Interview with Tracy Seeley

Today at the Cottage I am pleased to present you with an interview with Tracy Seeley, author of My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back To Kansas, as well as my thoughts on this wonderfully written memoir about home and space.

Product Details:

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803230109
• ISBN-13: 978-0803230101

 
Product Description: (from the Publisher)

Sure, there’s no place like home—but what if you can’t really pinpoint where home is? By the time she was nine, Tracy Seeley had lived in seven towns and thirteen different houses. Her father’s dreams of movie stardom, stoked by a series of affairs, kept the family on edge, and on the move, until he up and left. Thirty years later, settled in what seems like a charmed life in San Francisco, a diagnosis of cancer and the betrayal of a lover shake Seeley to her roots—roots she is suddenly determined to search out. My Ruby Slippers tells the story of that search, the tale of a woman with an impassioned if vague sense of mission: to find the meaning of home.  

Seeley finds herself in a Kansas that defies memory, a place far more complex and elusive than the sum of its cultural myths. On back roads and in her many back years, Seeley also finds unexpected forgiveness for her errant father, and, in the face of mortality, a sense of what it means to be rooted in place, to dwell deeply in the only life we have.

Interview with Tracy Seeley:

1        As you reflect on your journey and the writing of My Ruby Slippers, is there anything in particular, perhaps a memory or an event that surprised you in any way? And if so, how?

What completely surprised me was that I fell in love with Kansas.   When I left at 17 to go to college, I never thought I’d even want to go back.  My family hadn’t really felt at home there, and I was happy to leave it behind.  But going back decades later, I realized how deeply the landscape lived in me, and how much I felt at home and alive there.  Along the way, there were lots of sweet surprises in the people I met, and the places I visited that I’d never been to before. 

One of those places was a small town called Nicodemus, which was settled by African-Americans during Reconstruction.  Every year, the town celebrates Homecoming, and I happened to be there one year for that.  Everyone who grew up there or had ancestors in Nicodemus comes back for the celebration, and that was all a great, wonderful surprise.  Growing up in Kansas, I’d never heard of Nicodemus or the history of African-American settlers.  So being able to share in the celebration anchored me more firmly in the state.  It helped me know the place I’d come from much better.

As an author, what do you hope your readers will take away from reading your book?

One thing I feel passionately about is that every place has its own special character worth preserving, cultivating and celebrating.  For a long time, I thought of Kansas as the anti-San Francisco, where I live now.  But I came to realize that it’s not an impoverished version of some other place, but a place in its own right with virtues of its own.  In a time of globalization and virtual realities and digital connections, I think it’s really important for all of us to connect more deeply to the places we actually live and to the people who live around us. 

I also hope that readers will take away some ideas about how they might live their own lives more fully.  While I learned to appreciate Kansas and thought about how I might acquire a deeper sense of place, I was also learning how to live more deeply in my own life.  I’m happy to share those insights with readers.

Although this wasn't necessarily about your journey with cancer, the process of answering those questions of space and home certainly seemed to help define your personal outlook in a very positive manner, so I have to ask, how's your health today?

So far, so good.  I haven’t had any new cancer developments in five years now, and in those five years, I’ve lost a lot of the friends I met in cancer support groups—young women who still had so much to offer.  I feel very, very lucky.

Can we anticipate any more books in the near future? If so, what might the topics be?

I’m starting a new book that’s rooted in a family story from my great-grandmother’s generation.  But it’s very new and is just beginning to stir, so I don’t talk about it yet.  I need to let it build up some steam for awhile.

I noticed that My Ruby Slippers is part of the American Lives series, and I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about this series?

Sure.  The ‘American Lives’ series is edited by Tobias Wolff, who wrote the wonderful, now classic memoir This Boy’s Life.  The University of Nebraska Press publishes the series, which promotes literary memoirs from a wide variety of American perspectives and experiences, as well as a variety of aesthetic approaches to memoir.  It’s a terrific series, and I’d long admired it before I submitted my manuscript.  It’s not just great stories, but great writing, and I’m honored to be in such good company.

More About Tracy (from Amazon) 
After high school in Wichita, college in Dallas and graduate school in Austin, where she finished a Ph.D. in British Lit, she taught at Yale for five years before hoofin' it west to San Francisco in 1993. And there, for the most part, she's stayed. Except for a semester in Caracas, a semester in Barcelona, a semester in Budapest, and three years living half-time in L.A. Oh, and after 17 years of living in The City, recently moving to Oakland.She's been at the University of San Francisco since 1993, teaching literature and creative nonfiction. There, she has won the Distinguished Teaching Award and the College Service Award, and spent a year as the NEH Chair in Humanities, during which time she started writing My Ruby Slippers. In addition to teaching, she currently runs a program that supports faculty writing. So she spends a lot of time organizing writing groups, salons and workshops, determined to change writing from a solitary to a communal activity.
In the midst of it all, and above all, she's raised two smart and darkly witty daughters who now live too far away.
For the moment, Tracy lives in Oakland with her husband Frederick Marx, a filmmaker. There, she grows vegetables, writes, grades papers, and hangs out on her stoop, talking to neighbors. She is plotting to acquire some backyard chickens. She figures if she gets chickens, she'll never have to move again.

Tracy can be found on the web by visiting: www.tracyseeley.com

My Thoughts:

My Ruby Slippers is not only thought-provoking and inspirational, but also elegantly insightful and at times quite humorous.  I found myself sitting along side the author and taking in the sights of her journey back to Kansas; a journey to define space quickly became one of self-discovery and finding one's roots.  Seeley has such a profound and charismatic writing style that quickly engages the reader with anticipation for more.  I truly enjoyed this memoir and found myself on my own journey of self-discovery as I began to recall memories from my own childhood that I thought were long forgotten.  Like Seeley, I moved quite often as well and defining home has always been a challenge.  I highly recommend this memoir to everyone, and it would make for a wonderful reading group discussion as well.  Seeley is now on my list of favorite authors and I look forward to reading more from this talented writer in the future.

Book Review: Leaving The Hall Light On

Leaving The Hall Light On By Madeline Sharples
Product Details:

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Lucky Press, LLC (April 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0984631720
• ISBN-13: 978-0984631728

Product Description: (From the Publisher)
Leaving the Hall Light On is about living after loss. It's about finding peace and balance and various ways the author, Madeline Sharples, finds to bring herself together after feeling so helpless and out of control during her son Paul's 7-year struggle with bipolar disease and after his suicide in September 1999. The author's book shares several aspects of her son's illness and how she and her husband, and their other son, Ben, survived Paul's suicide, as it: 1) describes the frustration, anger, and guilt of trying to care for an adult child with mental illness 2) gives mothers and fathers who have experienced a child's death ways to get out of the deep dark hole they are in, 3) tells people the realities of mental illness, 4) describes the steps Sharples took in living with this loss; the first and foremost that she chose to liveand go on with life and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother, writer, and 5) shows readers that grief is love in action. To let ourselves grieve is to feel the depth of our love for as long as it takes. For those of us whose children have died, that may take the rest of our lives, but we will discover the gifts of our loss in the process.

About the Author:
Although Madeline Sharples worked for most of her professional life as a technical writer and editor, grant writer, and proposal manager, she fell in love with poetry and creative writing in grade school. She pursued her writing interests to high school while studying journalism and writing for the high school newspaper, and she studied journalism in college. However, she only began to fulfill her dream to be a professional writer later in life.
In addition to Leaving the Hall Light On, Madeline co-authored Blue-Collar Women: Trailblazing Women Take on Men-Only Jobs (New Horizon Press, 1994) a book about women in nontraditional professions and co-edited the poetry anthology, The Great American Poetry Show, Volumes 1 (Muse Media, 2004) and 2 (2010). Her poetry accompanies the work of photographer Paul Blieden in two books, The Emerging Goddess and Intimacy as well as appearing in print and online on many occasions.
Madeline is now a full-time writer and is working on her next book, a novel, based in the 1920s. She and Bob, her husband of 40 years, live in Manhattan Beach, California, a small beach community south of Los Angeles.

My Thoughts:
Heartbreaking, and yet beautiful.  As a mother, I can't imagine any greater pain than losing a child under any circumstance, let alone adding the trials and tribulations of dealing with a mental illness.  In this vivid memoir, Madeline Sharples provides a deeply vivid account of her experiences, before and after her son's suicide.  Not only does Sharples account the affects upon her personally, but also how this tragedy affected her family and the individual relationships within.  The reader is taken on an intimate emotional journey that ranges from grief and even hatred, to acceptance and hope.  I highly recommend this book to everyone whether you're a parent or not, this information presented is invaluable and can provide a souce of comfort to anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one.
At a past speaking engagement I attended, Dr. Maya Angelou spoke of her book, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, as a means of being a rainbow for other to take comfort in during their own time of crisis.  Madeline Sharples is truly a rainbow!  By sharing her own painful story, others will know they are not alone and that is truly a gift in its own right!  My overall rating is easily a Five.

Please stop back tomorrow for a special visit from this wonderfully talented author!

Book Review: The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross

The Orphan Sister By Gwendolen Gross
 Product Details: 

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Gallery; Original edition (July 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451623682
• ISBN-13: 978-1451623680

Product Description: (from the publisher) 
Clementine Lord is not an orphan. She just feels like one sometimes. One of triplets, a quirk of nature left her the odd one out. Odette and Olivia are identical; Clementine is a singleton. Biologically speaking, she came from her own egg. Practically speaking, she never quite left it. Then Clementine’s father—a pediatric neurologist who is an expert on children’s brains, but clueless when it comes to his own daughters—disappears, and his choices, both past and present, force the family dynamics to change at last. As the three sisters struggle to make sense of it, their mother must emerge from the greenhouse and leave the flowers that have long been the focus of her warmth and nurturing.
For Clementine, the next step means retracing the winding route that led her to this very moment: to understand her father’s betrayal, the tragedy of her first lost love, her family’s divisions, and her best friend Eli’s sudden romantic interest. Most of all, she may finally have found the voice with which to share the inside story of being the odd sister out. . . .

My Thoughts:
Gwendolen Gross shows a great deal of potential as a new, emerging author.  The subject matter for The Orphan Sister was certainly original and refreshing, however, the overall narrative quickly became frustrating and a bit dull.  Told from the perspective of Clem, the odd sister in a set of triplets,  the narrative switched between the present and Clem's past.  The transition between were often choppy and abrupt.  I found myself no longer wanting to read about Clem's past just at the moment I was engulfed in the current storyline.  Clem's character quickly grew self-centered and overbearing as a narrator which I found to be most unpleasant.  The "mystery" of Clem's father's disappearance was too predictable and left little room for any amount of suspense, and was ultimately a bit too cliche for my liking.  Overall, this was a great concept but not well developed and for that I'd give this novel a three.
 

Book Tour and Giveaway

As most of you know I am not an avid reader of romance novels and that I recently signed-up for a summer reading romance challenge in order to step outside of my comfort zone.  So when the opportunity arose to participate in the book blog tour for How To Seduce Scoundrel by Vicky Dreiling,I decided to jump in and it's been so much fun!

Product Details: 

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages

• Publisher: Forever; Original edition (June 28, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446565385
• ISBN-13: 978-0446565387

Product Description: (from the publisher)
Miss Julianne Gatewick is in a pickle. It started when her brother's best friend-for whom she's long nursed a secret tendre-agreed to act as her guardian for the Season, only to seduce her with a risqué waltz. But when the music stopped and the expectant ton waited for Marc Darcett, Earl of Hawkfield, to claim her as his own, he made his disinterest clear. Rather than succumb to humiliation, Julianne does what any self-respecting, recently discarded young miss with a wicked sense of humor would do. She secretly pens a lady's guide to enticing unrepentant rakes . . . and it becomes the hottest scandal sheet in London.

Every honorable rake knows that friends' sisters are forbidden. But suddenly Julienne has a spark of mischief in her eyes that Hawk can't resist. Try as he might to push her away, he spends his days listening for her laughter and his nights dreaming of kissing her senseless. He's always avoided innocents and their marriage-minded mothers, but has the man least likely to wed finally met his match?

About the Author:
Vicky Dreiling is a confirmed historical romance junkie and Anglophile. Frequent business trips to the UK allowed her to indulge her passion for all things Regency England. Bath, Stonehenge, and Spencer House are among her favorite places. She is, however, truly sorry for accidentally setting off a security alarm in Windsor Castle. That unfortunate incident led her British colleagues to nickname her "Trouble."
When she's not writing, Vicky enjoys reading, films, concerts, and most of all, long lunches with friends. She holds degrees in English literature and marketing. A native Texan, she shares her home with her daughter and a spoiled mini-lop rabbit that lives in a slightly gnawed cardboard cottage.

Visit her at: http://www.vickydreiling.com/

My Thoughts: 

Vicky Dreiling has certainly done her homework when it comes to providing historical narrative!  I was quickly swept back in time to the England of 1817 where the women dressed in long, flowing gowns and the men wore top hats and overcoats.  Each character was very well-developed, and I became especially fond of Aunt Hester...what a hoot!  Aunt Hester with her brutal honesty touched by a bit of bawdiness encourages Julianne to write her pamphlet which becomes more of a guide about the art of seduction as a means of obtaining that long-desires marriage proposal. ...perhaps a bit early feminist rights in a  patriarchal society.  I enjoyed this much more than I expected and found it to be quite a fun read.  Yes, there were a few "steamy", and even a bit "naughty" scenes that made a novice romance reader such as myself  blush...just a little.  And a wonderful  plot development that kept me reading 'till the wee hours of the morning!  If your a fan of historical romance novels then your in for a real treat with this one!  I give this novel an overall rating of a 4.

Giveaway:

And now for the giveaway!   I am please to announce that I have been given the opportunity to award three lucky winners with a copy of this novel!  This giveaway is open to resident of the US and Canada, and please, no P.O. Boxes.  To enter, simply be follower of my blog (new followers are always welcome!) and leave a comment on this post.  If you choose to blog about this with a link back here, please leave a separate comment with a link to your blog for 2 additional entries! 

I'll announce the winner here on July 20th!

Book Review and Giveaway: The Night Train By Clyde Edgerton

The Night Train By Clyde Edgerton

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (July 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316117595
• ISBN-13: 978-0316117593

Usually, I'll post a description of the book provided from the publisher, but in this case, I think it's truly best if Mr. Edgerton describe his book for you...(or rather ya'll):

The Night Train Book Trailer - Clyde Edgerton from Mark Teachey on Vimeo.

About the Author: (from Goodreads)

Clyde Edgerton is widely considered one of the premier novelists working in the Southern tradition today, often compared with such masters as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor.

Although most of his books deal with adult concerns--marriage, aging, birth and death--Edgerton's work is most profoundly about family. In books such as Raney, Walking Across Egypt, The Floatplane Notebooks, and Killer Diller, Edgerton explores the dimensions of family life, using an endearing (if eccentric) cast of characters. "Edgerton's characters," writes Mary Lystad in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "have more faults than most, but they also have considerable virtues, and they are so likable that you want to invite them over for a cup of coffee, a piece of homemade apple pie, and a nice long chat."

Raised in the small towns of the North Carolina Piedmont, Edgerton draws heavily on the storytelling traditions of the rural south in his novels. Without the distractions of big-city life and the communications revolution of the late twentieth century, many rural Americans stayed in close touch with their relatives, and often shared stories about family members with each other for entertainment. He currently teaches creative at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he lives with his wife, Kristina, and their children.

My Thoughts:
The Night Train is southern literature at its finest!  Full of wit and humor as well as that charming regional dialect that only a true southern writer can capture on page, Edgerton has given us a novel that reveals the  prevailing racial prejudices of the early 1960's and the music that crossed both sides of the color line.  During a time when Martin Luther King. Jr was speaking of Civil Rights, a young boy by the name of "Till" goes missing and is found dead,  and the "Greensboro Six" made their infamous lunch counter sit-in, racial tension was at it's peak.  But for Dwayne and Larry Lime, life, as well as their friendship, was all about the music.  I absolutely loved this novel and had many laugh aloud moments as well as moments of reflection.  Edgerton doesn't simply tell us about race relations in the South....he shows us in a way that appears so natural  which is the essence of a truly gifted storyteller.  His characterization is impeccable and I couldn't help but develop a fondness for Aunt Marzie...as well as the chickens!  I easily give this a Five. And as a side note...my sixteen year old son picked this up "just to have a look" and is now half way through the book!

And for the Giveaway.... 

A special thank you to Anna Balasi of Little, Brown, and Co. for giving me this opportunity to offer three copies of this novel. This is open to residents of the US and Canada only, and please, no P.O. Boxes.  To enter, simply follow my blog (new followers are always welcome) and leave a comment on this post.  I'll announce the three lucky winners on Wednesday July 6th

Book Review: Silver Girl By Elin Hilderbrand

Silver Girl By Elin Hiderbrand

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books (June 21, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031609966X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316099660

Product Description: (From the Publisher)

Meredith Martin Delinn just lost everything: her friends, her homes, her social standing - because her husband Freddy cheated rich investors out of billions of dollars.

Desperate and facing homelessness, Meredith receives a call from her old best friend, Constance Flute. Connie's had recent worries of her own, and the two depart for a summer on Nantucket in an attempt to heal. But the island can't offer complete escape, and they're plagued by new and old troubles alike. When Connie's brother Toby - Meredith's high school boyfriend - arrives, Meredith must reconcile the differences between the life she is leading and the life she could have had.

Set against the backdrop of a Nantucket summer, Elin Hilderbrand delivers a suspenseful story of the power of friendship, the pull of love, and the beauty of forgiveness.

About the Author:
Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her five previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

My Thoughts:
Elin Hilderbrand has exquisitely woven a story of love and betrayal, loss and grief, as well as the everlasting bonds of friendship and the power of forgiveness.  Beautifully narrated from the alternating perspectives of Connie and Meridith, Silver Girl is wonderfully nostalgic as it is poignantly contemporary.  Hildebrand has excelled in bringing us emotionally realistic characters that genuinely add to this novel's appeal.  Both Connie and Meredith, now in the their forties, have had more than their share of loss and a quarrel that left them not speaking to each other for three years.  And yet, it's their relentless bond of friendship that pulls them through one amazing summer on Nantucket.  When I came to the end of this novel I felt as though I were saying good-bye to old friends and I'm not ashamed to admit I shed a few tears at various points in the novel which is something that  I rarely do!  This is a must for a your summer reading list and I easily give this a FIVE!

Book Review: Prophecy By S.J. Parris

Prophecy By S.J. Parris
Genre:  Historical Thriller

Product Details: 

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (May 3, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385531303
• ISBN-13: 978-0385531306

Product Description: (From the Publisher)
S. J. Parris returns with the next Giordano Bruno mystery, set inside Queen Elizabeth’s palace and steeped in period atmospherics and the strange workings of the occult.

It is the year of the Great Conjunction, when the two most powerful planets, Jupiter and Saturn, align—an astrologi­cal phenomenon that occurs once every thousand years and heralds the death of one age and the dawn of another. The streets of London are abuzz with predictions of horrific events to come, possibly even the death of Queen Elizabeth.

When several of the queen’s maids of honor are found dead, rumors of black magic abound. Elizabeth calls upon her personal astrologer, John Dee, and Giordano Bruno to solve the crimes. While Dee turns to a mysterious medium claiming knowledge of the murders, Bruno fears that some­thing far more sinister is at work. But even as the climate of fear at the palace intensifies, the queen refuses to believe that the killer could be someone within her own court.

Bruno must play a dangerous game: can he allow the plot to progress far enough to give the queen the proof she needs without putting her, England, or his own life in danger?






 
My Thoughts:
S.J. Parris is truly a gifted writer of historical fiction.  I was immediately swept away back in time with her amazing descriptions.  I could imagine myself walking the cobble-stone streets of London, the corridors of the various Courts, and the dark alleys along the wharfs...always careful to look around every corner!  With her second novel, S.J. Parris has given us an extremely well-developed plot with unpredictable twists and turns to be found on every page.  And just who is responsible for the murders within Queen Elizabeth's Court?  Is it the Catholic Conspirators hoping to restore Mary Stuart to the throne?  Or perhaps the Queen's astrologer, John Dee, and his Scryer, Ned Kelley, with his eerie predictions and visions?  Maybe it's someone with a desire for personal revenge?  There are certainly plenty of red herrings throughout creating an extraordinary reading experience.  The burden of unraveling these mysteries falls upon Girodono Bruno, an exiled Dominican monk from Italy whose knowledge is far ahead of his times.  I absolutely loved this book and easily give it a 5!  If you enjoy historical mysteries, you won't be disappointed with Prophecy!

And for more great book reviews visit:

Book Reveiw: The Mistress's Revenge By Tamar Cohen

The Mistress's Revenge By Tamar Cohen

Product Details:

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Original edition (June 7, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451632827
• ISBN-13: 978-1451632828

Product Description: (From the Publisher)
There’s a fine line between love and hate.

For five years, Sally and Clive have been lost in a passionate affair. Now he has dumped her to devote himself to his wife and family, and Sally is left in freefall.
It starts with a casual stroll past his house, and popping into the brasserie where his son works. Then Sally starts following Clive’s wife and daughter on Facebook. But that’s alright, isn’t it? These are perfectly normal things to do. Aren’t they?
Not since Fatal Attraction has the fallout from an illicit affair been exposed in such a sharp, darkly funny, and disturbing way: The Mistress’s Revenge is a truly exciting fiction debut. After all, who doesn’t know an otherwise sane woman who has gone a little crazy when her heart was broken?

My Review:
I really wanted to like this book and had such high hopes after reading the product description, however, I found this to be quite disappointing overall.  Written in first person in the form of Sally's journal, the novel initially caught my attention and drew me in but after awhile I found myself bored and frustrated with Sally's character.  We're presented with Sally, a woman in her mid-forties who is quite literally going mad following a sudden end to an affair with a married man who apparently was her only chance for happiness. Really?  At this age I would think any woman would have a greater sense of self-esteem, self-reliance and independence let alone find herself relying on a married man and neglecting her children as well as her partner.  Sally's journey through this emotional/mental breakdown and abuse of prescription drugs as well as her aloofness and misinterpretation of therapy only furthered my dislike of this novel.  The last thing we need is another female literary figure suffering from madness and the loss of a forbidden love.  Perhaps this would have been a more appealing novel if the reader was offered different perspectives other than Sally's, but I doubt it.  Overall, I found this novel to be a bit too cliché for my liking and find myself giving it a 2.

Revisiting The Classics: Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbuy

During my Spring cleaning extravaganza these past couple of weeks, I decided it was time to go through my endless shelves of books and make room for new ones.  After several hours, I was able to fill two boxes which were then donated to my local library for their annual book sale in the Fall.  However, I came across my copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and was quickly swept away between the pages.   I read this many, many years ago in High School and decided it was time to re-visit this classic once again....

Summary (from Good Reads)

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

My Thoughts/Reflections: 

I'm truly amazed at how quickly this novel captured my attention yet again and created such an intense adrenaline rush that only a good book can.  First published in 1953, Bradbury's dystopian  world speaks louder today than ever before and sent my mind  whirling through our current book trends as well as our obsession with technology, particularly audio and video.  When I was teaching freshman English at a local university, I recall the frustration I felt when I realized students lacked the ability to visualize what was written on the pages of a novel.  As a child, I loved to read; I traveled through the pages and visited far away lands and magical places with only my imagination to fill in the spaces.  Is today's youth losing that ability that I held so precious and still do to this day?  I can't help bu wonder if we are becoming Bradbury's dystopian society consumed by television and technology.  And now that we have Kindles, Ipads, and other similar devices that can easily store thousands of books, will the printed book as we know it become obsolete?  I just can't imagine a world without shelves overloaded with books!  If you haven't read Fahrenheit 451, I strongly recommend that you do....it's a must read for all times and one of the most thought-provoking novels I've ever read.  

Review: 13, rue Thérèse: A Novel By Elena Mauli Shapiro

 
13, rue Thérèse: A Novel 
By Elena Mauli Shapiro

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books; 1 edition (February 2, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316083283
• ISBN-13: 978-0316083287

Description (From Good Reads)

Trevor Stratton is an American professor and translator, newly arrived at a Paris university. There, in his office, he discovers a box filled with letters, photographs, and antique objects—a beautiful pair of gloves, a rosary, a silk scarf. Whose life is preserved here? And who has left this mystery for him to find?

The artifacts tell the story of the box’s owner, Louise Brunet, who lived in Paris through both world wars. Trevor is captivated by her tale; her unruly love for a cousin who died in WWI, her comfortable marriage to a man who works for her father, and her passionate attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13, rue Thérèse. But the artifacts tell just a part of the story. Trevor almost deliriously envisions the rest, consumed by thoughts of Louise. Or is it Josianne, his alluring assistant, who rules his imagination?

Memory, passion, and the mysteries of time are entwined in this enthralling novel, a book that transports us not just to Paris but into the mysteries of the past. Elena Mauli Shapiro’s first novel is a masterly exploration, intimate and dramatic, of the stories we imagine about others’ lives and the truths those stories reveal about ourselves.

About the Author:

Elena Mauli Shapiro was born and raised in Paris, France, in an apartment below the real-life Louise Brunet’s. Shapiro found herself in possession of a box of Louise’s keepsakes after her neighbor died and no relatives arrived to claim them. These postcards, gloves, photographs, coins, letters, and other mementoes utterly captured her imagination. Shapiro has a BA in English and French from Stanford University, a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Mills College. Visit her website at elenamaulishapiro.com

My Thoughts:

This amazing first novel is certainly like no other I've read before!  At times challenging, and yet always engaging, 13, rue Thérèse is a mesmerizing tale built upon a box of artifacts and ephemera strategically placed within the office of American Professor Trevor Stratton upon his arrival at the Paris University.  Upon his discovery of this simple box, the reader is swept away by the life of Louise Brunet as Trevor begins to translate and piece together the meaning of the contents.  But is this really Louise's life or Trevor's fantasies of her life?  And what does this say to us about Trevor Stratton? The two seem to be intertwined and the reader is challenged to seperate the two.  Filled with beautiful images throughout, this easily becomes a mystery to unfold!  Shapiro's writng is absolutely elegant!  Although this novel has a very French flavor to it, translations are provided making it easily readable. I loved this novel and find it one worth re-reading.  Demanding of further discussion, this novel would make an excellent book group endeavor!  Easily worthy of a Five star rating!

Review: Day Of Honey By Annia Ciezadlo

Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War
By Annia Ciezadlo


Product Details
Free Press, February 2011
Hardcover, 400 pages
ISBN-10: 1416583939
ISBN-13: 9781416583936


Description (From Simon and Schuster) 

In the fall of 2003, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. Over the next six years, while living in Baghdad and Beirut, she broke bread with Shiites and Sunnis, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. Day of Honey is her memoir of the hunger for food and friendship—a communion that feeds the soul as much as the body in times of war.

Reporting from occupied Baghdad, Ciezadlo longs for normal married life. She finds it in Beirut, her husband's hometown, a city slowly recovering from years of civil war. But just as the young couple settles into a new home, the bloodshed they escaped in Iraq spreads to Lebanon and reawakens the terrible specter of sectarian violence. In lucid, fiercely intelligent prose, Ciezadlo uses food and the rituals of eating to illuminate a vibrant Middle East that most Americans never see. We get to know people like Roaa, a determined young Kurdish woman who dreams of exploring the world, only to see her life under occupation become confined to the kitchen; Abu Rifaat, a Baghdad book lover who spends his days eavesdropping in the ancient city's legendary cafÉs; Salama al-Khafaji, a soft-spoken dentist who eludes assassins to become Iraq's most popular female politician; and Umm Hassane, Ciezadlo's sardonic Lebanese mother-in-law, who teaches her to cook rare family recipes—which are included in a mouthwatering appendix of Middle Eastern comfort food. As bombs destroy her new family's ancestral home and militias invade her Beirut neighborhood, Ciezadlo illuminates the human cost of war with an extraordinary ability to anchor the rhythms of daily life in a larger political and historical context. From forbidden Baghdad book clubs to the oldest recipes in the world, Ciezadlo takes us inside the Middle East at a historic moment when hope and fear collide. Day of Honey is a brave and compassionate portrait of civilian life during wartime—a moving testament to the power of love and generosity to transcend the misery of war.

About the Author

Born in Chicago, Annia Ciezadlo grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. She received her Master's in journalism from New York University in 2000. In late 2003, she left New York for Baghdad, where she worked as a stringer for The Christian Science Monitor and other publications for the next year. During this time, she wrote groundbreaking stories, about parliamentary quotas for women, Baghdad's graffiti wars, militant Islamist poetry slams, the flight of the country's Christian minority, and Iraq's first reality tv show. Her first-person piece on what it's like to go through checkpoints in Baghdad earned a flood of responses, and is now used by the US military to help prevent civilian casualities. Since then, she has reported on revolutions in Lebanon, crackdowns in Syria, repression in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the 2006 "summer war" between Israel and Hezbollah. Although she has covered several wars, Annia does not describe herself as a war correspondent. She specializes in articles about Arab culture and civil society, stories that explore the intersections between larger political realities and everyday activities like driving, cooking, and going to school.

She has written about culture, politics, and the Middle East for The New Republic, The Nation, The Washington Post, the National Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Observer, and Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. Annia lives somewhere between New York and Beirut, with her husband, the journalist Mohamad Bazzi.

My Thoughts:
Day of Honey is an absolutely mesmerizing read!  Annia Ciezadlo's storytelling abilities are astounding; each page is illuminated with the sights, sounds, and aromas of a worn-torn Middle East.  But don't be fooled...this is far from a political memoir!  The effects of war are portrayed in such a humanitarian manner and one that focuses on the essence of daily survival...food.  Through her representation of the local food, Ciezadlo brings perspective to the culture and the landscape that is the Middle East.  I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir and was easily swept away to another time and place.  In the end, I gained a great deal of insight and understanding of an often misunderstood people and culture.  With the current events taking place in the Middle East, this book is a must read for anyone who desires a greater understanding!  Ciesadlo's writing is a true gift to behold and I easily give this memoir a 5! 

 Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as part of the Free Press Blog Tour in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Georgia Bottoms By Mark Childress

Georgia Bottoms By Mark Childress

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (February 23, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316033049
• ISBN-13: 978-0316033046

Synopsis (From Book Jacket)

Georgia Bottoms may be Six Points, Alabama’s finest feature--beautiful, worldly, a splendid cook and faithful churchgoer who cares for her aged mother and sells handmade quilts to her grateful neighbors. 

Georgia also has a discreet side business, “entertaining” six local gentlemen at night.  Judge Barnett on Sunday, Sheriff Allred on Friday, the doctor on Wednesday (Monday’s are Georgia’s own).  Each gentleman gets a night tailored to his particular tastes; each has been trained to leave a “gift” to help Georgia get by, and each one thinks he is Georgia’s only secret lover.

When Preacher Eugene Hendrix (Saturdays) decides he must confess their affair in front of his wife and the entire congregation, Georgia may be able to stop him in time.  But one pin pulled out of her elaborately protected life may be all it takes to send the whole structure to hell in a hurry.  Chin high, posture perfect, her Chanel handbag firmly clasped in her hand, Georgia sets out to save herself, her mama, and her particular notion of virtue from total ruin.  Nothing in Six Points will ever be the same. 

My Thoughts 

I truly wish I could say I just loved this novel....but overall, it has left me with some mixed reactions.  As hard as I have tried to put aside my Feminist Theory studies, this novel really makes it difficult.  Georgia Bottoms, for the most part, embodies the stereo-typical female character created by yet another male writer.  She comes across as nothing more than an attempt to create a modern-day version of Scarlett O'Hara.  Using her sexual appeal to her financial advantages, Georgia can best be characterized as a cross between a loose Southern Belle and a "dumb belle"; neither of which I found to be appealing.   

Sadly racial prejudices still run rampant in some southern areas, and I do believe Childress was attempting to show the conflict between racism and racial acceptance that occurs across the generational divide, however, at times I found his handling of race to be merely a further reinforcement of racial stereotypes.  I just feel that in this particular day and age, we need to move beyond racial stereotypes, as well as sexism. 

My overall rating for this novel is a 3, and that's being generous.

Review: Flavors By Emily Sue Harvey

Flavors By Emily Sue Harvey

Release Date: March 1, 2011

Product Details: 

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Story Plant, The
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1611880033
• ISBN-13: 978-1611880038

 

About the Author:

Emily Sue Harvey is a past president of the Southeastern Writer's Association.  She has contributed to several volumes in the "Chicken Soup" and "Chocolate for Women" series and has published articles in multiple venues.  She is the mother of grown children and lives with her husband in South Carolina.

Description (From Good Reads):

Emily Sue Harvey’s first novel, Song of Renewal, was praised by New York Times bestselling author Jill Marie Landis as “an uplifting, heartwarming story,” by bestselling author Kay Allenbaugh as a work that will “linger in the memory long after readers put it aside,” and by Coffee Time Romance as “a must-read book for anyone doing a little soul searching.” New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry said, “It captures your attention, and whets your appetite for more,” while Peeking between the Pages called it “quite simply a beautiful book.”
Now, in Flavors, this master storyteller of the human heart sweeps us along with twelve-year-old Sadie Ann Melton as she enters a life-altering season. The summer of 1950 will change everything for her. For in that summer, she will embark on an odyssey at once heartbreakingly tender and crushingly brutal. At times, she will experience more darkness than she has ever witnessed before. At others, she will thrill to lightness and joy she never imagined. By summer’s end, the Melton women in Sadie’s journey - loving her, coaxing her, and commanding her - will help shape her into the woman she becomes. And they will expose Sadie to all of the flavors of life as she savors the world that she brings into being.
Filled with charm, wisdom, and the smorgasbord of emotions that comes with the first steps into adulthood, Flavors once again proves Emily Sue Harvey’s unique ability to touch our souls with her unforgettable stories.

My Thoughts:

What an enchanting read!  In this beautifully written novella, Emily Sue Harvey, presents the ever-so charming character, 12 year-old Sadie Ann Melton, who quickly reminded me of "Scout" in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird; full of life and innocence and that ever persistent sense of curiosity and wonder about all that surrounds her and often times, not knowing when to keep quiet. Such is the flavor of youth!  But Sadie Ann is more than just a character, she's that inner child found in all of us and as we grow older we find ourselves seeking out that inner child, that zest and innocence that only childhood could capture.  Emily Sue Harvey takes us on a journey to recapture that inner child with the fashion and grace that can only be told by a true southern storyteller. Full of warmth and heartache, this coming of age story at times had me in tears and yet at other times left smiling with the sweet nostalgia of that passage from adolescence into young adulthood.  Harvey's ability to evoke not only emotion, but sensory delight is astounding!  This is certainly a must read and would make a great book group endeavor as well.  I absolutely loved this book, easily give it a FIVE, and can't wait to read more from this truly talented author and storyteller!

Disclosure: I received an advanced copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for my honest review

*As a side note: Good Reads is currently hosting a Giveaway for a copy of this novella. 14 copies will be given and deadline to enter is February 20th, 2011.  CLICK HERE for details. 

My First Audio Book Review

Death of a Maid (Hamish Macbeth Mystery #23) 

by M.C. Beaton

Product Description:
Armed with a bucket and mop, Mrs. Gillespie brings misery into the quiet life of Hamish Macbeth when he wins her maid services in a church raffle. He fears she's more likely to snoop than clean, since rumor has it that she damages more items than she dusts.

Yet Macbeth has more upsetting issues to ponder-his former girlfriend, reporter Elspeth Grant, is back in the village for a holiday with her new boyfriend. Then he gets notice that a TV crew plans a documentary on him. Its airing is sure to get him a promotion and transfer to the city-and Hamish Macbeth would rather be boiled in oil than leave the serenity of Lochdubh.

Though lately Macbeth's seeing the squabbling of seagulls and feeling an ill wind coming. Sure enough, Mrs. Gillespie is soon found dead under suspicious circumstances. And as he investigates the case, Elspeth's presence torments the red-haired bobby and drives him to foolish antics. But what should really preoccupy Macbeth are the town's hidden secrets-ones that will force a killer to lash out in deadly, irrevocable acts.

My Review:

This was my first experience with Audio Books, and I'm so delighted!  The narrator, Graeme Malcolm, provides a Scottish brogue that just brings this novel to life that would otherwise be lost in reading!  As we join Hamish Macbeth on his search for clues in the murder of  Mrs. Gillespie, we're taken on a journey through the Scottish Highlands filled with unexpected twists and turns.  The Death of a Maid has a very well-developed plot and one that is not so easy to predict...a plus in any mystery!  This has been a truly enjoyable experience and I look forward to listening to more audio books soon.  My overall rating for this is a FOUR.  Stop by your library today and grab an audio copy today!

Loading...

Loading...

WATCH FOR MY M.C. BEATON GIVEAWAY COMING SOON!
For more great reviews, click the link below:

Book Review: The Memory Palace By Mira Bartok

The Memory Palace By Mira Bartok

Product Details
Free Press, January 2011
Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1439183317
ISBN-13: 9781439183311

(This review is posted in conjunction with The Free Press Blog Tour. I received a free copy of this memoir in exchange for my honest opinion)

Product Description (Courtesy of Simon and Schuster Publishing): 

" People have abandoned their loved ones for much less than you've been through," Mira BartÓk is told at her mother's memorial service. It is a poignant observation about the relationship between Mira, her sister, and their mentally ill mother. Before she was struck with schizophrenia at the age of nineteen, beautiful piano protÉgÉ Norma Herr had been the most vibrant personality in the room. She loved her daughters and did her best to raise them well, but as her mental state deteriorated, Norma spoke less about Chopin and more about Nazis and her fear that her daughters would be kidnapped, murdered, or raped. 

When the girls left for college, the harassment escalated—Norma called them obsessively, appeared at their apartments or jobs, threatened to kill herself if they did not return home. After a traumatic encounter, Mira and her sister were left with no choice but to change their names and sever all contact with Norma in order to stay safe. But while Mira pursued her career as an artist—exploring the ancient romance of Florence, the eerie mysticism of northern Norway, and the raw desert of Israel—the haunting memories of her mother were never far away.

Then one day, Mira's life changed forever after a debilitating car accident. As she struggled to recover from a traumatic brain injury, she was confronted with a need to recontextualize her life—she had to relearn how to paint, read, and interact with the outside world. In her search for a way back to her lost self, Mira reached out to the homeless shelter where she believed her mother was living and discovered that Norma was dying.

Mira and her sister traveled to Cleveland, where they shared an extraordinary
reconciliation with their mother that none of them had thought possible. At the hospital, Mira discovered a set of keys that opened a storage unit Norma had been keeping for seventeen years. Filled with family photos, childhood toys, and ephemera from Norma's life, the storage unit brought back a flood of previous memories that Mira had thought were lost to her forever.

 

My Review:
Every now and then I'm fortunate enough to encounter a book that is not only elegantly written but also profoundly thought-provoking.  The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok is one of those treasured books and could easily be classified as a literary masterpiece.  Intertwined with the author's drawings and elegantly written prose, as well as the often obscure journal entries of her mentally-ill mother, Bartok provides the reader with an in-depth passage into a world that teeters between profound genius and hopeless insanity; a world in which two young sisters must not only navigate but eventually try to escape. Burdened with guilt and left in a constant state of wonder to what is true and what is a fiction of her mother's illness, Bartok reveals the challenges she and her sister endured and the ever-changing lack of adequate provisions of a defunct mental heath system.

But to suggest that this is simply a memoir of growing up with a schizophrenic mother, would be missing the overall point of this memoir completely.  It's a memoir about memories and how to capture and hold on to those memories whether good or bad.  The basic premise is "how will we remember our loved ones once they are no longer with us or when our own memory begins to fail us?"  Thus, begins the construction of The Memory Palace...a place to capture our deepest and most profound memories.

This has certainly been one of the most mesmerizing and refreshing books that I have encountered in a very long time. My perception of the homeless and mentally-ill, which all too often go hand in hand, will forever be altered.  I highly recommend this book and assure you it will stay with you long after you've read the last page.  I easily give this book a 5 star rating.

Please visit thememorypalace.com for more information 

*The Cleveland Women's Shelter that was home for Bartok's mother for several years, has now been re-named in her honor:

The Norma Herr Women's Center

As An Added Side Note:
Living in the Cleveland area myself brought this book even closer to home for me.  I will be attending a reading by Mira Bartok on Friday February 4th in Cleveland and will be sure to share this experience with you as well.  For now, I thought I would include a couple of my favorite places in Cleveland that were frequented by the author as well and appear in her memoir:

 The Cleveland Museum of Art

Saint Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral