Happy Memorial Day!! I hope you are all enjoying some yummy BBQ and family time as I am :)Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week. And I am adding what I purchased. Here's what I received during the last week:
(and I am just not going to count, I do NOT want to know, but I have put in an official request to my most dearest husband for another bookcase)..
From an Awesome Giveaway for National Poetry Month of April, from Rachel Baker at Old Musty Books, I received 6 new books courtesy of Hachette!
They are:
The 100 Best Poems of All Time By Leslie Pockell ISBN: 0446676810
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson By Emily Dickinson ISBN: 0316184136
The Poets’ Corner By John Lithgow ISBN: 0446580023
Odes to Common Things By Pablo Neruda , Ken Krabbenhoft , Ferris Cook ISBN: 0821220802
American Primitive By Mary Oliver ISBN: 0316650048
Revolution on Canvas, Volume 1 By Rich Balling ISBN: 0446697869
From a Giveaway by Dan's Journal:
Do-Over by Robin Hemley "If only he could do them all over a few decades later, with an adult's wisdom, perspective, and giant-like height...Hemley reencounters paper mache, revisits his childhood home, and finally attends the prom--bringing readers the thrill of recapturing a misspent youth and discovering what's most important: simple pleasures, second chances, and the forgotten joys of recess."
From the Barnes & Noble First Look Club, which I thought I missed but boom it arrived:
Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
"Of Bees and Mist is a literary fantasy about three generations of women in two families. The world they inhabit is entirely imagined, woven from customs and mythologies I have had the privilege of encountering. The book is my attempt to give words to the daydreams that saturated the silences of my childhood, and to show that language-more than an instrument of division-can also embrace and emancipate." -Erick Setiawan
Another To Review:
Surviving High Society : Lots of Love Trumps Lots of Money by Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland
"To the outside world, Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland had it all. Adopted into a wealthy New England family, the young Elizabeth was afforded the luxury many people only realize in their dreams. She joined her family on lavish European vacations, lived in a finely decorated home, grew up in world heavily infiltrated by power and money, and hob-knobbed with celebrities. As a close friend of Katharine Hepburn's niece, she gained an inside look into Katherine Hepburn's guarded inner life which she details in Surviving High Society"
I purchased:
The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare by Brenda James , William Rubinstein
"'A startling and brave book which advances another author for Shakespeare's works - Sir Henry Neville, a well-educated nobleman who spent four years travelling Europe, and thus was familiar with the background of many of the plays.' "-Joan Bridgman, Contemporary Review"
"Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King" (Hardcover)by Antonia Fraser
"Adelaide of Savoy, a favorite companion of Louis XIV during his dotage, remarked, "Under a king, a country is really ruled by women." Fraser's history of the court of the Sun King, seen through the lens of the women closest to him, is a highly readable confection, and unfolds as a sequence of cameos. There is Queen Anne of Austria, Louis's steely moth"r and regent, who carefully molded the infant King into an Apollo adored by the court; and his wife, Marie-Therese of Spain, who gave him no trouble except by dying. Then comes a trio of mistresses: Louise de La Valliere, who became a nun as recompense for her sins; Athenais, voluptuous and fecund; and Madame de Maintenon, the discreet and redoubtable confidante of his later years. With vivid wit, Fraser demonstrates that within the edifice of the monarchy there were deep crannies of ordinary affection."
"The Kite Runner" (Paperback)by Khaled Hosseini "Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium."
From Paperbackswap, 30 days later it shows up.. hallelujah...
"Through a Glass Darkly" By Karleen Koen, the (edited to:) prequel to "Dark Angels" and "Face to Face"
"London caught up in the feverish excitement of the South Sea Bubble and Paris under the licentious influence of the Duc D'Orleans make a glittering background for Koen's first novel. Much of the plot young noblewoman in love with and married to charismatic older man enters society and is disillusioned and many of the characters willful, innocent heroine; adored, autocratic grandmother; and loveable, reckless brother are standard fare. Historic detail, though abundant and accurate, is often marred by didactic presentation. Still, there is action and intrigue enough to win a following who will demand this and further volumes in what is sure to become another sweeping saga. Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass."
And mighty quick from Paperbackswap, and now I am officially out of credits there..
"The Queen of Subtleties" by Suzannah Dunn
"From Publishers Weekly Fans of historical fiction will savor this colorful retelling of the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn by British author Dunn. The novel (her eighth, and the first to be published in the U.S.) is narrated in turns by Anne, now imprisoned in the Tower, and Lucy Cornwallis, Henry VIII's confectioner, who observes the dramas of the court from the haven of her kitchen. Though their paths seldom cross, the two women's lives become fatefully linked through the scandalous liaisons of the English court. On the eve of her beheading, Anne documents her life's tale for her young daughter, Elizabeth, telling how she came to join the king's court as a lady-in-waiting to Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and caught the eye of the king. Ambitious and proud, she refuses to be his mistress, insisting instead on becoming his legitimate wife. Henry eventually succumbs to her pressures, but only after he breaks with Rome and declares himself the head of the Church of England. Meanwhile, Lucy falls desperately in love with Mark Smeaton, the angelic court musician who in turn is enamored with Anne. This reasonably accurate historical portrait of Anne is enlivened by Dunn's imaginative weaving of Lucy into the narrative, making for a delicious romp through the romance, politics and drama of 16th-century England."
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen (I know, it's a tragedy: haven't read any Austen!!)
"Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is she's a completely hip character, who if provoked is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp -- but always polite -- 18th century wit. The point is, you spend the whole book absolutely fixated on the critical question: will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy hook up?"
**sigh.... so many books..... yadda yadda yadda
.JPG)
