Monday, January 3, 2011

Mailbox Monday - January 3rd

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week.  Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at The Printed Page, is now on a blog tour! Rose City Reader kicks off 2011.  I haven't been too good about posting deliveries for the past month, so I'm going to catch up here.  Please stop on Rose City Reader  and see what everyone else got this week.  As a bonus, she's also featuring a giveaway.

The very "bestest" thing in my mailbox was the gift of a Nook from my daughter.  I've been wanting an e-reader, now have one, and I'm finding I love it even more than I ever would have imagined.

Over the past three weeks, I've received several books for review.  Many of these are coming now as e-books, so  my e-'mailbox' has filled up with goodies to load onto my Nook for reading and review.  Among those I've gotten are



As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto
edited by Joan Spearman.
Here's the blurb:
With her outsized personality, Julia Child is known around the world by her first name alone. More than 200 letters exchanged between Julia and Avis DeVoto, her friend and unofficial literary agent open the window on Julia's deepest thoughts and feelings. This riveting correspondence, in print for the first time, chronicles the blossoming of a unique and lifelong friendship between the two women and the turbulent process of Julia's creation of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, one of the most influential cookbooks ever written. 
 I can't wait to dive into this one.  I love memoirs, letters and food...and this has it all!
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The Boo by Pat Conroy

Bestselling author Conroy's debut novel, now being re-issued.  I just finished reading and reviewing his latest book My Reading Life, and wanted to look at this one to see how and if his writing has progressed and/or improved over the years...   Set against the richly drawn military school backdrop that Conroy would return to in his bestseller The Lords of Discipline, The Boo is an unforgettable story of duty, loyalty, and standing up for what is right in the face of overwhelming circumstances.
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The Girl in the Green Raincoat
by Laura Lippmann
In this modern twist on Rear Window, Tess Monaghan has been put on bed rest for the last two months of her pregnancy.  Day after day she watches a girl in a green raincoat in the park with her greyhound, until one day Tess ominously notices the dog running loose. Convinced some harm has befallen its owner she  becomes dangerously obsessed with learning her fate.
As a native Baltimorean, I'm always anxious to read the latest from one of Charm City's best...
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My Christmas mailbox (gifts from friends and family) brought me

Rainwater by Sandra Brown

I confess I've never read anything by Sandra Brown.  She is enormously popular in our small town library where I work, so I'm looking forward to seeing what all the excitement is about.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Ford Country by John Grisham
Returning to the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill, longtime bestseller Grisham presents seven short stories about the residents of Ford County, Miss.  Each story explores different themes-mourning, revenge, justice, acceptance, evolution-but all flirt with the legal profession, the staple of (former attorney) Grisham's oeuvre.
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These two came from my secret book Santa in an online book group I belong to.  THANK YOU THANK YOU KIM

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
The blurb:
Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.
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When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Julie Otsuka’s commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese internment camps unlike any we have ever seen. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination—both physical and emotional—of a generation of Japanese Americans. In five chapters, each flawlessly executed from a different point of view...she has created a small tour de force, a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion. Spare, intimate, arrestingly understated, When the Emperor Was Divine is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times. It heralds the arrival of a singularly gifted new novelist.
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And yes....there were also print books received from publishers for review...I'll give you a rundown on those next week.  In the meantime, my new year is off to a rip-roaring fun start.

1 comment:

  1. enjoy your new books.

    I'm not sure how many books you read for the challenge, but there are 3 giveaways up for participants of the Vietnam War Reading Challenge. I hope you'll enter and spread the word.

    ReplyDelete

Welcome, thanks for stopping by. Now that you've heard our two cents, perhaps you have a few pennies to throw into the discussion. Due to a bunch more anonymous spam getting through, I've had to disallow anonymous comments. I try to respond to all comments posing a question, but may not always get to you right away.