Everyday I Write the Book

Book Giveaways and Guest Bloggers

I am going on vacation for 2 weeks starting at the end of July, and I'd love to have some guest bloggers fill in while I am gone so that the blog doesn't go dark. If you'd like to submit a guest post - a review or something else connected to books - please send me an email at [email protected]. Thanks!

I also have accumulated a number of books that I am not going to read, either from BEA or goody bags or elsewhere - and I'd like to give them away to EDIWTB readeres who might be interested. If you want one of the books below, leave me a comment with the title(s) you want to read, and I will do a drawing using random.org on Friday, July 17th. Make sure to leave me your email address.

The Gift of an Ordinary Day, by Katrina Kenison. September 2009. From Amazon: "The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition-boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town. It is a story of mid-life longings and discoveries, of lessons learned in the search for home and a new sense of purpose, and the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers--holding on, letting go. Poised on the threshold between family life as she's always known it and her older son's departure for college, Kenison is surprised to find that the times she treasures most are the ordinary, unremarkable moments of everyday life, the very moments that she once took for granted, or rushed right through without noticing at all.  The relationships, hopes, and dreams that Kenison illuminates will touch women's hearts, and her words will inspire mothers everywhere as they try to make peace with the inevitable changes in store."

Once Was Lost, by Sara Zarr. October 2009. From Amazon: "Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. She used to believe in a lot of things. As a pastor's kid, it's hard not to buy in to the idea of the perfect family, a loving God, and amazing grace. But lately, Sam has a lot of reason to doubt. Her mother lands in rehab after a DUI and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. When a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, the local tragedy overlaps with Sam's personal one, and the already-worn thread of faith holding her together begins to unravel. In her third novel, acclaimed author Sara Zarr examines the coexistence of affliction and hope, and what happens when everything you thought you believed---about God, about your family, about yourself---is transformed."

AdaptAbility: How To Survive Change You Didn't Ask For, by M. J. Ryan. From the author's website: "Why is it so hard to accept change? Paradoxically, it is for the very reason that our brains usually work so well; we are designed to learn something and make it automatic. The problem is that when circumstances change, our “efficient” brains keep trying to do things the same old way. In AdaptAbility, Ryan provides strategies to retrain your brain and optimize your response to change, step by step: by first accepting the new reality, then expanding your options, and finally, taking effective action. She offers cutting edge tools for becoming calmer and less fearful, more flexible, creative and resourceful in your thinking. Best of all, as your “adapt-ability” increases, so does your confidence that, whatever life sends your way, you will be able to face it and find new ways to flourish." 

Spent: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again, by Frank Lipman. From Amazon: "Americans seem to be suffering an epidemic of chronic fatigue. Some of this can be attributed simply to lack of sleep, particularly in the Eastern time zone, where 11 p.m. is the end of prime-time television. Also highly suspect are the many additives in much of the food we eat and toxins in the air we breathe. Lipman—founder and director of New York's Eleven Eleven Wellness Center, whose patients include Kyra Sedgwick and David Letterman—here presents a six-week program to detoxify, change eating habits, work daily exercise into one's schedule, and support those who are trying to clean up our environments." 

"Too Too Many Tutus" by Suzanne Davis Marion

Here's another kids' book for the ballet-obsessed: Too Too Many Tutus, by Suzanne Davis Marion. It'a very sweet story about a girl who is set to perform in a ballet recital, but she can't decide which of her many colored tutus she should wear. As she considers each one, she thinks about what the color conjures up - the blue tutu suggesting the sea, the orange suggesting a fire at sunset, the green a forest dance in the trees. In the end, she comes to a decision that allws her to appreciate the beauty of all of the tutus and the images they convey. The watercolor drawings are lovely and colorful, and the story is simple but sweet. I read this with my five year-olds earlier this week, and they requested it again the next night. Highly recommended for little dancers!

"Miss Harper Can Do It", by Jane Berentson

Two exciting blog-related developments today. First, I redesigned the blog. I wish the middle column weren't this narrow, and that the pictures of the book covers were a little bigger, but unfortunately I can't control either one. In general, though, I am happy with it. If you have any comments on the redesign, please let me know! I can always go back to how it was.

Second, I was contacted by a reporter from the New York Times today who wanted to interview me about my book buying habits. It was really fun to talk to her about where I get book recommendations. I told her that I rely on print reviews, book blogs, and shelf-surfing at independent bookstores. I am not sure whether my answers were relevant for the article she is writing right now, but she said she'd stay in touch and that she might want to use me for another article in the future. Exciting!

Speaking of shelf-surfing at independent bookstores, I returned from the Outer Banks in North Carolina a few weeks ago, where I go every summer. I paid my annual visit to Island Bookstore, one of my all-time favorite bookstores, to check out its fiction section. Island Bookstore has about a tenth the number of fiction books as a typical Barnes & Noble, if that, but its selection is impeccable. I get excellent book suggestions every year.

Over the next few weeks, I will share the books I found at Island Bookstore that I noted for the blog. Here's today's Island Bookstore Pick: Miss Harper Can Do It, by Jane Berentson. From Amazon:

Third-grade teacher Annie Harper knew that boyfriend David would likely be deployed to Iraq. After all, he was in the military when they met in college. During the year he is gone, she decides, she will write a noble, uplifting, bestselling, Oprah-worthy memoir of sacrifice and long-distance love. As happens, life and literature do not live up to expectations. Annie pretty much goes on as before. Students and friends occupy her. She and David have an active email correspondence and far more phone calls than one would think possible. She volunteers at a senior center. She adopts a pet chicken, and Gus, her childhood best friend, plays a large role in her life. She has fun; she learns and grows. There is some real terror from the warfront, but their correspondence dwindles to the petty and humdrum, leading the reader to anticipate the outcome. With its irresistible protagonist, wacky footnote asides, and spot-on language, Berentson’s involving novel is funny, heartrending, and outstanding.

I can't find any reviews of Miss Harper Can Do It online. Amazon user reviews are mixed; Goodreads reviews are better. But I am intrigued by the description above. Has anyone read this yet?

"Secrets to Happiness" by Sarah Dunn

I recently finished Sarah Dunn's second novel, Secrets to Happiness. Her first book, The Big Love, was the second book I read after I started my blog in 2006, and I reviewed it here. At the time, I said, "Dunn offers up astute insights about female friendship, sex, and relationships.... [She] is a fresh, natural writer whose pages flow quickly, and whose storytelling is well-paced and surprising.  I really enjoyed this book and was sad to see it end."

I have pretty much the same things to say about Secrets to Happiness.  It's the story of a loosely connected group of New Yorkers, each of whom is seeking a happy, fulfilling relationship. Holly Frick is a divorced writer for a children's cable station; her best friend Amanda is about to embark on an affair with a single thirtysomething; her ex-boyfriend Spence has been dumped by his long-distance girlfriend because he cheated on her; her gay writing partner seeks anonymous partners online, etc. etc. etc. Pretty typical fare for a book about post- millennial New Yorkers.

But what makes Secrets to Happiness so surprisingly good are Dunn's insights, humor, eloquence, and powers of observation. She's very funny (and as a result, her characters are similarly quick with the jokes), and her books are readable and entertaining. Despite their faults, they are likeable and easy to relate to. Here is a passage I especially liked:

West End Avenue has a very distinctive feel, especially for a street that doesn't have anything all that distinctive about it. There's no commerce to speak of at street level, and the traffic goes both ways, and the stoplights seem to take forever to change, but that isn't enough to explain the feeling. Holly always thought that it seemed oddly out of sync with time - not like it belonged in an earlier century, or even in a different decade, but more like, well, when you got there, you found yourself in side a different day of the week than the one you were in before. Like it was Wednesday on Broadway, but a few hundred feet away, over on West End, somehow, it was Sunday.

New York itself plays a large role in the book - as this passage suggests - which I particularly loved. It has been a long time since I lived there, but Sarah Dunn caught me up a little.

Secrets to Happiness is a pretty light read, but a satisfying one. Highly recommended.

"Hello Goodbye" by Emily Chenoweth

Here's a book that sounds like it should be incredibly depressing, but is apparently "anything but".

EW had the following review of Hello Goodbye by Emily Chenoweth:

As Helen Hansen's brain cancer spreads, her husband, Elliott, plans one last fling at a grand old hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Along with their daughter Abby and all their old friends, the Hansens spend the week reminiscing, drinking, eating, and arguing. Though she doesn't acknowledge it, Helen — who's fading more each day — realizes they've come to say goodbye. Yet what should be a wistful, melancholy tale of grief is somehow anything but; in Emily Chenoweth's graceful hands, Abby is learning to live as her mother is learning to die. A–

S. Krishna also reviewed Hello Goodbye, and concluded that "it is a heartbreaking portrait at a family that is on the verge of falling apart.  It is a glimpse at their last moments of normalcy, of their attempts to live life, before their worlds shatter around them.  I definitely recommend this novel to fans of literary fiction or women's fiction."

Cheryl Strayed at The Oregonian also loved this book:

[Chenoweth offers] up a story that is equal parts riveting and real, tender and merciless. Her characters are utterly convincing, human in their complexity and contradiction, their bravado and fragility. In chapters that alternate among the three family members, we peer deeply into their psyches and lives, their fears and delusions and deepest desires... Perhaps what I admire most about "Hello Goodbye" is how deftly Chenoweth takes on painful subject matter without sinking into either sentimentality or despair. Her gaze is unflinching, but her hand is light, and though this novel is at times harrowing, it's also a page-turner. This book broke my heart, but like all things capable of breaking our hearts, it has the spark of life."  

Has anyone else out there read this? I'd love to give it a try.