I was provided with a copy of this book to review courtesy of TLC Book Tours; I received no other compensation. Wife of the Gods: A Novel Kwei Quartey Random House, 2009 (hardcover) (ISBN 1400067596 / 9781400067596) Fiction, 336 pages First sentence: “The forest was black and Darko was afraid to enter.” Teaser: “Mama must have enjoyed her visit tremendously, because three months later she went back to Ketanu. Six days passed, eight, and then […]
I received an Advance Reader’s Copy (ARC) of this book for review through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program. Perfect Life: A Novel Jessica Shattuck W.W. Norton & Co., 2009 (hardcover) (ISBN 0393069508 / 9780393069501) Fiction, 336 pages First sentence: Later, after everything, after Neil had come and gone from their everyday lives, Laura had a memory of that other time, a million years ago, it seemed, when they had all been college students, living in that […]
There will be an online discussion of this book on Tuesday, July 14 at Bookworm with a View as part of the Summer Reading Series. All We Ever Wanted Was Everything: A Novel Janelle Brown (blog) Spiegel & Grau, 2009 (paperback) (ISBN 0385524021 / 9780385524025) Fiction, 448 pages First sentence: June in Santa Rita is perfect, just perfect. Teaser: “She was terrible at ballet. Her pliés were mushy, her pirouettes wobbly, and the way the […]
Fool: A Novel Christopher Moore (blog) William Morrow, 2009 (hardcover) (ISBN 0060590319 / 9780060590314) Fiction, 336 pages First sentence: “Tosser!” Cried the raven. There’s always a bloody raven. Book description: Here’s the Cliff Notes you wished you’d had for King Lear—the mad royal, his devious daughters, rhyming ghosts and a castle full of hot intrigue—in a cheeky and ribald romp that both channels and chides the Bard and all Fate’s bastards. It’s 1288, and the king’s fool, Pocket, and […]
…or, The (Half)Year in Books I “borrowed” this idea from Nymeth‘s Sunday Salon post last week, but as it happens, it was also June 29th’s Musing Mondays question: Now that we’ve come to the middle of the year, what do you think of your 2009 reading so far? Read anything interesting that you’d like to share? Any outstanding favorites? Considering my pathetic total of 35 books read and reviewed in 2008, the fact that I’m […]
Certain Girls: A Novel Jennifer Weiner (blog) Washington Square Press, 2009 (paperback) (ISBN 0743294262 / 9780743294263) Fiction, 416 pages First sentence: When I was a kid, our small-town paper published wedding announcements, with descriptions of the ceremonies and dresses and pictures of the brides. Book description: Cannie Shapiro, the smart, sharp-tongued, bighearted heroine of Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed, is back. After her debut novel — a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life — […]
Disclosure: I received an Advance Reader’s Copy of this book for review through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program. The Unit: A Novel Ninni Holmqvist (translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy) Other Press, 2009 (paperback original) (ISBN 1590513134 / 9781590513132) Fiction, 272 pages First sentence: It was more comfortable than I could have imagined. Book description: One day in early spring, Dorrit Weger is checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She is promised […]
This review is part of a virtual blog tour hosted by TLC Book Tours in connection with the paperback release of The 19th Wife. Thanks to Lisa of TLC for arranging for me to obtain a copy of the novel (in hardcover) for review. Author David Ebershoff is also on a “real” book tour to promote the paperback release. He will be in the Los Angeles area on Monday, June 22, reading and signing books […]
I received this book for review through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program. The Laws of Harmony: A Novel Judith Ryan Hendricks Harper, 2009 (paperback) (ISBN 0061687367 / 9780061687365) Fiction, 496 pages First sentence: “The heat is a presence. Palpable and relentless, it rolls over Albuquerque like a hot iron.” Random clip (page 300): “I buy a double espresso from a woman who has a little cart set up right by the entrance every Saturday and head […]
The Senator’s Wife Sue Miller Vintage, 2008 (paperback) (ISBN 0307276694 / 9780307276698) Fiction, 320 pages First sentence: From her perch in the middle of the backseat, Meri surveys the two in front—her husband, Nathan, and Sheila, the real estate agent Random clip (page 23): “She makes her breakfast and sits listening to the news on the local public radio station. There’s much talk, about a year later, about the recovery from Hurricane Andrew in Florida.” […]
Never Let Me Go: A NovelKazuo IshiguroVintage, 2006 (paperback) (ISBN 1400078776 / 9781400078776)Fiction, 304 pages First sentence: My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. Book description: As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of […]
Gatsby’s Girl: A Novel Caroline Preston Mariner Books, 2007 (paperback) (ISBN 0618872612 / 9780618872619) Fiction, 336 pages First sentence: Scott Fitzgerald’s daughter called long distance, out of the blue. Book description: Before he wrote some of the twentieth century’s greatest fiction, before he married Zelda, F. Scott Fitzgerald loved Ginevra, a fickle young Chicago socialite he met during the winter break from Princeton. But Ginevra threw over the soon-to-be-famous novelist, and the rest is literary […]
