombeck. She deals with life's issues in a relatable, funny and  good spirited manner. This is a wonderful book to stick in the car and read while you are waiting for the kids at baseball practice or in a doctor's waiting room. It's good for laugh and you'll want to read aloud from it so that others can enjoy her humor too.

rating 4 of 5

LaRue: Your five best bets for new summer beach reads : Columnists

From this month's Book Report in the Citizen:
LaRue: Your five best bets for new summer beach reads : Columnists

Weekend Cooking- An Excerpt from The Execution of Noa P Singleton

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food!

Elizabeth L. Silver's debut novel, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, unravels the story of woman who has been on Death Row for ten years in Pennsylvania for the murder of a young woman and her unborn child. (My review is here.)

It's a dark tale, and the story is revealed in Noa's words and letters that the murdered woman's mother Marlene writes to her dead daughter. Slowly we find that things are not exactly as they appear to be, but can we trust either Noa or Marlene's words to be the truth?

We learn a lot about what it's like to live in prison, specifically on Death Row, and at the end of the story, Noa tells us about ordering her last meal. She wants to order hers from a fancy restaurant.

I'm pondering chicken parmesan, a thick New York strip steak (medium well), or a three-course meal from Le Bec Fin. Yes, if the system worked the way it should- truly granting us a proper last meal- then I would have someone get for me from Center City Philadelphia. After all, isn't that why we overspend at expensive restaurants? We want to feel good about ourselves, despite the fact that the food we are eating costs no more to make than a tightly sealed plastic carton of drumsticks from your local grocery store. We celebrate events at fancy restaurants; we introduce friends, future spouses, in-laws. We propose in them, we divorce in them. We tell our world we are pregnant in them. What we don't do in them is request our final meals. I mean, wouldn't we all go back those special-occasion restaurants if we knew it would be our final meal on the outside? Of course we would. We'd waste no time at KFC or McDonald's; we'd go straight for Stephen Starr or Gordon Ramsay and tea at the Plaza.

Noa also talks about what other inmates have ordered for their last meal.

Over the past few weeks, I've learned that one inmate requested steak with A.1 sauce, jalapeno poppers with cream sauce, onion rings, and a salad with cherry tomatoes, ham chunks, shredded cheese, bacon bits, and blue cheese and ranch dressing. Lemon iced tea and coffee to drink and ice cream for dessert. Another wanted four fried pork chops, collard greens with boiled okra and "boiling meat", fried corn, fried fatback, fried green tomatoes, conbead, lemonade, one pint of strawberry ice cream, and three glazed donuts. Others in coalescence: four buns with lots of butter, lots of salt, and two slices of banana bread. Nine tacos, nine enchiladas, french fries, a salad with ranch dressing, beef fajitas, a bowl of picante sauce, a bowl of shredded cheese, six jalapeno peppers, a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting, and there it is, the sixteen Pepsis. 

This is my favorite, though. One man, who had no final request, asked that a vegetarian pizza be purchased and donated to a homeless person for his his last meal. The prison officials refused. 

I enjoy reading books and finding passages that fit in the Weekend Cooking meme, but I have to say that this was a first for me- reading about inmates' last meals. Maybe I find this interesting because my dad worked at a maximum security prison for many years.

Have you read any non-food books that had interesting food passages in them? Let me know in comments.

BEA 13- Editor's Buzz Panel Books

This is the first year that I missed the Book Expo's Editor's Buzz Panel, where six editors each present a book that people will be talking about in the fall. Luckily, the next day, Ron Hogan moderated a panel where the six authors of the books each had a few minutes to talk about their books to an eager audience.

I got to attend that, and I enjoyed hearing these passionate writers speak about their books. The first one up was a book I really wanted to get (and I'm totally absorbed in it right now)- Sheri Fink's Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital. Fink is a physician who has worked in emergency situations in natural disasters (like Haiti) and her book sounds totally fascinating.

She writes about Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Patients and staff were trapped there and doctors were later arrested for euthanizing patients who were very ill. She interviews people who were there to get their stories, but it is also an indictment of how hospitals and medicine have become big business. It was my one  must-have book of the show. (I didn't get it there, but did get it through Edelweiss.) Five Days at Memorial publishes in September from Random House.

On a similar note, Katy Butler wrote a book Knocking On Heaven's Door- The Path to a Better Way of Death. Her premise (and I agree with it) is that our society does not know how to die. We spend so much money prolonging lives, thinking of the quantity of years, not the quality of life.

She spoke passionately of her father, who had a pacemaker put in at the age of 79, and how his years after that were spent dealing with chronic illnesses; he led a very unhappy, unhealthy few years. When her mother became older and frail, after seeing what her husband went through, she chose a different ending. No extraordinary measures were taken, and her last years were a life filled with joy. Knocking on Heaven's Door publishes in September from Scribner. Butler's website is here.








Wendy Lower's Hitler's Furies: German Women on the Nazi Killing Fields is about a subject not extensively studied- there were German women who worked with the Nazi's as secretaries helping to decide which people lived or died in the Eastern front. Some of these women even personally shot women and children themselves. The book is from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and publishes in October.

Still another non-fiction book is Jennifer Senior's All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood. Senior says that there are many books out there that discuss how parents affect their children, but none on how having children affect parents. It's an interesting premise, and she interviewed many people on the topic. It publishes in January 2014 from Harper Collins.

There were only two fiction books on the list this year, the first one is The Facades by Eric Lundgren. Set in a fictional city that the author says is a "cross between Kafka and Gotham City", a man searches for his famous opera singer wife, who has gone missing. The city itself is an important character in this provocative novel. Overlook Press publishes this novel in September.

Lastly, Amy Grace's novel The Affair of Others tells the story of a young widow who buys a small apartment building. She carefully chooses her tenants, expecting to be left to her grief. But when a female tenant moves in and turns things upside down, bringing sex and violence into their quiet lives, everything changes. This one looks like it would appeal to fans of The Other Typist, a book I just loved. Picador publishes this in August.

Ron Hogan did a great job keeping things moving along so that we could hear from all of the authors in the allotted time slot. I can't wait to read these buzzy books.

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton- A Novel

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver
Published by Crown, ISBN 978-0-385-34743-3
Hardcover, $25, 308 pages

 Noa P. Singleton has resided on death row in Pennsylvania for ten years and is within six months of being executed for the crime of murdering a young pregnant woman in Elizabeth L. Silver's thought-provoking debut novel The Execution of Noa P. Singleton.

Marlene, the mother of Noa's victim Sarah, argued persuasively and successfully for the death penalty, but now ten years later, she has changed her mind. She now believes that no one has the right to take a life, and that includes the state in retribution for murder.

Noa is rightfully suspect of this change of heart, and as the story unwinds in Noa's voice and letters Marlene has written to her dead daughter, we can see why. It is difficult to review this intriguing story without giving too much away, but here goes.

Noa is what is known as an unreliable narrator; we cannot trust that what she has said is the truth. This novel tries to untangle Noa's story, beginning with life with a sometimes-actress mother who lived with a lot of men as Noa grew up. Did any of them molest Noa, and if so, did that effect her later behavior?

Her father left Noa and her mother, and she had no contact with him until she went to college and found that he owned a bar in the city where she went to school. Noa left college after an incident in the college library that left her physically and emotionally scarred.

She is reluctant to become involved with her father, an ex-con with a lot of problems. He wants to become a part of Noa's life, but she is leery of him. Still, she spends more and more time with him. One day Noa runs into the bar and tells her father a man was following her. Her father chases after the man and catches him.

That sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Noa being convicted of Sarah's murder. The trial scenes that Silver writes are fascinating, from the 12-hour police interview to the juror selection (after just having served jury duty, I found this part really interesting) to the actual trial, conviction and sentencing. Silver is a lawyer and worked on several death penalty cases and her expertise shines through here.

Silver writes Noa's incarceration scenes with empathy and integrity. The reader is dropped into a world not many of us know (thank goodness), and Noa's sense of isolation is palpable. Noa comes to believe that she belongs there, saying

"it's the internal acceptance that finally you have become the person you were meant to be. When you enter, true, you are given a new number, a new residence, and a new wardrobe; but is is only when you place those garments upon your limbs that realize they were meant for no one but you. No former splinters of your personality carry over into prison life. No relationships, fictional or otherwise, accompany them either. Any superficial intimacy you claim to have experienced with another (whether consanguineous or not) when you wore any color other than cocoa brown fades as quickly as a puff of smoke. You are now the person everyone knows you to be."

Reading this deeply affecting novel will have you questioning the use and human cost of capital punishment. Silver sprinkles in some jaw-dropping revelations, from secret relationships to incidents in the Noa's past that are stunning and also explain much of Noa's willingness to accept her fate. The suspense here is so well done.

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton put me in mind of another novel I read with an unreliable female character- Marcy Dermanksy's Bad Marie. They have the same dark tone, and unforgettable protagonists.

If you like a story that will make you think and question human nature, this is the novel for you. I'm still thinking about it days after I have finished it. Silver's debut novel has me looking for more from her in the future.

rating 4 of 5

Thanks to TLC Tours for providing a copy of the book and hosting this tour. Other stops on the tour are:

Monday, June 10th:  A Bookish Way of Life

Wednesday, June 12th:  Jenn’s Bookshelves

Wednesday, June 12th:  No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, June 13th:  BookChickDi

Monday, June 17th:  Read Lately

Wednesday, June 19th:  Kritter’s Ramblings

Wednesday, June 19th:  Man of La Book

Thursday, June 20th:  Simply Stacie

Monday, June 24th:  The Best Books Ever

Tuesday, June 25th:  BookNAround

Wednesday, June 26th:  River City Reading

Wednesday, June 26th:  Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Thursday, June 27th:  Booksnob

Monday, July 1st:  The Scarlet Letter

Tuesday, July 2nd:  Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Wednesday, July 3rd:  A Bookworm’s World

Friday, July 5th:  Book Hooked Blog

Friday, July 12th:  Sweet Southern Home

Weekend Cooking- Foodie Books from BEA 13

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food!

One of the things I look for at BEA (Book Expo) is food related books. I don't have a lot of room for cookbooks, so I  have to be picky. Unlike some people, I do like the blads and the excerpted books they give out because I can get a flavor of the actual book to see if it something I would like to buy.

These are the foodie related books I got this year:

Jamie Deen's Good Food publishes September 19th from Kyle Books, and is his first solo cookbook. His goal is to "create great family dishes that are fresh, seasonal, healthy, and appealing to adults and kids alike." One of the best looking recipes in this excerpt is Fall Harvest Salad with Maple Vinaigrette, which has butternut squash, greens, red grapes, feta and roasted pistachios.

Ann Romney was at BEA signing excerpts from her book The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home Cooked Recipes and Favorite Traditions from Shadow Mountain in October. There are many dozens of traditional recipes in this book, divided into three sections- Family, Traditions and Holidays. It looks like there are lots of family photos in this one, and one recipe I would like to try is Jen's Lake house Enchiladas.

Another excerpted book is Fix-It and Forget-It New Cookbook by Phyllis Good coming in October from Good Books. There are 250 new recipes in the book, all made in your crockpot. One that caught my eye because we are going on a family vacation soon (although with 28 of us, we'd need multiple crockpots for this) is 

Omelet Camping Casserole

Ingredients:

32-oz bag frozen hash brown potatoes, divided

1 lb. cooked ham, cubed, divided

1 medium diced onion, divided

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

16 large eggs 

1 1/2 cups 2%  or whole milk

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Directions:

1. Layer 1/3 each of frozen potatoes, ham, onions and cheese in bottom of greased slow cooker. Repeat  two times.

2. In a good-sized bowl, beat together eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Pour over mixture in slow cooker.

3. Cover and cook on low 4-5 hours until set in the middle and lightly brown around the edges.

This is a great camping recipe, because you can put this together in your crockpot just before you leave. When you get to the campsite, plug it in and you have a tasty brunch, lunch or light dinner.

I also got Daphne Oz's Relish, a gorgeous book featuring healthy, tasty recipes. I enjoy watching her on TV's The Chew. Reader's Digest has Foods That Harm, Foods That Heal that I have heard so many good things about. Workman handed out copies of Caroline Wright's Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute Meals which has a Spring Green Salad with Poached Chicken + Buttermilk Dressing that I want to try.

Two books featuring food that are not cookbooks are Dorothea Benton Franks' The Christmas Pearl, which Whoopi Goldberg has optioned as a film (the paperback has several new recipes included in it) and Deborah McKinlay's That Part Was True, a novel ala The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society written as a series of letters between a British woman and an American author who both love cooking and food. It sounds like the perfect book for the Weekend Cooking crowd, and it publishes from Hachette in February 2014.

What new cookbooks are you looking forward to this fall? Let me know in comment below.

BEA 13- Some Books I Can't Wait To Read

I have been very bad and haven't written any Book Expo 13 posts yet, so I'll start with some photos of the books I'm looking forward to reading that I picked up there.

I got to meet the authors of these books. Dorothea Benton Frank writes novels set in South Carolina, and The Last Original Wife is a winner. (She is very funny and really sweet too.) Lisa Scottoline spent a lot of time with every fan, she is so grateful for her readers. TIm Conway had a long line and he did not disappoint. I loved Lauren Grodstein's previous novel, A Friend of the Family, and look forward to this new one. Wiley Cash has gotten lots of love from critics and readers alike for his novel A Land More Kind Than Home, and he was very kind as well.

 These books came from Amy Einhorn and I love everything I ever read from her Penguin imprint. Seven For A Secret is the sequel to Lyndsey Faye's historical NYPD novel Gods of Gotham, which I really liked. I read Liane Moriarty's last novel, What Alice Forgot,  and can't wait to read this one. Freud's Mistress and its authors Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman are new to me.

These are some of the buzzy books from BEA, the ones everyone was talking about. I'm most excited about Lookaway, Lookaway, a Southern novel by Wilton Barnhardt , Jason Mott's The Returned (which is already being made into a fall ABC series) and Unremarried Widow.

Echoing back to previous classics, Havisham tells the story of Miss Havisham from Dicken's Great Expectations, and Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch pays homage to that British classic.

 Harper Collins gave some bloggers a special Fall Preview, and all of these sound fantastic. Joshilyn Jackson even made an appearance and intrigued us all with her description of her novel, Someone Else's Love Story.

 This is my Irish collection. I got to meet Alice McDermott, who like me is Irish-Catholic and attended SUNY Oswego. It was a real thrill to talk to her. Malachy McCourt signed copies of he and his late brother Frank's (Angela's Ashes) play, A Couple of Blaguards. He spent a long time chatting with each of us in his  line. (Anyone remember him as Kevin, the bartender on the ABC soap Ryan's Hope?)

 There are some fantastic books coming from some big authors this fall. Andre Dubus III has a collection of linked stories in Dirty Love, E.L. Doctorow's Andrew's Brain sounds interesting, and Ann Patchett has an essay collection This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage that I cannot wait to read, I love everything she writes. I got to meet Wally Lamb at a blogger party, and he was so friendly. I remember vividly sobbing my eyes out reading his She's Come Undone.

 Non-fiction from some big names is here too. Alice Hoffman writes about her experience with breast cancer in Survival Lessons. Jesmyn Ward, who won the National Book Award for Salvage the Bones  has a memoir Men We Reaped, and a very kind bookseller gave me her copy of Richard Russo's memoir Elsewhere when I told her I grew up near Russo's hometown.

Novels imagining the fictional lives of real women are still popular, with Edgar Allen Poe's wife in Mrs. Poe, Zelda Fitzgerald returning again in Lee Smith's Guests on Earth, about her time in an asylum, and Ann Frank's sister in Margot.








And of course I can't wait for Adriana Trigiani's third book in
her Valentine series, The Supreme Macaroni Company,
which publishes in November. This handy coffee mug will remind me until then.

If you were lucky enough to attend BEA, what are your favorite gets?

On Broadway- Two Women in One-Woman Shows

The Tony Awards are this Sunday, and I recently saw two one-woman shows that were both fantastic.
The shows are both based on famous women known for their work in traditionally male roles. Holland Taylor wrote and stars in Ann, based on the larger-than-life former Texas governor Ann Richards, and Bette Midler returns to Broadway for the first time in 30 years in I'll Eat You Last about uber-agent Sue Mengers.

When I think of the distinctive look of Ann Richards, I do not think of Holland Taylor, best known to most people for her portrayal of Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen's mother in Two and Half Men. But once she gets onstage in the makeup and the wig, I thought I was looking at Ann Richards herself.

The first act of the show has Richards giving a commencement speech and telling her life story. Taylor has the mannerisms and the Texas accent down pat, and the first act is the stronger one in my opinion. We learn that she adored her daddy, but got her toughness from her mama. They didn't have much money, and when her daddy went to San Diego during WWII, she and her mama moved there too.

It was in San Diego that the young Ann saw diversity; she went to school with Mexicans, Asians, black children, people she didn't see in her part of Texas. It was here that she learned the compassion for others that informed her political career.

The second act takes place in the Texas governor's office, where we hear but don't see her secretary, voiced by the brilliant Julie White. Taylor is constantly on the phone with her friend President Clinton, her speechwriter, other staff members and her adult children. Hearing her arrange a family vacation had me chuckling, as I realized even with her busy job, it's always up to Mom to organize the family stuff.

Richard is nominated for a Tony for her performance, and she should be a contender. She brings this vibrant, tough, witty woman to life in this truly all-American story.

Midler is an entertainment icon, and I thought it might be difficult for audiences to see her onstage as a character different from her Divine Miss M persona we are used to. I need't have worried. From the moment we see her seated on her couch in her vibrant turquoise kaftan on the gorgeous set in I'll Eat You Last, she simply is Sue Mengers.

The story takes place on the day that Mengers finds out that her friend and biggest client, Barbra Streisand had fired her. She is waiting by her ever-present phone for a call from Barbra and as she waits, she unspools how she got here.

Mengers was a German immigrant who came to America with her parents. She lived with her parents near Utica, New York and didn't speak English. When her father died, she and her mother moved to New York City, and Mengers fell in love with the movies.

She decided that she wanted to be in that industry, but knew she wasn't pretty enough to be an actress. After getting a job as a secretary at the William Morris Agency, she learned all she could about being an agent.

Mengers climbed the ropes and became the first super-agent. She had many major clients, most of the big names in the 1970s  (Ryan O'Neal, Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, Cher), and she drops them all in this show.

There are many great stories in this show, and we watch as Mengers tries to steal Sissy Spacek from another agent over the phone. Midler is just fantastic in this show, and she talks so fast, I can't imagine how many pages of script she had to memorize.

Mengers was a woman who 'leaned-in' to her career, long before that term was popular. Her career was  everything to her, and when it was over, when the business changed, she was left with just hosting her fabulous and infamous dinner parties, where the food, booze, pot and gossip flowed freely.

I'll Eat You Last is hilarious, full of gut-busting lines and when it is over, you feel like you were seated next to Mengers at one of her parties.

Bothe Mengers and Richards embody what is great about America- if you set a goal, work hard toward that goal and don't let anyone stop you, you can be whatever you want to be. Young women should see these great shows if only to learn that.

Both of these shows are worth the price of a full-priced ticket, but you can get discount tickets for Ann.

The Ann  website is here.
I'll Eat You Last 's website is here.
You can see Bette Midler on CBS Sunday Morning below.

New in Paperback- The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Published by Riverhead Trade ISBN 9781594631436
Trade paperback, $16, 416 pages

What does it say about a book where silent film star/siren Louise Brooks, a real character who became famous (and infamous) for her outrageous behavior that she is not the most interesting character in Laura Moriarty's novel The Chaperone? That title belongs to Cora Kaufmann Carlisle, the title character of this beautiful novel.

Cora lived in an orphanage in New York City near the turn of the 20th century, unsure of her parentage. She was sent on the 'orphan train' westward to be chosen by a family where she would live. The orphans boarded the train, and at each designated stop, they would get out, sing a song, smile, and hope that they would be chosen by a family.

I had never heard of this 'orphan train' before, and the custom struck me as a perversion of the slave auctions held in the 19th century. Some of the orphans ended up with families who just wanted extra free labor, but Cora was lucky; the Kaufmanns chose Cora and grew to love her as if she was their own daughter.

So Cora ended up in Kansas, where she met Alan Carlisle, a lawyer. Alan courted her and they married. Cora had a difficult labor and gave birth to twin sons. Alan was a successful lawyer, and the Carlisles had a good life. Cora kept busy with volunteer work and her friends, yet she felt somewhat restless.

Cora heard that the Brooks family were looking for a chaperone to accompany their 15-year-old daughter Louise to New York City while she attended dance classes. Since her sons are off to college soon, Cora decides to take the job, hoping that she can find the woman who left her in the orphanage years ago.

Cora was taken aback by Louise's mother's complete disinterest in her own children. It seemed like she did not want to care for her children in any matter. Cora was hired for the job, which turned out to be much more than she bargained for.

Louise Brooks is larger than life, even at 15 years of age. She can't wait to be let loose in New York, and chafes at Cora's rules; it is a classic generation gap. The world is changing, and Louise is at the forefront of the change. She wears low-cut dresses, too much makeup and flirts shamelessly with any man who can get her something she wants.

Cora is frustrated by Louise's behavior, and more than a little frightened for her. She fears that someone will take advantage of Louise, and she is relieved when she finds that the dance teacher keeps a close tab on her students.

Living in New York, I found the part of the book set there utterly fascinating. Moriarty drops the reader into a hot summer in the city in the roaring 1920s, and you can smell, taste, see, feel and hear all of the city; it is a complete sensory experience.

The summer in New York changes both Louise and Cora's lives. Louise is chosen to stay on with the dance company and she eventually becomes a famous silent star. Cora returns home, but she is profoundly changed by the experience as well.

Secrets and the damage they do are a major theme in the book. Cora longs to find out who her mother is, her husband keeps a big secret from her (which I did not see coming!), and Cora keeps a secret from her children. Louise confides in Cora, and Cora has to decide what to do with the information.

Family is a theme too; what makes a family? Is it blood or can you create a family with people whom you love? Cora has to deal with that question for her entire life, and she seems to finally come to peace with it at the end of her life.

The title of the book, The Chaperone, is the perfect title, because we get the complete arc of Cora's life from beginning to end. As her story unfolds, we get to know a unique woman, a woman who finds her voice and her strength, who dares to make a life for herself.

I fell in love with this book, and you will too. The writing is mesmerizing, the characters intriguing, the setting fascinating. The sign of a good book for me is that I want to know more. Laura Moriarty has piqued my curiosity about orphan trains and Louise Brooks, and I was so pleased that she included some of her research sources in the acknowledgments.

rating 5 of 5

Laura Moriarty's webpage is here.

Christina Baker Kline has written a novel titled Orphan Train, which is on my TBR list. You can read more about it here.

I attended an event with Kline and author Caroline Leavitt (Is This Tomorrow) at the Center for Fiction, and my post about that is here.

A Far Piece to Canaan by Sam Halpern

A Far Piece to Canaan by Sam Halpern

Published by Harper Perennial ISBN 978-0-06-223316-5

Trade paperback, $14.99, 384 pages

Sam Halpern is best known as Justin Halpern's dad from the Twitter handle S*@tMyDadSays. Justin posted funny things his dad said, it took off, and Justin got two very funny books and short-lived TV series out of it.

Though both books S*@T My Dad Says and I Suck at Girls are gut-busting hilarious, they also have a lot of heart, most of that coming from Justin's dad Sam. Yeah, he was pretty blunt with his son, but he also showed great love and affection, and that was my favorite part of both books.

Sam Halpern has written a novel, A Far Piece to Canaan, mostly set in the hills of Kentucky post -WWII. The cover reads 'a novel of friendship and redemption', and that gives the reader, along with the cover illustration of two tween boys sitting on a fence, a pretty good idea of what this book is all about.

We meet twelve-year-old Sam Zelinsky, who along with his family- Dad, Mom, and three older siblings- are sharecropping on a farm in Kentucky. Sharecropping is an incredibly tough life, and Halpern's writing really opened up my eyes to a world I did not know well. Not only are the sharecroppers dependent on the weather, like most farmers, they are also subject to the owners of the farms and their sometimes changing whims. The Zelinskys hope to make enough money to buy their own farm in Indiana.

Sam's best friend is Fred, whose family is struggling even more so than Sam's family. Fred's father saves every penny he makes to put toward buying mules and equipment, even if it means his family goes without food or decent clothing.

I enjoyed watching Sam and Fred's friendship develop. I live with my husband and two sons, and so that world of maleness fascinates me. Much like Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, it gave me great insight into how boys relate to each other.

The book moves back and forth between now and the years on the farm in Kentucky. Sam's beloved wife Nora told him before she died that he needed to go back to Kentucky to look for his friend Fred whom he hasn't seen in 60 years, even though Fred had tried to get in touch a few times over the years.

There is some action in the book as someone is savagely butchering livestock. Sam, Fred and two of their friends stumble upon where this crazed man is hiding, but they don't tell anyone because they fear that two of the boys' fathers will beat them for going somewhere they have been forbidden to go.

The boys decide to protect each other rather than tell the truth about what they know. Anyone who has dealt with young people has probably run across this. The young mind isn't mature enough to make a reasoned decision. It is more important to be loyal to a friend.

When the crazy man burns down a home and tries to kill Sam, they boys are forced to tell what they know. The scenes with the sheriff and the boys and their fathers as they first try to get the boys to tell the truth and then go after the man are crackling with tension.

The last few chapters tell Sam's story as he goes back to Kentucky to track down his friend Fred. His journey is moving as he tries to redeem himself. He moved away and left everything and everyone behind, and now he has regrets about not staying in touch.

Reading this did make me think about the journey we are on as we travel through life. We make friends at different stages, and this book will encourage you to be grateful for everyone you have loved, and to remember that they played a part in making you who you are.

My favorite line in the book is this one from the adult Sam:

"Being human is difficult", I said aloud. "Common decency is the greatest quality to which one can aspire and the hardest to practice."

Reading Justin's books, I always knew that his dad Sam had a big heart and I am glad to see that he gets to express his voice in this beautiful novel, which I suspect has much in common with Sam's own young years (and not just that he and his protagonist share a name).

The only criticism I have is that some of the descriptions of the Kentucky landscape went on a bit too long for me.

rating 4 of 5

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. More reviews of the book can be found below.

Sam’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, May 28th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Wednesday, May 29th: A Patchwork of Books

Thursday, May 30th: SusieBookworm

Monday, June 3rd: bookchickdi

Tuesday, June 4th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Wednesday, June 5th: A Bookworm’s World

Thursday, June 6th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, June 11th: BookNAround

Monday, June 17th: Tiffany’s Bookshelf

Tuesday, June 18th: As I turn the pages

Author Sam Halpern