Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Mailbox Monday is on a blog tour! The popular meme started over at The Printed Page blog is being hosted by Chick Loves Lit for the month of August!
After being a total good girl last week with zero ARC's for review.....
I did cave in and accepted for review some interesting titles. And I was enticed by Sourcebooks but didn't go overboard, thankfully. Instead of reading the many Guinevere novels I already own, I will have to start with this one, and belatedly I realized this is another reissue from a previous 1987 novel (bonks self over head):
The story of a queen who deserves to become a legend—a startlingly original tale of Arthur & Guinevere.
Often portrayed as spoiled, in Persia Woolley’s hands Guinevere comes alive as a high-spirited, passionate woman. When she is chosen by Arthur to be his wife, Guinevere’s independence wars with her family loyalty. As the wedding approaches and hints of rebellion abound, she learns that the old gods are in revolt against the new Christian church, and that scattered kingdoms are stirring from their uneasy peace. This is Arthurian epic at its best, filled with romance, adventure, authentic historical detail, and a landscape alive with the mystery of Britain in the Dark Ages.
I also received from Henry Holt something different, which came with a CD too:
Luminous, passionate, expansive, an emotional tour de force
Sunset Park follows the hopes and fears of a cast of unforgettable characters brought together by the mysterious Miles Heller during the dark months of the 2008 economic collapse.
An enigmatic young man employed as a trash-out worker in southern Florida obsessively photographing thousands of abandoned objects left behind by the evicted families.
A group of young people squatting in an apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
The Hospital for Broken Things, which specializes in repairing the artifacts of a vanished world.
William Wyler's 1946 classic The Best Years of Our Lives.
A celebrated actress preparing to return to Broadway.
An independent publisher desperately trying to save his business and his marriage.
These are just some of the elements Auster magically weaves together in this immensely moving novel about contemporary America and its ghosts. Sunset Park is a surprising departure that confirms Paul Auster as one of our greatest living writers.
For review:
Have you read the previous books in the series? I haven't, but I ordered one so that I can read it before this one. The newest installment comes out October 1st 2010 by Mira:
With an exotic setting in the foothills of the Himalayas and the introduction of an arch-villain, Dark Road to Darjeeling promises to be the most exciting Lady Julia novel yet.
I LOVE this cover, it has such pretty coloring.
From paperbackswap, I received:
Madame de Pompadour: A Life by Evelyne Lever
A riveting new biography of the legendary French queen Family life in Vienna, the wedding at Versailles to Louis XVI, the French court, boredom, hypocrisy, loneliness, allies, enemies, extravagant entertainment, scandal, intrigue, sex, birth and bereavement, lovers, peasant riots, the fall of the Bastille, the attack on Versailles, confinement in the Tuileries, escape and capture, mob rule in Paris, imprisonment, the guillotine. Marie Antoinette is a biographer's dream, and Evelyne Lever's account of the life of the inimitable (and last) French queen is a sumptuous, addictive delight. From Marie Antoinette's birth in Vienna in 1755--the fifteenth child of Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I--through her turbulent and unhappy marriage to Louis XVI, the turmoil of the French Revolution, her trial for high treason (during which she was accused of incest), and her final beheading, Lever draws on a variety of resources, including diaries, letters, and firsthand accounts, to weave a gripping, fast-paced historical narrative that reads like expertly crafted fiction.
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