Mailbox Monday
I received the following books last week:
TweetMonday, April 30, 2012
I received the following books last week:
TweetSaturday, April 28, 2012
Giveaway: The Day the World Ends by Ethan Coen
Book Description:
From one of the most inventive and celebrated filmmakers of the twentieth century, and co-creator of such classics as Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit, a collection of poems that offers humor and insight into an artist who has always pushed the boundaries of his craft.
Ethan Coen's screenplays have surprised and delighted international audiences with their hilarious vision and bizarrely profound understanding of human nature. This eccentric genius is revealed again in The Day the World Ends, a remarkable range of poems that are as funny, ribald, provocative, raw, and often touching as the brilliant films that have made the Coen brothers cult legends.
When not writing plays, poetry, or short stories, ETHAN COEN makes movies with his brother, Joel Coen. After thirteen films, the Coen brothers have one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed bodies of work in the history of cinema.
This giveaway is for the U.S. only and ends on May 5, 2012. Please use Rafflecopter to enter.a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Friday, April 27, 2012
International eBook Giveaway: End of Summer by Michael Potts
Book Description:
A deeply moving and passionate book, Michael Potts’ End of Summer is a poignant literary novel about childhood and memory. This is contemporary Southern fiction at its best. In textured language and with heartfelt attention to detail, Potts’ nuanced portrayal of rural life in southern Appalachia and a young boy’s initial encounter with death reminds us that life at the economic margins can be culturally and spiritually rich, and that even as absences and losses sometimes damage us, these can also strengthen and redeem.
Michael Potts grew up near Smyrna, Tennessee and is currently Professor of Philosophy at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. His undergraduate degree (in Biblical languages) is from David Lipscomb University. He also holds the Master of Theology from Harding University Graduate School of Religion, the Master of Arts (in Religion) from Vanderbilt University, and the Ph.D. in philosophy from The University of Georgia.
Michael has fifteen articles in scholarly journals, nine book chapters, six encyclopedia articles, two book reviews, and he has co-edited a book, Beyond Brain Death: The Case Against Brain Based Criteria for Human Death, which was published in 2000 by Kluwer Academic Publishers. He also has over thirty scholarly presentations, including one presented at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at The Vatican in 2005. He is also a 2007 graduate of The Writers Loft at MTSU and a 2007 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
His poetry has been published in Journal of the American Medical Association, Iodine Poetry Journal, Poems & Plays, and other literary journals. His poetry chapbook, From Field to Thicket, won the 2006 Mary Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award of the North Carolina Writers Network. His creative nonfiction essay,Haunted, won the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Award, also sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network.
End of Summer, is his debut novel.
Besides reading and writing, he enjoys vegetable gardening, canning, and ghost investigations (just for fun!). He and his wife, Karen, live with their three cats, Frodo, Rosie, and Pippin, in Linden, North Carolina.
You can learn more about Michael by reading his blogs at gratiaetnatura.wordpress.comand michaelpotts.livejournal.com
This giveaway ends on May 11, 2012 and is International. only. Please use Rafflecopter to enter.
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Giveaway:A Time to Heal by Seye Oke
Book Description:
A sweeping and extraordinary novel, A Time to Heal is the story of Tori and Chidi, two young lovers bound by the covenant of marriage but separated by the realities of ethnic differences. Newly wed and settling into life as a married couple, Tori and Chidi soon find their relationship, and everything they hold dear, tested in the face of a civil war.
Called upon to fulfill a family obligation that forces him to make an impossible choice between his new bride and his legacy, Chidi embarks on a painful and arduous journey of self-discovery. When his close companions, Dozie, Azuka, and Jude, implore him to fight for a course he has no faith in, Chidi is torn between his family obligation, his friends, and his new wife. The finality of Chidi’s ultimate choice comes at a high price: he excludes Tori from his plans and ultimately, from his life.
Left alone and searching for support, companionship, and consolation, Tori works to rekindle her strained relationship with her parents and clutches to the warmth offered by a stranger. But as time passes and distance between them grows, Tori and Chidi struggle to understand and uphold the newfound persons they have become. Had either really understood the gravity of the vows they exchanged on their wedding day?
As Chidi gives in to the clarion call of his kindred to join in the fight for recognition and respect against powerful forces, Tori is left to rediscover the true meaning of family, loyalty and love. Consumed by the heartache of loneliness, Tori questions every value she had ever upheld as she finds herself torn between loving another—and waiting for the one who betrayed her love. As two worlds collide in a heated struggle between the past and the future, uncertainty abounds. Can true love reign over all?
An incredible story about faith, hope, and the healing power of love, A Time to Heal is inspirational, moving, and unforgettable. An extraordinary story that brilliantly juxtaposes the turbulent times of a violent civil war and the inner tumult of its characters, A Time to Heal is a bold and inventive tale that takes readers on a journey like no other. A mesmerizing and exciting story that carries an important message, A Time to Heal is a beautiful and triumphant tale, exceptionally well-told.
About Seye Oke:
An inspirational writer whose creative works are usually based on biblical principles told in a contemporary African style, Seye Oke is the author of Debbie’s Diary and Love’s Lie. A graduate of Aberdeen Business School, United Kingdom, who completed an Executive Marketing program through Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Seye currently works for an IT company. She lives in Nigeria with her husband and son. A Time to Heal is Seye’s most recent book release. Visit Seye Oke online at: www.seyeoke.com. Follow her on twitter @seyeoke.
This giveaway ends on May 11, 2012 and is for the U.S. only. Please use Rafflecopter to enter.
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Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Impact of a Single Event by R. L. Prendergast
Richard and Sonia take a vacation without the kids as what appears to be a last ditch effort to save their troubled marriage. They are at their first destination, a bed and breakfast when they start arguing again. It’s late at night but they pack up the car and head back home. On the way, they witness a horrific accident car accident. The car in front of them is over-turned and there is a couple that are hurt and unconscious. There is also a gasoline leak so they quickly get the couple out of the car and wait for an ambulance.
The couple are taken away but their belongings are spread all over the road. Richard and Sonia pick them up and happen across and old looking journal. They are very curious about it but pack everything up in the car and go to the hospital where the couple was taken.
The couple are in surgery and they are told to call in the morning so they go home. In the morning they go to the hospital and drop off the couple’s belongings. Both are in intensive care and can’t have visitors. However, once the couple are release they contact Richard and Sonia. They photo copy the journal to share with Richard and Sonia.
The journal has several different writers, starting from the 19th century on. The people were from Canada and all the way to India and back. These journal entries were my favorite part of the book. Each journal entry gives the reader a snapshot of each writer’s life in the time and place they lived.
R.L Prendergast pulls off the journal type book with great effect. His crisp and fresh prose kept me turning the pages and not wanting the book to end. This is the second book I have read by Prendergast and I can hardly wait for him to write his nest book.
4.5/5
I received a copy of this book from the author for an honest review.
TweetMonday, April 23, 2012
Mailbox Monday
Sorry for my absence last week from the blogosphere. My computer died! Geek Squad came to fix it and then it stopped working again the very next day. I am so thankful that I had backed up all my important stuff, let me tell you!! I am writing this on my brand new computer. Visa will love me this month, LOL!
This post is ore-schedule to post as I will be out of town with limited internet access until April 30th. Please forgive me if I don't get to your websites to comment while I'm away.
Here's what I received the last two weeks:
I won this collection of short stories along with the one below for John of The Book Mine Set for completing a mini challege for the Canadian Book Challenge. I'm a big fan of Ivan E. Coyote and I didn't have 'Missed Her'. Dennis E. Bolen is a "new to me" author but worth checking out.
I received this book unsolicited. It's not my cuppa tea but I know someone who will like it.Tweet
Friday, April 20, 2012
Giveaway: The Descent of Man by Kevin Desinger
Book Description:
One night Jim, a quiet wine steward, wakes to find two men trying to steal his car. Against the petitions of his wife, he goes outside to get the plate number of the thieves' truck. Instead, something comes over him and he drives away in their truck until he recovers his wits and realizes what he's done. When Jim learns that the two would-be thieves are brothers with a history of violence, he soon finds himself over his head in a mire of sinister events and must risk everything to regain what he can of his life before that night."There are books that you can't put down, and there are books that won't go away even after you put them down, the force of their moral conundrums haunting the stories of our own lives. The Descent of Man is a spectacular showcase for both literary virtues the riveting tale of a modest but perfect life under assault, and a resonating challenge to our own self-knowledge, the authenticity of that knowledge, which can only be confirmed through crisis.
Who are we when push comes to shove? What are we capable of? Do we have the fortitude to save ourselves from the bad things in the world, and the backbone the strength of mind and spirit to protect those we love from harm? Kevin Desinger confronts us with these questions in the steady, quiet voice of Everyman, a decent guy sitting in a parlor chair, calmly narrating a firestorm that's consuming his house and family. He has written a novel that is flawless, masterful, unforgettable, and chilling in its dramatization of the way we live in fragile grace each day in America, our blessings balanced on the edge of violence and loss." Bob ShacochisAn Excerpt from
THE DESCENT OF MAN by Kevin Desinger
Chapter 1
A truck with its lights out idled in the street. White steam pulsed from the tailpipe and drifted off, but the truck made no sound. From our bedroom window I could make out the motionless shapes of two men on either side of the truck, facing each other. They both turned toward our house, but I was able to step back before they looked up to the second floor, where I stood in the dark. I recalled having been awakened by a clank like you hear from a distant game of horseshoes, but not why it had drawn me to the window. Marla slept on, but she can sleep through anything.
When I peered out again, both figures were standing together on the near side of the truck. They were studying our car. Even after I realized that the sound had come from a piece of steel striking the pavement, an element of disbelief kept me from piecing together what was happening. My sleepy forty-year-old brain plodded through the stages of cognizance, from seeing to understanding. In college philosophy I had learned the difference between immediate and mediate perception. Immediate: two guys. Mediate: I recognize them as two guys. The first is simply the mechanism of my eyes discerning shapes in the visual field; the second is my brain making sense of the shapes. Both stages happen at the speed of thought—the first perhaps even faster because it happens before thinking interferes. Either I’d skipped the next class or we hadn’t covered a third stage of perception (maybe making sense of the action), but it took what seemed like forever: Two guys are stealing our car. The fourth stage, let’s call it self-awareness, quickly followed: I’m standing here like an idiot watching two guys steal our car.
I pulled on a pair of jeans, a work shirt, and my running shoes. Almost as an afterthought I woke Marla. There was enough light for me to see her sit up and rub her eyes like a little girl.
“What time is it?”I grabbed the handset of our cordless phone from the nightstand and pushed it into her hands. “Call the cops! Two guys are stealing our car.”
She reached for her bedside lamp. I said, “No light!”Now fully wakened by the urgency in my tone, she forced the phone back on me. “You call the cops.” Then, “Why are you dressed?”
“I’m going outside to get the plate number of their truck.”“No, you’re not!”
“I want to make sure we get these guys.”
She had a point, but I gave her the phone again. “If the cops get here in time there won’t be anything to worry about.” I felt around in my nightstand drawer for the notepad and pencil I keep there and slid them into my shirt pocket. Then I said, “Keep away from the window.”
As I slipped out the back door my hands felt strangely empty, so I detoured to grab a two-foot length of old galvanized pipe from a pile of plumbing scrap I kept meaning to recycle. The pipe made me feel safer, but I also felt an unfamiliar anger. This was a new experience for me, even in our modest neighborhood, where rashes of break-ins occurred now and then but were quickly stopped, and where our middle-aged Camry was about the nicest car on the block. The pipe felt natural in my fist.Our neighbors to the left are tidy people who don’t own a dog, and I was able to find my way easily and quietly across their backyard and around the far side of their house to the street. There’s a streetlight two houses down on the near-side parking strip and another farther up the block; otherwise it’s porch lights. I started across the street, glancing toward the two guys breaking into our car. They had their backs to me.
Keeping behind the parked cars, I worked my way toward the idling truck. I could see through the windows of the cars, but not well enough to read the plate number. The truck—which I could hear now, its engine’s deep, covert burble—had both doors open a foot or so, maybe to provide a quick exit if the thieves had to abort. One of them was in the driver’s seat of our Camry, and the other was leaning over the half-open door. I kept moving up the sidewalk until the truck was between them and me. As I crouched down, gripping the corroded pipe, my anger grew as if it were being released at a molecular level into my hand. It spread up my arm and shoulder and concentrated in my chest.
Something in the Camry broke with a loud snap, and one of the car thieves swore. At the same time something in me snapped too. Without thinking I crossed the few feet of open street and slipped into the cab of the truck. I placed the pipe on the passenger seat, pulled the shifter into “drive,” and hit the gas. The truck lurched up Juniper. I couldn’t bring myself to look anywhere but the street ahead. I shut my door, then made the long reach across the bench seat to close the passenger door. Keeping my eyes on the road, I felt around on the dashboard for the headlights switch and pulled it on. The cab smelled like a riverside tavern: cigarettes, sweat, mildew, and beer.A rising sound of sirens triggered a tightness in my chest, as if the cops were after me instead of the car thieves. I pulled on the seatbelt shoulder strap and tried to keep calm, to drive as if this were my truck. My arms were shaking, and the tightness spread to my stomach. Flashing blue and white lights came into view, and a cop car rushed past me faster than I’d ever seen a car travel on a residential street.
The light at Fulton let me into heavier traffic heading west toward the river. I didn’t want to cross the bridge into downtown, so I took a side road near the railroad yard and eventually entered an unfamiliar industrial area. It was randomly lit in yellow and brown tints, deserted as the moon. Half a mile later I realized what had happened: I had taken a vehicle from two car thieves at the same time that they were trying to take ours! I couldn’t decide whether it was irony, poetic justice, or just dumb luck.
I slowed alongside a stretch of hurricane fencing with railroad tracks on the other side and found myself laughing convulsively. The only thing that kept me from choking on this strangely gripping laughter was when I finally thought about the cops talking to Marla, working their way around to a question that should have occurred to me earlier: And where is your husband now?This giveaway ends on May 4, 2012 and is for Canada and U.S. Please use Rafflecopter below to enter.
TweetSunday, April 15, 2012
Giveaway: On Celestial Music byRick Moody
Thanks to Anna Balasi of Little Brown and Company, I am giving away 3 copies of On Celestial Music.
Book Description:
Rick Moody has been writing about music as long as he has been writing, and this book provides an ample selection from that output. His anatomy of the word cool reminds us that, in the postwar 40s, it was infused with the feeling of jazz music but is now merely a synonym for neat. "On Celestial Music," which was included in Best American Essays, 2008, begins with a lament for the loss in recent music of the vulnerability expressed by Otis Redding's masterpiece, "Try a Little Tenderness;" moves on to Moody's infatuation with the ecstatic music of the Velvet Underground; and ends with an appreciation of Arvo Part and Purcell, close as they are to nature, "the music of the spheres."
Contemporary groups covered include Magnetic Fields (their love songs), Wilco (the band's and Jeff Tweedy's evolution), Danielson Famile (an evangelical rock band), The Pogues (Shane McGowan's problems with addiction), The Lounge Lizards (John Lurie's brilliance), and Meredith Monk, who once recorded a song inspired by Rick Moody's story "Boys." Always both incisive and personable, these pieces inspire us to dive as deeply into the music that enhances our lives as Moody has done--and introduces us to wonderful sounds we may not know.
About Rick Moody:
Rick Moody (born Hiram Frederick Moody, III on October 18, 1961, New York City), is an American novelist and short story writer best known for The Ice Storm (1994), a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, and became a bestseller; it was later made into a feature film.
This giveaway ends on April 29th and is for Canada and the U.S. Please use Rafflecopter below to enter:
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Friday, April 13, 2012
eBook Giveaway: Spectral by Shannon Duffy
Thanks to Nicole Langan of Tribute Books I am giving away one eBook copy of Spectral by Shannon Duffy.
Book Description:
Convinced she’s a part of the witness protection program, sixteen-year-old Jewel Rose is shuffled around the globe with her family like a pack of traveling gypsies. After arriving at lucky home twenty-seven, she stumbles upon a mysterious boy with magical powers claiming to be her guardian . . . and warning of imminent danger. Despite the obvious sparks between them, Jewel discovers a relationship is forbidden, and the more she learns about dark, brooding Roman, she begins to question who she can even believe — the family who raised her, or the supposed sworn protector who claims they’ve been lying to her all along.
As she struggles to uncover who her family has really been running from, she is forced to hide her birthmark that reveals who she is. With new realities surfacing, unexplained powers appearing, and two tempting boys vying for her heart, Jewel battles to learn who she can trust in an ever growing sea of lies, hoping she’ll make it through her seventeenth birthday alive.
About Shannon Duffy:
Shannon Duffy writes young adult and middle grade fiction. She grew up on the beautiful east coast of Canada and now lives in Ontario, Canada. She is the mom of one boy, Gabriel, her angel. She loves writing, reading, working out, soccer, and the sport of champions-shopping. She is the author of the young adult paranormal romance, SPECTRAL. Her upcoming middle grade fantasy novel, GABRIEL STONE AND THE DIVINITY OF VALTA is scheduled for a January 2013 release.
Spectral web site:
http://spectralwitch.blogspot.com/
Shannon Duffy's Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001969007586
Shannon Duffy's Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/ShannonDuffyLit
Shannon Duffy's Website:
http://www.shannonduffylit.com/
Shannon Duffy's Blog:
http://1fantasyfairy.blogspot.com/
http://spectralwitch.blogspot.com/
Shannon Duffy's Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001969007586
Shannon Duffy's Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/ShannonDuffyLit
Shannon Duffy's Website:
http://www.shannonduffylit.com/
Shannon Duffy's Blog:
http://1fantasyfairy.blogspot.com/
This giveaway is international and ends on April 27, 2012. Please use Rafflecopter below to enter.
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Giveaway: SCAR by Ryan Frawley
Dermot Fallon has a disease. Currently hospitalized in Vancouver, he recreates with lunatic clarity the circumstances surrounding his recent trip to Ireland to bury his father, and his own schizophrenic breakdown. Pursued by the past - that of his family and a nation, as well as his own - he in turn pursues Fiona, his cousin's fiancée, even as reality fragments into nightmare in the tangled tripwires of his brain.
Told from Dermot's own perspective with extensive notes by his psychiatrist, Scar is a powerful meditation on death, love, loss, identity, family and the terrifying ecstasy of madness.
About Ryan Frawley:
First prize winner of the Vancouver International Writers and Literary Writes short story competitions respectively, Scar, which is informed by his own struggles with mental illness and experiences as a second generation immigrant, is Frawley’s full-length literary debut.
Scar is currently available for purchase in paperback through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca and the author’s website. Scar is available for purchase in e-book format through Smashwords.
Website: www.ryanfrawley.com
This giveaway is for Canadian and U.S. and ends on April 27th. Please use Rafflecopter to enter.
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012
The Second Time We Met by Leila Cobo
"He smiled when he met her eyes behind the bars that shielded her from him, a bold smile of utter self-assurance- the assurance that comes from being armed and in a group and...simply from being assured."
Soon after that, she encounter him, the guerrilla they call Lucas, in the street several times, actually he follows her around. He tries to convince her that he is a nice guy and she finally falls for it. The meet in secret and have an affair, which results in pregnancy. By the time she realizes she is pregnant, Lucas has been sent away by his commander.With nowhere else to turn, she eventually tell her parents, who tell the local priest. After hearing her confession, he drives her to a orphanage, far away to have the baby and give him up for adoption. She names him Sebastian, after her little brother and writes a letter to him at the prompting of a nurse after giving birth.
Asher Sebastian Stone grew up in California with wonderful parents. He always knew he was adopted, his parents even read a letter to him from his birth mother. However, he was never really curious to know more about her until his accident. He started wonder if she ever thought of him and if she wondered how he was.All of a sudden he can't get her off his mind. With the help of his parents and girlfriend, he embarks on a journey to try to find her.
I loved the story of Rita, how she girl up with extremely strict parents in a small town, what she did to pass the time at the orphanage while pregnant and her new life after in Bogota. Bogota has always been a fascinating place to me because my brother, Steve play French horn in the symphony orchestra there in the later 70's. He painted a pretty bleak picture, with men with machine guns on roof tops to keep the peace. While in Bogota, looking for Rita, Asher and his girlfriend see those same machine guns on roof tops. Asher's search is a roller coast ride. With assistance he pieces together bits of information and embarks on what appears to be fruitless. I could feel his frustration but he doesn't give up.
Leila Cobo paints a story of what it is like to grow up in guerrilla infiltrated Columbia as well as what is means to be adopted. At times it felt like it was lacking in something, though I can't quite figure out what. Nonetheless, this is a great character study and the well written story kept me turning the pages. 4/5
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I received this book from Grand Central Publishing for my honest review.Tweet
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