J Kaye at J Kaye Book Blog is having a giveaway. She is giving away a copy of Gregg Olsens Heart of Ice.However, I really want to win this book, so if you really love me, you won’t enter so I have a better chance of winning. 🙂
Just kidding, sort of, I guess.
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I’ve snagged an Early Reviewers copy of The Laws of Harmony by Judith Ryan Hendricks from the February batch.
Horton Foote, playwright and screenwriter, died yesterday. He was 92.
Among his screenplays were To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies and The Trip to Bountiful. His plays included The Young Man from Atlanta and The Carpetbagger’s Children.
In a long obituary, the New York Times called Foote a “chronicler of a wistful American odyssey through the 20th century in plays and films mostly set in a small town in Texas and who left a literary legacy as one of the country’s foremost storytellers.”
The Times’s Frank Rich called Foote “a major American dramatist whose epic body of work recalls Chekhov in its quotidian comedy and heartbreak, and Faulkner in its ability to make his own corner of America stand for the whole.”
True to character, at the time of his death, Foote was working an adaptation of his own nine-play Orphans’ Home Cycle.
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Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by A Striped Armchair and Out of the Blue that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
Here is what I checked out this week:
One Thousand White Women – Jim Fergus
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
“Relationships with books actually have some pretty compelling advantages over relationships with men. With books, it’s always your choice if the liaison ends prematurely. You don’t have to worry about the awkwardness of trying to avoid your discarded book should you bump into it in the grocery store. You can tell it, “It’s not you, it’s me” or even “You know, it actually is you” without hurting its feelings. It will also never insist on an exclusive relationship, and no one will think ill of you if you love more than one. You can take one to bed with you the very first night you bring it home without your mother blinking an eye.”–Kim Kovacs on the BookBrowse blog.
Happy Monday!! Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week. Here’s what I received:
Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa
This book actually arrived in my ‘in-box’ not my mailbox. It is an advance copy that I received from the author for review. If the rest of book is as good as the first chapter, it will be an enjoyable read. Look for my review.
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Spreading some good cheer – Free Book Friday – and Free Book Friday Teens – pass it on! : )
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Overview: Editorial Review
In 2002, five women are discovered barbarously murdered in Sierra Leone. Reuters Africa correspondent Connie Burns suspects a British mercenary: a man who seems to turn up in every war-torn corner of Africa, whose reputation for violence and brutality is well-founded and widely known. Connie’s suspicions that he’s using the chaos of war to act out sadistic, misogynistic fantasies fall on deaf ears—but she’s determined to expose him and his secret.
The consequences are devastating.
Connie encounters the man again in Baghdad, but almost immediately she’s taken hostage. Released after three desperate days, terrified and traumatized by the experience—fearing that she will never again be the person she once was—Connie retreats to England. She is bent on protecting herself by withholding information about her abduction. But secluded in a remote rented house—where the jealously guarded history of her landlady’s family seems to mirror her own fears—she knows that it is only a matter of time before her nightmares become real . . . .
My review:
This book is described as ‘electrifying’, I can’t really agree with that. It moved along rather slowly, more character development then plot, a side plot that was detracting and unnecessary and an unsatisfying ending. Connie states she doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but her statements (Her mother mentions a conversation Connie had with her father, one you never heard of till then) make you wonder if that is true and as the reader, I was left with more questions then answers. For a true crime book, that is often the case, when I read a novel, I like more answers and less questions. I would hesitate before reading another of her books.
The 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge
on sale March 10, 2009. EMERGENCY is one man’s story of a dangerous world—and how to stay alive in it! (Click on the book to read an excerpt)
by NEIL STRAUSS
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR STRAUSS PLUNGES INTO THE WORLD CRISIS HEADFIRST IN HIS NEWEST BOOK
Terrorist attacks, natural disasters, wars, disease and economic collapse. What would you do if any of these things occurred today? What if there was a way you could learn to be self-sufficient and survive without government help?
The answers to surviving all of these potential disasters lies with New York Times’ bestselling author Neil Strauss and his forthcoming book EMERGENCY: This Book Will Save Your Life (Harper; Trade Paperback Original; On sale March 10, 2009; $16.99). EMERGENCY is one man’s story of a dangerous world—and how to stay alive in it!
In a witty, epic journey spanning eight years, five-time New York Times best-selling author Neil Strauss (The Game, The Dirt) looks at an America that’s lost its sense of safety. He steps into the lives of billionaires buying second passports, survivalists burying gasoline, primitivists building self-sufficient communities, cult leaders preaching doomsday, expatriates hiding their assets, and ordinary citizens stockpiling guns, getting second passports, and going off the grid.
In the process, Strauss tackles his own fears and anxieties. In a remarkable transformation that outdoes his million-copy-plus bestseller The Game, Strauss ends up saving more than just his own life when he puts his new skills to use as a rescue worker, helping to capture a serial arsonist and treat victims of the deadly Metrolink train collision in California.
Along the way, Strauss develops a formula for survival and safety in these uncertain times, revealing scores of tips and tricks that could save your home, your money, your loved ones, and your life in these uncertain times.
Not bad for a guy who used to be afraid of spiders!
Neil is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game and Rules of the Game. He is also the co-author of four previous bestsellers: How to Make Love Like a Porn Star (with Jenna Jameson), The Dirt (with Mötley Crüe), Don’t Try This At Home (with Dave Navarro), and The Long Hard Road Out of Hell (with Marilyn Manson), and the co-author of the satirical graphic novel How to Make Money Like a Porn Star (with Bernard Chang), which has been banned in Singapore. While undercover for his last book, he accidentally achieved the distinction of becoming the world’s greatest pickup artist. Strauss lives in Los Angeles, CA with his goat Lola.
I look good in black and white.
I am reading the Bible, books, magazines, online newspaper articles, blogs, jokes on candy wrappers, ads on the subway, billboards, backs of food boxes, lists of ingredients and recipes, cleaning directions, sayings on shirts, then I write and write. When I'm not reading, I'm experiencing life, trying out new restaurants and getting massages. I write about those places here, take a look, you might find something you like.
city girl drinking craft beer 