Wishlist Wednesday

My weekly wrap-up to highlight great books I've heard about on other blogs, or newsletters, or from my fellow librarians or readers on LT. This will help me keep track of books I see that I want to read, and give me some clue in the future about why I said I wanted to read them!

Stiltsville 

by Susanna Daniel

I saw this one on Shelf Awareness last week, and read an excerpt at the Harper Collins site.  I'm absolutely hooked, and I'm going to have to get my hands on this one by the end of the year.
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America's Women

400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines

by

Gail Collins

 This has gotten some buzz among my LibraryThing friends, and I've put in on the list.  I love just about anything Gail Collins writes.

Well researched and well written, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines is a powerful and important book. Starting with Pocahontas and Eleanor Dare (the first female colonist), this lively and fascinating history records the changes in American women's lives and the transformations in American society from the 1580s through the 2000s.

A history of the oft-marginalized sex must often draw from diaries and journals, which were disproportionally written by whites; as a result, African-American and Native American women are not as well represented as white in the earlier chapters of America's Women. However, Gail Collins writes about women of many races and ethnicities, and in fact provides more information about Native Americans, African-Americans, and Chinese, Jewish, and Italian immigrants than some general U.S. history books. She writes about rich and poor, young and old, urban and rural, slave and slave-owner, athlete and aviatrix, president's wife and presidential candidate--and, of course, men and women. And some of these women--from the justly famous, like Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman, to the undeservedly obscure, like Elizabeth Eckford and Senator Margaret Chase Smith--will not only make any woman proud to be a woman, they will make any American proud to be American.

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Second Time Around

by Beth Kendrick

I saw this one on Lesa's Book Critiques this past Sunday.  Her review about four college graduates who are given a 2nd chance to do their lives over made this one a definite 'go find it and read it.'

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Service Included

Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter

by 

Phoebe Damrosch

Peter of Kyusi Reader reviewed this one on his blog this week.  It looks like something right up my alley.  Who wouldn't want a good memoir sprinkled liberally with food?  Peter suggests this one.
Read this book if:

1. You've been a waiter at one point in your life.
2. You like eating out.
3. You're unfazed when you read a menu in a foreign language.

That's why it ended up on my list.

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Let's take the Long Way Home

by 

Gail Caldwell

Another one from Shelf Awareness, I was so bowled over by the excerpt on the Random House page that I ordered it---it should arrive today or tomorrow, and I can't wait.  It's a memoir, a tribute to a best friend.  The first chapter pulled me in, made me smile, cry, laugh, and want more.  Do check it out.  I think it's going to be a biggie.