Friday, February 26, 2010

Audiobook Giveaway: Worst Case by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Thanks to Anna from Hachette for offering to give away three Worst Case unabridged audiobooks here at Jo-Jo Loves to Read!!!

Here is a summary of the book from the Hachette website:

Best case: survivalThe son of one of New York's wealthiest families is snatched off the street and held hostage. His parents can't save him, because this kidnapper isn't demanding money. Instead, he quizzes his prisoner on the price others pay for his life of luxury. In this exam, wrong answers are fatal.

Worst case: death

Detective Michael Bennett leads the investigation. With ten kids of his own, he can't begin to understand what could lead someone to target anyone's children. As another student disappears, one powerful family after another uses their leverage and connections to turn the heat up on the mayor, the press--anyone who will listen--to stop this killer. Their reach extends all the way to the FBI, who send their top Abduction Specialist, Agent Emily Parker. Bennett's life--and love life--suddenly get even more complicated.

This case: Detective Michael Bennett is on it

Before Bennett has a chance to protest the FBI's intrusion on his case, the mastermind changes his routine. His plan leads up to the most devastating demonstration yet--one that could bring cataclysmic devastation to every inch of New York. From the shocking first page to the last exhilarating scene,
Worst Case is a non-stop thriller from "America's #1 storyteller" (Forbes).

Here is how to enter the contest:
To enter this contest you must be at least 18 and live in the U.S. or Canada.  No PO Boxes please!

For one entry leave me a comment including your email address below.

For two additional entries, blog about this contest or add the link to your sidebar.

Please include your email so I will have a way to contact you if you win.

You will have until March 13th to enter and I will draw for winners on March 14th.

Good luck everyone!

Java With Jo

 
Well it has certainly been a busy couple of weeks and I've noticed that I haven't really had much time lately to post anything besides contests, reviews, and my weekly memes.  So today I want to take a few moments just to share some of the stuff that has been going on in my world.  I have been very busy with my job lately and with the Olympics on in the evenings I have found that it is hard for me to relax and read while that is on in the background.  Since that is almost over things should get back to normal soon.

Today is a day of remembrance for me also, as my little sister Brenda would have been 33 years old today.  I remember talking to her on her birthday last year, and it's amazing to think that we really had no idea that she was only going to be with us for a couple more months at that time.   It was just a couple of weeks after her 32nd birthday that we were told she wouldn't be with us that much longer.  What a shame it is to think that she was taken from this life at such a young age.  I am grateful that she was given the gift of love by all of her family members though.  Even though it was a short life it was one well worth living and remembering and I cherish every moment that we had together.  Later tonight I will be going to our local mexican restaurant to celebrate Brenda's birthday with some good friends.  Happy Birthday Brenda Sue!

I've also realized this last week that I have found a new appreciation for Nicholas Sparks.  I know many of you love his novels, but a few years ago after reading just a couple of his books I decided that his stories just weren't my cup of tea.  But a good friend of mine borrowed me her audiobook of Dear John, and I am hooked.  So I think I've decided that I will listen to his books but just not read them.  The only problem comes with the fact that I end up crying on my way to work in the morning! 

I have a wedding to attend this weekend that I am looking forward to.  There will be a couple of gals there that I haven't seen for awhile and I can't wait to spend some time with them!  I am also anxiously anticipating my vacation in Mexico toward the end of March.  I've already tried on my swimming suits so I am ready to go!  Hasta la Vista Baby!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Book Club Chatter



Welcome to another week of Book Club Chatter where I hope to discuss all things book club on a weekly basis. I thought this would  be a fun way for each of us to share one little tidbit every week.


So here is my question for you this week:
How far in advance does your group have book titles selected?

My answer:
Since my group meets for about 10 months out of the year we try to schedule about 8 months worth of books.  This allows us some room for flexibility in the event that we are able to win books for the whole group or if something comes up that we decide we have to read NOW.    We've been pretty lucky in that the last few years we have won at least one set of books per year for our entire club.  This is a problem that we don't mind dealing with!

There is not a deadline as to when you need to post or answer this question, so please feel free to join in at your convenience. You can either leave your answer in the comments below or post your answer on your blog and leave the link below.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Review: The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley

Here is a summary of The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel from the Bloomsbury USA website:

An electrifying epic, based on the incredible true story of a Chinese princess turned spy. 

Peking, 1914. When the eight-year-old princess Eastern Jewel is caught spying on her father's liaison with a servant girl, she is banished from the palace, sent to live with a powerful family in Japan. Renamed Yoshiko Kawashima, she quickly falls in love with her adoptive country, where she earns a scandalous reputation, taking fencing lessons, smoking opium, and entertaining numerous lovers. Sent to Mongolia to become an obedient wife, Yoshiko mounts a daring escape and eventually finds her way back to Peking high society—this time with orders from the Japanese secret service.

Based on the true story of a rebellious woman who earned a controversial place in history, The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel is a vibrant reimagining of a thrilling life—a rich historical epic of palace intrigue, sexual manipulation, and international espionage.

My Review:
Before reading this book I must admit that I really had no knowledge of Eastern Jewel and what her significance was to both Chinese and Japanese history.  Although it is a fictional novel, it was based on facts and contained an ample amount of historical information.   I always enjoy historical fiction and for some reason I find myself drawn to fiction with an Asian element even more.

The book opens in 1914 with Eastern Jewel as a Chinese princess living a life of luxury in her father's palace with her mother and his many concubines.  She has never been the obedient chinese girl that all other girls from China seem to turn into.  One day her father has had enough of her insolence and decides to send her away to live with her uncle in Japan.  Although the lifestyle in Japan is not as pampered or grand as she has been accustomed to, she embraces her new country.  As she holds a resentment in her heart for China she finds a love for Japan that allows her to do anything to help her new country.

When Eastern Jewel first moves to Japan to live with the Kawashima family, she finally realizes that she will not have much of a life ahead of her.  They will fulfill their obligation by raising her until a certain age and then give her to the man of their choosing to be an obedient wife.  She knows that she could never live her life this way, but follows along with the plan until she sees a chance to flee from this life forever.  Upon her escape she is taken on a journey that opens up new opportunites and friends that help her gain a firmer grasp on the life that she wants to lead.

After her escape,  Eastern Jewel returns to Japan and learns that she can make a lucrative income as a high price call girl.  Since she has always been a sexually provocative girl she finds that this job provides the easiest money she could ever make.  It is through her connections as a call girl that she is introduced to the Japanese Secret Service and becomes a spy.

I found it very sad that with all the passion that Eastern Jewel had in her heart that she only found real love twice in her life, and both times were short-lived.  After her first experience of heartbreak she promised herself that she would never fall in love again.  But when she did fall in love the second time she fell hard.  She found herself having to choose between the love of a man and her love for Japan, and she chose Japan.

This was a very interesting and informative book and I appreciated the timeline of Eastern Jewel's life that was provided at the end of the book.   I also feel that I must warn you that there were quite a few sexually graphic scenes within the book.  If you find yourself enjoying Asian fiction then you also may find this book enjoyable.

My Rating:  3/5

Disclosure:  This book was provided to me by Bloomsbury USA through the Shelf Awareness newsletter.

The Winners of Drood by Dan Simmons!

 
First of all I want to apologize for taking so long to post these winners!  I know I should have done this last week, but life just got in the way!  So here are the lucky winners of Drood by Dan Simmons:


Congrats to all of the lucky winners!  I want to give a special Thank You to Valerie from Hachette for offering this contest on my blog!  I will be contacting the winners shortly for mailing information.  Thanks to everyone for stopping by and entering the contest!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Teaser Tuesday-Feb. 23

Check out Teaser Tuesdays from Should Be Reading.  TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

This week my teaser is from The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani:
My skin prickled at his sharpness, but I answered as calmly as I could, "I am well, thanks be to God."  When I asked in turn how he was, he merely grunted in reply. 

pg. 147

Current Giveaways!!!

Here are some giveaways that may interest you:

A Reader's Respite is giving away The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom--HURRY-Contest ends today 2/23!

Luxury Reading is giving away The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker--Contest ends 2/26.

One Person's Journey is giving away the audio version of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova--Contest ends 3/1.

Bookin' With Bingo is giving away Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman--Contest ends 3/4.

Luxury Reading is giving away The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran--Contest ends 3/5.

Passages to the Past  is giving away The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom--Contest ends 3/5.

Bookin' With Bingo  is giving away The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansen--Contest ends 3/13.

Peeking Between the Pages is giving away The Girl She Used To Be by David Cristofano--Contest ends 3/14.

Good luck everyone!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Mailbox Monday-Feb. 22

 
Thanks to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting the Mailbox Monday Meme that has us list the books that we received last week. You can go to her blog to see what everyone else got last week or to play along.

Here is what was in my mailbox last week:

Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

The only book I have read by Trigiani was Queen of the Big Time but I really enjoyed it, so I am looking forward to this one!  So what was in your mailbox?

Friday, February 19, 2010

Friday Finds-Feb. 19

Should Be Reading asks you to share what books you discovered this week that interest you!

 The book that caught my eye this week I found at both the GoodReads website and in the Shelf Awareness newsletter.

Here is a summary of Pearl of China by Ancee Min from the Bloomsbury website:

In the small southern town of Chin-kiang, in the last days of the nineteenth century, two young girls bump heads and become thick as thieves. Willow is the only child of a destitute family. Pearl is the headstrong daughter of zealous Christian missionaries. She will grow up to become Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning writer and activist, but for now she is just a girl embarrassed by her blonde hair and enchanted by her new Chinese friend.

Moving out into the world together, the two enter the intellectual fray of the times, confide their hopes and dreams, and survive early marriages gone bad. But when civil war erupts between the Nationalists and Communists, Pearl’s family is forced to flee the country ahead of angry mobs. Willow, despite close ties to Mao’s inner circle, is punished for her loyalty to her ‘cultural imperialist’ friend. And yet, through love and loss, heartbreak and joy, exile and imprisonment, the two women remain intimately entwined.

In this ambitious and moving new novel, Anchee Min brings to life a courageous and passionate woman who loved the country of her childhood and who has been hailed in China as a modern heroine.


I think this sounds like a very interesting book.  After I read The Good Earth a few years ago I did some research on Pearl Buck so I think it would be interesting to compare this book to some of the facts that I learned about her life.

So did anything catch your eye this week?

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Book Club Chatter



Welcome to another week of Book Club Chatter where I hope to discuss all things book club on a weekly basis. I thought this would  be a fun way for each of us to share one little tidbit every week.


So here is my question for you this week:
Do you have a way of keeping members informed of any changes or up to date with a schedule of events between meetings?

My Answer:
My group uses the Book Movement website, which has many helpful aspects.  You can schedule books in advance on this site and make notes about your meetings.  So if one of our members forgets what book we will be reading in a couple of months, or find out when it is their turn to host or provide dessert, they just need to log onto the website to find that information.  You also have the ability to have automatic email reminders sent before the meeting that will provide them with all of the information needed.  This website also has monthly book giveaways that provide books for your whole group!  We have been lucky enough to win a couple different books from this site.  Of course this is only useful for those in the group that use the internet, so I also send out a Sweet Connections Newsletter through regular US Mail every few months that also contains this information.


There is not a deadline as to when you need to post or answer this question, so please feel free to join in at your convenience. You can either leave your answer in the comments below or post your answer on your blog and leave the link below.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Winners of Lone Star Legend!


And the winners of Lone Star Legend by Gwendolyn Zepeda are.....
Nickolay

Congratulations to the winners!  I will be emailing you shortly to get your mailing addresses to send to the publisher.  Thanks to everyone for entering the contest and a special Thank You once again to Miriam
from Hachette for offering this contest on my blog!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Teaser Tuesday-Feb. 16

Check out Teaser Tuesdays from Should Be Reading.  TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

This week my teaser is from Denise's Daily Dozen by Denise Austin:
Whether you have a large family (like me) and friends or just a close circle of a few special people, your social ties play an important role in many aspects of your life, including your fitness.  Research has shown that friendship not only makes your life more enjoyable but protects your health, too.

pg. 128

Monday, February 15, 2010

Audiobook Review: Never Change by Elizabeth Berg

Here is a summary of Never Change from the Shelfari website:

A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.

My Review:

This book will take you on a journey through the final stage of someone's life.  I think that I need to be a bit more selective when I choose these types of books, because although this was a good story, it may have been a little too soon after losing my sister to read something with this type of content.  

Myra has lived her whole life alone, not really reaching out or expecting much from others as she didn't seem to think that people would enjoy her as a friend.  She is a nurse that assists people with their needs in their homes and may have several clients in a day.  Getting the chance to know Myra's clients was kind of a fun and lighter part of the book.  One morning Myra realizes that Chip Reardon has been added to her client list and high school memories of her longing for Chip flood her mind.  But Myra is a professional and she should be able to handle caring for Chip and whatever needs arise as he prepares for his final stage of life because of a brain tumor.

Chip is thankful to see a friendly face that he knows when Myra shows up at his door.  You can tell that he is getting tired of being treated like a patient and hopes that Myra will start to spend time with him as a friend.  They do become much closer and Myra is happy to get to know Chip on such a personal level, but quickly becomes discouraged when Chip's girlfriend Diane shows up on her doorstep.  Since Diane is from out of town, Myra offers her spare bedroom to Diane for as long as she needs it.

During the time that the ladies are staying together you can tell that Myra never really had close, female friendships.  She actually was shocked when Diane suggested that Myra never allowed people to get close to her back in high school.  When Chip later brings to her attention that she is a wonderful person but just needs to let people into her life, it all comes together.

Myra has been with people as they are dying before and she is not afraid to be around them.  She finds it soothing in a way because these people are true and honest with themselves.  You can see the appreciation of life in the eyes of terminally ill people that most individuals just can't comprehend.  From personal experience this is such a special time and I will always have fond memories of the last days I had with my sister.  Of course it is heartbreaking, but I also have the memories of us laughing and enjoying each other's company during that time.

In a way Chip helped Myra as much as she helped him, by helping her find a piece of herself that she didn't know existed.  He helped to bring her out of her shell and realize that she is just as worthy of being loved as anyone.  She was a wonderful individual with so much to offer.  Myra just wasn't sure how she would be able to live without Chip by her side in the future.

I enjoyed this story with it's themes of love, dying, grief, and acceptance.  I have only read a couple of Elizabeth Berg's books, but I feel that she really developed the characters well in this novel.  I do recommend this as an audiobook, but not too soon after losing a loved one.

My Rating:  4/5

Disclosure:  I borrowed this book from the library to listen to for my own entertainment.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Friday Finds-Feb. 12


Should Be Reading asks you to share what books you discovered this week that interest you!


The book that caught my eye this week was One Amazing Thing that I spotted over at Linus's Blanket.

Here is a summary of One Amazing Thing from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's website:

Late afternoon in an Indian visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine wildly individual characters together, their focus first jolts to a collective struggle to survive. There’s little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, “one amazing thing” from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. As their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival—and about the reasons to survive.

I think this sounds like a fabulous story and hopefully I can get my hands on one!
So did anything catch your eye this week?

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Book Club Chatter


Welcome to another week of Book Club Chatter where I hope to discuss all things book club on a weekly basis. I thought this would  be a fun way for each of us to share one little tidbit every week.



So here is my question for you this week:
If your group serves refreshments at your meetings, what do you usually have?  Do you wait to serve refreshments until you have completed your discussion?  

My Answer:
We usually have coffee and a wonderful dessert, hence the name of our book club "Sweet Connections".  We also wait until our discussion of the book is over before serving refreshments.  We don't want the host to miss any of our discussion while trying to keep everyone's cup full during our meeting.

There is not a deadline as to when you need to post or answer this question, so please feel free to join in at your convenience. You can either leave your answer in the comments below or post your answer on your blog and leave the link below.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Wondrous Words Wednesday-Feb. 10

 

Bermudaonion asks you to share new words that you have learned during your reading adventures in the last week. Feel free to join in the fun!

Here are some new words that I learned while reading The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley:
Truncheon:  the club carried by a police officer; billy.

Here is how truncheon was used on page 142:
I flirted with the red-turbaned Sikh police who shouted at the cars and hit the rickshaw boys with their truncheons.

Samphire: a European succulent plant, Crithmum maritimum, of the parsley family, having compound leaves and small, whitish flowers, growing in clefts of rock near the sea.

Here is how samphire was used on page 170:
We ate wonderful sweetmeats made from almonds and pear syrup, and invariably ended the banquet with a soup of samphire or chestnuts.

Haberdashery:  a retailer that sells men's furnishings, such as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.

Here is how haberdashery was used on page 195:
In a glass-fronted chest of drawers of the kind found in haberdashery shops were pairs of white buckskin gloves and fine-seamed nylons stacked neatly in their Cellophane wrappers. 

Shambolic:  Disorderly or chaotic

Here is how shambolic was used on page 236:
Yet it was a good deal more fitting for an emperor than the shambolic Quiet Garden in Tientsin had been.

So did you experience any new words in your reading adventures the last week?

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Giveaway: Black Hills by Dan Simmons

With the release of Black Hills this month, Valerie from Hachette is offering to give away three copies of this book to my readers!

I will be reviewing this book in a  couple of months but here is a summary of it from the Hachette website:

When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, "counts coup" on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general's ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life.

Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer's ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa's long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people's sacred Black Hills. In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people's legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face.


Now for the giveaway!

To enter this contest you must be at least 18 and live in the U.S. or Canada.

For one entry leave me a comment including your email address below.

For two additional entries, blog about this contest or add the link to your sidebar.

Please include your email so I will have a way to contact you if you win.

You will have until February 28th to enter and I will draw for winners on March 1st.

Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Here is a summary of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt from the Penguin website:

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.


My Review:
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt was such a special novel that gripped my heart on so many different levels.  I have read nothing but rave reviews of this novel so you may not be surprised to learn that this is another review with nothing but compliments.  I honestly believe that this story will show you the importance of having strong, loving women in your life to count on at all times.  I have always enjoyed Southern fiction and the female relationships that were created in this novel was just the icing on the cake!

CeeCee is a young girl who really hasn't had the opportunity to enjoy her childhood the way most children have.  Her father is a traveling salesman who is hardly ever home and as CeeCee's mother's mental state worsens his trips home become less and less.  Before you know it CeeCee is the one taking care of her mother rather than the other way around.  Her mother frequently visited the local Goodwill store in search of a new prom dress, since that is what she wore on a daily basis.  I can only imagine the horror that CeeCee felt when coming home from school only to find her mother doing yardwork in her latest prom dress purchase.

Early in the novel CeeCee's mother is killed in an unfortunate accident and her father decides that he probably doesn't have what it takes to raise her.  When her mother's Aunt Tootie arrives after the funeral offering to take CeeCee back to Savannah, Georgia and raise her, he doesn't hesitate at the opportunity.  Although CeeCee feels that her father is abandoning her once again, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to her under the circumstances.

Tootie is a caring, strong woman who lives alone in a big old house in Georgia.  When they arrive at her home she finds herself surrounded by the beauty of various flower gardens and more strong women that would do just about anything for their neighbors.  Tootie takes on the role not only of caregiver but also a friend and I found it interesting how each woman that entered CeeCee's life played a special role and they seemed to have their own little secrets between them.

Oletta has been Tootie's servant and cook for as long as they both can remember and she was definitely one of my favorite characters.  She developed a special kinship with CeeCee almost immediately and was probably the first person that CeeCee opened up to and let out her emotions in full swing.  Miz Goodpepper was Tootie's kooky neighbor that you could never predict.  I couldn't help but laugh out loud when she showed up at Tooties door in a beautiful gown but happened to be using duct tape for a bra...now that is a use for duct tape that I don't think I will ever try!

Mrs. Odell was CeeCee's loveable elderly neighbor when she still lived with her mother.  During that period of her life Mrs. Odell was probably her only link to sanity and when she first had to leave her childhood home to move to Savannah it was Mrs. Odell that was going to be missed the most.  But when Mrs. Odell explained to CeeCee that we all had our own Life Books with different plans in them for different reasons it helped her to cope with her move.  Later on in the novel CeeCee reflects about her Life Book in the following phrase from page 276 of the uncorrected proof:
I thought about how we all had Life Books--Mrs. Odell, Aunt Tootie, Oletta, and me, and how someone, somewhere, had seen fit to write our names on one another's pages. 

Throughout this novel CeeCee is dealing with what has happened to her mother, wondering if the same illness could possibly strike her at any point in her life.  As she starts to be more comfortable with herself you can see that the memories of her mother's insanity are starting to be replaced by good heartfelt memories.  CeeCee remembered when her mother was telling her about how oysters are like women in the following excerpt from page 255 of the uncorrected proof:
   "Oysters are a lot like women.  It's how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and gives us our beauty."  She fell silent for a moment and gazed out the window.  "They say there's no such thing as a perfect pearl-that nothing from nature can ever be truly perfect."
   Abruptly she turned to me, and the look in her eyes was fierce.  "But they're wrong," she said, pulling me close.  "You, Cecilia Rose, are a perfect pearl.  My Perfect little pearl."

This book brought tears to my eyes several times and just verified to me the importance of having solid relationships with good women.  I think I could really go on and on about this book all day and I know I will be passing it around to the ladies in my book group.  If you enjoy Southern fiction with themes of acceptance and forgiveness with some strong and quirky women I am sure you will enjoy this book.  So my final question is, Do you have plenty of pearls written in your Life Book?  I know I do!

My Rating: 5/5

Disclosure:  This book was provided to me from Library Thing as part of the Early Reviewer's program in exchange for an honest review.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Mailbox Monday-Feb. 8

 
Thanks to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting the Mailbox Monday Meme that has us list the books that we received last week. You can go to her blog to see what everyone else got last week or to play along.

Ok, so I am cheating this week since I really didn't receive anything in my mailbox.  I'm not sad about that though, since I have so many wonderful books to read that I already have at home.  A few weeks ago, one of the gals in my book club won a set of books for our whole group though, and I realized that I forgot to post about that one.  So even though I received this book about a month ago and it was actually sent to someone elses mailbox...here is what I have:
 
Where Grace Abides  by BJ Hoff

So what was in your mailbox this last week?

Friday, February 5, 2010

The Lucky Winner of A Lucky Child!

 
And the winner of A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is....

Congratulations...I will be emailing you shortly to get your mailing address.  Thanks for entering everyone and have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Book Club Chatter

Welcome to another week of Book Club Chatter where I hope to discuss all things book club on a weekly basis. I thought this would  be a fun way for each of us to share one little tidbit every week.



So here is my question for you this week:
Does your book group have an open membership that allows new people to join every month, or do you follow a set of guidelines before allowing a new member to join?

My Answer:  My book club does not have an open membership.  About a year ago we decided that we really like the size of our group now.  We have about nine ladies that meet on a regular basis, of course we do not have perfect attendance every month, but we usually do have a good turnout.  We feel that the size of our group is big enough to make for interesting discussions but small enough to keep it personal for all of us.  We decided that if someone really is interested in joining our group that we will discuss it and make a decision together.  We hope that this will allow us to be sure that the new member would be a good fit for our group.  I think that all groups are different and  it is good to know that the ladies you are meeting with enjoy reading the same types of books and have similar interests outside of reading.

There is not a deadline as to when you need to post or answer this question, so please feel free to join in at your convenience. You can either leave your answer in the comments below or post your answer on your blog and leave the link below.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Current Giveaways!!!

Here are some great contests that I have found recently:

So Many Precious Books, So Little Time is giving away the audio version of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova--Contest ends 2/5.

Savvy Verse and Wit is giving away Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford--Contest ends 2/5.

A Sea of Books is giving away the audio version of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova--Contest ends 2/6.

Peeking Between the Pages is giving away Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin--Contest ends 2/7.

A Sea of Books  is giving away the audio version of The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris--Contest ends 2/7.

Peeking Between the Pages is also giving away the audio version of The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris--Contest ends 2/7.

Savvy Verse and Wit is giving away Government Girl by Stacy Parker Aab--Contest ends 2/8.

Booking Mama is giving away The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale--Contest ends 2/9.

The Burton Review is giving away O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell--Contest ends 2/12.

Luxury Reading is giving away American Rust by Philipp Meyer--Contest ends 2/13.

A Circle of Books is giving away the audio version of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova--Contest ends 2/13.

Hist-fic chick is giving away O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell--Contest ends 2/13.

Passages to the Past is giving away The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon--Contest ends 2/16.

Library Girl Reads is having a February giveaway--Contest ends 2/24.

And then don't forget about my giveaways for Lone Star Legend by Gwendolyn Zepeda that ends 2/12, and Drood by Dan Simmons that ends 2/15.

Good luck everyone!

Review: My Antonia by Willa Cather

Here is a summary of My Antonia from the Reading Group Guides website:

Perhaps the most popular of Cather's novels, My Ántonia is at once the intimate portrait of an American heroine, an elegy for a vanished frontier, and the story of an unconsummated love affair. Jim Burden, the narrator, meets Ántonia Shimerda as a child on the Nebraska prairie. He is an orphan and a Protestant, she the daughter of ill-adapted Bohemian immigrants; her father will kill himself when he is broken by the harshness and solitude of their new home. Jim and Ántonia grow up together, and he harbors vague and contradictory romantic yearnings toward her. But they are separated in their youth and spend most of their lives apart. While Jim pursues his education and becomes a lawyer for the railroad, Ántonia goes into domestic service, survives a near-rape, is seduced and abandoned by a heartless lover, and bears a baby out of wedlock. Much of her story unfolds secondhand, as Jim gathers it from other sources. They are reunited only briefly at the novel's end, and by then both of them are married, Jim unhappily so.

What is it that makes Ántonia a genuinely heroic figure? Partly, it is her ability to emerge undiminished and unembittered from circumstances no less bleak than the ones that killed her father, to improvise happiness in the same way she once improvised stories. In the course of the novel, Ántonia also becomes an embodiment of the narrator's memory, which has the power to withstand time and redeem its losses. Of course, it is not only Jim's memory that is in play: Ántonia represents all the strength, resilience, and unselfconscious nobility of a decisive moment in our nation's past. The virtues that Cather associates with her heroine have either become obsolete or have receded into our collective unconscious, but the sight of her is enough to reawaken our memory of them: "She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true....she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things." [p. 258]


My Review:
What a beautiful classic novel this was, laced with Bohemian traditions and vivid descriptions of the landscape.  I will admit that at first this book was a bit difficult for me to read, but once I decided to lock myself away without any distractions I became immersed in the pages.  Although the story is about Antonia, I think it is more about how Antonia impacted Jim Burden's life.

Jim lived with his grandparents on a farm in Nebraska and his life seemed to change when Antonia moved to a neighboring residence with her Bohemian immigrant family.  He becomes very close with Antonia and her brother and can only imagine that they will be friends for many years to come.  Antonia's mother is portrayed as a very greedy woman and vocally shares her inhibitions with her neighbors.  When times get tough for the family the greed and selfishness seems to spread to her children and this creates a feud of some sort between Jim and Antonia that will last for a couple of years.

When Jim's grandparents become too old to manage the farm they move to the city to live.  Jim starts to attend school in the city and is introduced to a new set of friends.  He sees that an element is missing from these friendships compared to the relationship that he had with Antonia.  So you can only imagine his happiness when he learns that Antonia is going to also be moving to the city to work as a servant for a home nearby.  Their friendship picks up again as if there were never an argument of any kind in the first place.  

Lena is another important character in this novel.  She becomes a good friend of Antonia's and you can see that she definitely has a much wilder streak about her.  Jim worries that Lena will take Antonia down the wrong path and just be a very bad influence on her.  I found it very interesting how Cather portrayed both Lena and Antonia when they were young girls, and then as adults.  

The story was heartbreaking in the sense that you could feel the love that both Jim and Antonia felt for each other, but they never acted upon their feelings. When the book ends Jim seems to come to terms with the direction that his life has taken and how Antonia had affected it.  When he catches a glimpse of the life and love in Antonia's eyes at the end of the novel that is all he needs to know that they both had taken the right paths.

This book was so much more to me than a classic novel with beautiful descriptive writing.  Many of you know that my Grandma recently moved in with me and she is also Bohemian.  So as I was reading this book it juggled memories of her life and stories for me.  I could see so many comparisons with the Bohemian traditions that it truly amazed me.  I found it interesting how Antonia had such a close relationship with her father, as my Grandma's father/daughter relationship was similar.  My Grandma will still tell you to this day about the hollyhocks that she grew by her house in the summer.  This was a beautiful story and it also created a great book club discussion for my group.

My Rating:  4/5

Disclosure:  I borrowed this book to read for my own entertainment. 

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Teaser Tuesday-Feb. 2

Check out Teaser Tuesdays from Should Be Reading.  TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

This week my teaser is from The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley:
Yamaga was there too and that was a memory that could never be pure, it would always come with pain attached to it.  I took up the cup he had last sipped sake from and let it fall to the floor; it broke into three shards, I stamped on them, powdering them to dust.

pg. 57

Monday, February 1, 2010

Giveaway: Drood by Dan Simmons

I am happy to announce that since Drood is being released in paperback this month Valerie from Hachette is offering to give away three copies of this book to my readers!

Here is a summary of Drood from the Hachette website:

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.

Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?


Just as he did in
The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

Here is how to enter:

To enter this contest you must be at least 18 and live in the U.S. or Canada.  No PO Boxes please.

For one entry leave me a comment including your email address below.

For two additional entries, blog about this contest or add the link to your sidebar.

Please include your email so I will have a way to contact you if you win.

You will have until February 15th to enter and I will draw for winners on February 16th.

Mailbox Monday-Feb. 1

 
Thanks to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting the Mailbox Monday Meme that has us list the books that we received last week. You can go to her blog to see what everyone else got last week or to play along.

Here is what was in my mailbox last week:

 
Black Hills  by Dan Simmons



Wench  by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

So what was in your mailbox last week?