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Peter Fritz from Everyday E-book blog in this post titled "What is Normal? The Question Behind Richard Ford's Canada" writes: Underlying themes of family, maturity, relationships, and secrecy swim just below the surface of the story. And perhaps it is there we learn the deeper values of our ongoing but ever-adjusting sense of "normal" in our lives. The Quivering Pen gives books away on Freebie Fridays. Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. One entry per person, please. Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Thursday—at which time he draws the winning name. The lucky winner is announced on Friday. Last week it was Canada by Richard Ford and The Tell by Hester Kaplan. David Abrams writes about those memorable first two lines in Canada "First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later." Those words set the tone for the rest of the novel which Colm Toibin says is "a brilliant and engrossing portrait of a fragile American family and the fragile consciousness of a teenage boy. "The vast, empty prairie lands of Montana and Canada come alive in Richard Ford's latest work,Canada," Nicole Rojas writes for Latinos Post blog.I agree with her, Richard Ford's writing style does paint a vivid picture. Dell's mother describes Great Falls, "It's just cows and wheat out here." Dell said, "And, of course, the winters were frozen and tireless, and the wind hurtled down out of the north like a freight train, and the loss of light would've made anybody demoralized, even the most optimistic souls."
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 Just finished The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman and I highly recommend it. I enjoyed it so much I picked it for Book Club Extraordinaire's January Read. I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks!
For starters, read Turn the Pages blog's review of the novel. Reviews for Rules of Civility
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2011 writes "An elegant, pithy performance by a first-time novelist who couldn’t seem more familiar with his characters or territory." The New York Times Book Review by Liesl Schillinger writes "With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age of screwball comedy, gal-pal camaraderie and romantic mischief (think of "Stage Door," "Made for Each Other," "My Man Godfrey" and even Fay Wray in "King Kong")." The Guardian's Viv Groskop writes "Anyway it's New Year's Eve 1937 and Katey Kontent is heading to a Greenwich Village hotspot – quite literally the Hotspot – with her room-mate Eve. So far, so Sex and the City 1930s-style. We know there are going to be cocktails, flirting and a lot of kicking up of high heels: "We started the evening with a plan of stretching three dollars as far as it would go."" NPR Books' Heller McAlpin writes "It is also about maintaining integrity and the capacity for wonder in the face of insidious monetary sway, and Thoreau's exhortions to "find our pole star and to follow it unwaveringly."" As I mentioned @ Carol's house last meeting, my brother-in-law, Jim Schiele, is not just a Civil War "buff" but a life-long student of the art & history of that period. Here's a link to their collection @ Wash. U. The James E. and Joan Singer Schiele Print Collection is accessible through LUNA. Click the following link: http://luna.wustl.edu:8180/luna/servlet Select James E. and Joan Singer Schiele Print Collection from the menu on the left. To browse, choose Browse All in the middle section, or, after selecting the James E. and Joan Singer Schiele Print Collection, search for images using the search box in the upper right hand corner. Hope this helps "illustrate" Red Badge... Bo
Stephanie Honor Convery, a Melbourne-based writer blogs about Franzen's keynote speech at the Melbourne Writers Festival on August 25. She writes, "Citing Kafka as an example, he claimed that the closer a writer gets to accurately portraying those deeper, murkier parts of themselves in their fiction, the less such fiction resembles the narrative of their own life. Read more...
I'd like to recommend Books on the Nightstand blog. It is written by Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, two lifelong readers who work in the publishing industry. They have put together a terrific resource for readers. Books on the Nightstand provides book recommendations, and a behind-the-scenes look at the world of books. They offer frequent blog posts, weekly podcasts and a yearly reader retreat. On there most recent podcast, they talks about Better Book Titles, Coverspy, and Bookrageous all on Tumblr. They share the books they want to read and what they can't wait for you to read.
Laura Hillenbrand's life changed after a car accident in 1987. She was 19 years old. Within days after the accident, she struggled with weakness and a blood test for Epstein-Barr confirmed she had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The disease has left her confined to her home.
After writing "Seabiscuit," she suffered a relapse and did not leave her house for two years. 10 years later after much effort, she released "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," about the life of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic distance runner and bombardier. Most of the story about Louis Zamperini was communicated by telephone and in fact, she has never met him face to face. Laura Hillenbrand has managed to triumph over adversity to write two bestselling and inspiring books about transcending obstacles. Hillenbrand knows a thing or two about overcoming adversity, she lives with it every day. Read more about Laura's struggles with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in an interview with The Washington Post. Another interesting article can be found at GoErie's article Hillenbrand's inspiring "Unbroken" recalls authors own struggles. Steve Oney, from the Wall Street Journal interviews Louis Zamperini and Laura Hillenbrand about the special bond they developed during the writing of Unbroken in his article, The Defiant Ones.
Want to know more about the author of The Painted Veil? W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) one of the most prolific writers of the the 20th century, kept his personal life private. His most famous works include Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge. He lived a fascinating life- publicly living the high society life in England and the US and privately suffered anguish from keeping many dark secrets. Bibliographer Shelia Hastings is the first to have permission to quote from his private papers. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham is a must read for bibliophiles.
Student, writer, blogger, and editorial intern at Milkweed Editions, Ann Mayhew has an ambitious summer reading list like most of us.Check out her website readingthroughcollege for a fun post on Jonathan Franzen's Freedom called Freedom to Choose our Great Novels.
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Kathy Corey
I'm an expert amateur or maybe an amateur expert. Archives
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