TUESDAY POTPOURRI: LUSTING AFTER BOOKS — MAY 21

A week or so ago, I wrote about wishing for this book...and I was all prepared to preorder it.  Sophie Hannah is one of my favorite authors of dark mystery, and Kind of Cruel sounds like one I have to read.

Amber Hewerdine suffers from chronic insomnia. As a last resort, she visits a hypnotherapist, doubtful that anything will really change. Under hypnosis, Amber hears herself saying, “Kind, cruel, kind of cruel.” The words awaken a vague memory, but she dismisses the whole episode as nonsense. Two hours later, however, Amber is arrested for the brutal murder of a woman she’s never heard of, and the only way she can clear her name is by remembering exactly where she’s seen those words.

 

But just as I was poised to order it, I found it in the Amazon Vine newsletter.  Even better!

So I’m expecting it this week!  Along with another book that’s been calling to me:

The Husband’s Secret, by Liane Moriarty.

Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. ..

 

***

I’m very excited about both of these books…and I’ll be rushing to the mailbox today, hoping to find at least one of them!

What books are calling to you? 

 

A Cozy Book Room

TUESDAY POTPOURRI: INTROS/TEASERS — “SOMEWHERE OFF THE COAST OF MAINE” — MAY 14

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today’s feature is Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, by Ann Hood, which I have downloaded for Sparky.

Intro:  To Sparrow, her father was a man standing in front of a Day-Glo green VW van in a picture dated June 1969.  The picture had been taken the year before Sparrow was born.  In it, her father’s hair was bushy and blond and he had a big droopy mustache.  Sparrow liked the way he was looking up, with his head tilted back and his mouth open in a wide smile.

Sparrow’s mother, Suzanne, never talked about Sparrow’s father.  Suzanne was a serious businesswoman.  She dressed in pleated skirts and Oxford shirts with little bow ties.  She would tell Sparrow to forget about the past and look ahead.  “Don’t worry,” she would say, “about things that happened a long time ago.”  Sparrow’s obsession with her father began to grow when her mother started to date Ron.

***

Teaser:  For the past year or so, Sparrow’s mother called her Susan.  She said that the name Sparrow was too dated, too silly. (4%)

***

Amazon Description: “Brilliant….[The Vietnam era] is vividly captured by Ann Hood.”—New York Times Book Review

In 1969, as Peter, Paul and Mary croon on the radio and poster paints are splashing the latest antiwar slogans, three friends find love. Suzanne, a poet, lives in a Maine beach house awaiting the birth of a child she will call Sparrow. Claudia, who weds a farmer during college, plans to raise three strong sons. Elizabeth and her husband marry, organize protests, and try to rear two children with their hippy values. By 1985, things have changed: Suzanne, now with an MBA, calls Sparrow “Susan.” Claudia spirals backward into her sixties world—and into madness. And Elizabeth, fatally ill, watches despairingly as her children yearn for a split-level house and a gleaming station wagon. Reading group guide included.

***

I love revisiting this era through books and movies.  What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

SUNDAY POTPOURRI: BOOKISH TIDBITS & TREASURES — MAY 12

Welcome to another Sunday Potpourri, an event that brings together all the tidbits and treasures of the past and upcoming weeks.

First, take a peek at my Sunday Salon post, in which you’ll see blog posts and reviews from the week.

Now….let’s reflect on some upcoming releases that I’ve discovered…and added to my “must have” list:

Kind of Cruel, by Sophie Hannah.  I’m a big fan of her dark, twisted reads.

 

A Tidbit:  “Kind, cruel, kind of cruel.” Amber thinks it’s just nonsense, a side effect of being hypnotized for the first time. But when she’s arrested for a brutal murder two hours later, those four words are the key to clearing her name… if only she could remember where she’d seen them.

 ***

And then there’s Necessary Lies, by Diane Chamberlain, another favorite author. (Coming Sept. 3)

Tidbit:  Bestselling author Diane Chamberlain delivers a breakout book about a small southern town fifty years ago, and the darkest—and most hopeful—places in the human heart….

***

And I already mentioned this next one at my Sunday Salon post, but I can’t emphasize enough how much I adore this author’s books:

After Her, by Joyce Maynard, coming August 20.  (She brought us a number of favorites, like Labor Day).  

It’s the summer of 1979, and a dry, hot, northern California school vacation stretches ahead for Rachel and her younger sister Patty – the daughters a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome and chronically unfaithful detective father who loves to make women happy, and the mother whose heart he broke. Left to their own devices, the inseparable sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the life of the mysterious neighbor who moves in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that rises up behind their house…..then young women start showing up dead.  Imagine what happens next!

***

Soon I’m off to get ready for my Mother’s Day brunch with my daughter and grandson…and some friends.

Enjoy your day!

TUESDAY POTPOURRI: INTROS/TEASERS — INSTRUCTIONS FROM A HEATWAVE — MAY 7

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

My feature today is Instructions for a Heatwave, by Maggie O’Farrell, an ARC from Amazon Vine.

 

Intro:  Highbury, London

The heat, the heat.  It wakes Gretta just after dawn, propelling her from the bed and down the stairs.  It inhabits the house like a guest who has outstayed his welcome:  it lies along corridors, it circles around curtains, it lolls heavily on sofas and chairs.  The air in the kitchen is like a solid entity filling the space, pushing Gretta down into the floor, against the side of the table.

Only she would choose to bake bread in such weather.

Consider her now, yanking open the oven and grimacing in its scorching blast as she pulls out the bread tin.  She is in her nightdress, hair still wound into curlers.  She takes two steps backwards and tips the steaming loaf into the sink, the weight of it reminding her, as it always does, of a baby, a newborn, the packed, damp warmth of it.

***

Teaser:  He puts a hand to his brow.  Conversations with his mother can be confusing meanders through a forest of meaning in which nobody has a name and characters drop in and out without warning. (p. 33)

***

Blurb:  Sophisticated, intelligent, impossible to put down, Maggie O’Farrell’s beguiling novels—After You’d Gone, winner of a Betty Trask Award; The Distance Between Us, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Hand That First Held Mine, winner of the Costa Novel Award; and her unforgettable bestseller The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox—blend richly textured psychological drama with page-turning suspense. Instructions for a Heatwave finds her at the top of her game, with a novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.

Gretta Riordan wakes on a stultifying July morning to find that her husband of forty years has gone to get the paper and vanished, cleaning out his bank account along the way. Gretta’s three grown children converge on their parents’ home for the first time in years: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and a blighted past that has driven away the younger sister she once adored; and Aoife, the youngest, now living in Manhattan, a smart, immensely resourceful young woman who has arranged her entire life to conceal a devastating secret.

Maggie O’Farrell writes with exceptional grace and sensitivity about marriage, about the mysteries that inhere within families, and the fault lines over which we build our lives—the secrets we hide from the people who know and love us best. In a novel that stretches from the heart of London to New York City’s Upper West Side to a remote village on the coast of Ireland, O’Farrell paints a bracing portrait of a family falling apart and coming together with hard-won, life-changing truths about who they really are.

***

I’m loving it already!  What do you think?  Come on by and let’s chat.

 

TUESDAY POTPOURRI: SOAP MAGIC — THE ONLINE REBOOT OF AMC & OLTL — APRIL 30

 

 

Finally the magic is back!  Two favorite soaps that were cancelled in 2011 are now available online!

Who would have thought?  The plan to do that awhile ago fell flat, and while many of us still had faith, our hopes were fading.  But now it has finally happened.

I wasn’t sure that I could watch online….but on my laptop, with a full screen viewing mode, it works!  Now for those who want to watch it on their other devices, Hulu Plus is available.  There is even a free trial period.

Today was my second day of viewing and I’m settling into it.  I think I’ll be happily viewing on my laptop for now.

If you’d like to check out the conversation that others are having about the online launches, or just to talk about soaps in general, visit Carolyn Opinion Hinsey’s page on Facebook.

 

Come on by and share your thoughts!

SUNDAY POTPOURRI: MOMENTS OF REFLECTION — APRIL 28

I used to hate Sundays.  Why?  Because of Mondays, following closely on their heels.

But nowadays, Sundays are blissful.  I wake up early to delicious coffee, and later…a mimosa.  I might sit at this little dropleaf table where I ponder things or even pay bills.  It’s by the sliding glass door that looks out on the patio, where I might sit later, now that the weather is gorgeous.

By now, I’ve already posted my Sunday Salon thoughts:  My reading and blogging adventures for the week, and what’s coming up next.

I guess that I can’t really mind all those years of hating Sundays because of Mondays….without all those years in the trenches, I wouldn’t appreciate my days now.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about people I once knew and lost touch with…like a great friend in college, with whom I corresponded for several years…and then, nothing.

I searched for her at one of those sites…when Googling her on online networks revealed nothing.  And found her!  Not far from where she was when we last connected.  Now…I stare at the page with the info and wonder.  What now?

A cold call?  A letter?  I don’t have an e-mail address.  I don’t recall why or how we lost touch, but I know that back then, I was moving around a lot…and I changed my name a few times…lol. (Not just my last name, but my first name, too!).

Memories of our times together have revisited me in some of my creations.  One of the characters in Interior Designs is loosely based on her.  She was the friend who was brave and had loads of chutzpah…and she wasn’t even Jewish!

It’s kind of sappy, revisiting the past and remembering those we knew when.  But perhaps not so unusual, as we get older.

I’m reading Elizabeth Berg’s Tapestry of Fortunes, in which the characters are planning a road trip to revisit people they lost along the way.  For one of them, it’s an old love; for another, it’s a child she gave up at birth.

Do you ever ponder the connections of the past….those lost, or even forgotten?  What do you do about it?

THURSDAY POTPOURRI: DISTURBING MIDNIGHT MOMENTS, ETC. — APRIL 25

I’ve been reading The Smart One, and thoroughly enjoying it.  So it was only natural to pick it up and read it when I woke up at midnight last night.

But what happened after I went back to sleep?  Well, my dreams were populated by a mix of the story and its characters, along with my own memories of that time in my life.  An intriguing mix, but a bit disconcerting, too.

What do you do when you awaken at night…if you do? 

Sometimes I watch a movie on TV, but that often has the same side effect….dreams that mix with reality in disturbing ways, especially if the movie is a thriller, like this DVD that offers a collection of horrors.

A Triple Feature Thriller, with Helter Skelter, etc.

 

Which is why I prefer to read in the middle of the night, even though there are definitely some risks…lol.

This morning, I woke up without any lasting effects, except for that feeling, in the first few moments, that my nighttime visitors were still there…but then, as reality inserted itself, I knew that I could go on with the real tasks of the day.

 

Here I am, set up at my living room coffee table…and that’s actually my Sunday morning set-up, with the mimosa!  Have a good day!

TUESDAY POTPOURRI: INTROS/TEASERS — THE SMART ONE — APRIL 23

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m featuring The Smart One, by Jennifer Close, a story of family.

 

Intro:  From inside her apartment, Claire could hear the neighbor kids in the hall.  They were running from one end to the other, the way they sometimes did, kicking a ball or playing tag, or just running for running’s sake.  They had their dog with them too, a big, sad golden retriever named Ditka, who always looked confused, like he couldn’t understand why or how he’d ended up living in an apartment in New York.

Claire muted the TV and listened to see if the kids were going to stay out there for a while, or if they were just waiting for their parents to take them somewhere.  She hoped it was the second option.  It was Saturday morning, which meant they had hours ahead of them.  Having them out there made her feel trapped in her own apartment.  Just because she was sitting on the couch in sweatpants and had no plans to leave didn’t make the feeling go away.  She could sense their presence on the other side of the wall, so close to her.  She could see the shadow of Ditka’s nose as he sniffed at the bottom of the door.  They were invading her space, what little of it she had.  And it was interfering with her plan to be a hermit for the whole three-day weekend, something she was getting better and better at.

***

Teaser:  (After Claire and Doug had moved in together):  Then one night, after an argument about whether they should order Thai food or sushi that ended with Doug calling Claire overdramatic and Claire calling Doug controlling, he had sighed.  “What’s going on with us?” (p. 10)

***

Amazon Blurb:  With her best-selling debut, Girls in White Dresses (An “irresistible, pitch-perfect first novel” —Marie Claire), Jennifer Close captured friendship in those what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life years of early adulthood. Now, with her sparkling new novel of parenthood and sibling rivalry, Close turns her gimlet eye to the only thing messier than friendship: family.

Weezy Coffey’s parents had always told her she was the smart one, while her sister was the pretty one. “Maureen will marry well,” their mother said, but instead it was Weezy who married well, to a kind man and good father. Weezy often wonders if she did this on purpose—thwarting expectations just to prove her parents wrong.

But now that Weezy’s own children are adults, they haven’t exactly been meeting her expectations either. Her oldest child, Martha, is thirty and living in her childhood bedroom after a spectacular career flameout. Martha now works at J.Crew, folding pants with whales embroidered on them and complaining bitterly about it. Weezy’s middle child, Claire, has broken up with her fiancé, canceled her wedding, and locked herself in her New York apartment—leaving Weezy to deal with the caterer and florist. And her youngest, Max, is dating a college classmate named Cleo, a girl so beautiful and confident she wears her swimsuit to family dinner, leaving other members of the Coffey household blushing and stammering into their plates.

As the Coffey children’s various missteps drive them back to their childhood home, Weezy suddenly finds her empty nest crowded and her children in full-scale regression. Martha is moping like a teenager, Claire is stumbling home drunk in the wee hours, and Max and Cleo are skulking around the basement, guarding a secret of their own. With radiant style and a generous spirit, The Smart One is a story about the ways in which we never really grow up, and the place where we return when things go drastically awry: home.

***

Does the intro grab you?  Would you keep reading?  I hope you’ll stop by and chat.

 

SUNDAY POTPOURRI: BOOKS INTO MOVIES & OTHER SUNDAY TIDBITS — APRIL 21

Welcome to the April 21 Edition of Sunday Potpourri.

It’s been that kind of day…odds and ends, and a few tidbits and treasures.  I started out by shopping to replenish the fridge and cupboards.  I seem to put that task off until the shelves are almost bare!

Home again, I did a little reading.  But mostly I’ve been watching movies.  I saw an old flick from 1988, based on a novel by Jay McInerney (his name is a tongue twister!).

Bright Lights, Big City, starring Michael J. Fox, Keifer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates, and Tracy Pollan (who is married to Michael J. Fox).

I know I saw this film in the eighties…but today it felt as though I were watching it for the first time.  I wonder why that is?  Has that ever happened to you?

Now I want to read the book.  Usually I read the book before the movie….

 

 

I read another one of McInerney’s books awhile ago:  The Good Life.  A real literary author.  Well worth the read.

 

What are you up to today?  Relaxing, reading, taking a Sunday drive?

THURSDAY POTPOURRI: BOOKISH SURPRISES — APRIL 18

 

Do you ever preorder books and then forget that you did?

That happened to me today.  I know that I had added this book to my TBR list on Goodreads…and I even had the book cover.  But when it showed up on Sparky, I was totally gobsmacked. 

Not that I didn’t want to read it at some point….but it wasn’t on the preorder list that I keep in my journal!  I must have been “out to lunch” that day…lol.

But the book looks intriguing…and I am now remembering why I preordered it.

Virgin Soul, by Judy Juanita, is a ’60s tale.  You know I love those!

From a lauded poet and playwright, a novel of a young woman’s life with the Black Panthers in 1960s San Francisco

At first glance, Geniece’s story sounds like that of a typical young woman: she goes to college, has romantic entanglements, builds meaningful friendships, and juggles her schedule with a part-time job. However, she does all of these things in 1960s San Francisco while becoming a militant member of the Black Panther movement. When Huey Newton is jailed in October 1967 and the Panthers explode nationwide, Geniece enters the organization’s dark and dangerous world of guns, FBI agents, freewheeling sex, police repression, and fatal shoot-outs—all while balancing her other life as a college student.

A moving tale of one young woman’s life spinning out of the typical and into the extraordinary during one of the most politically and racially charged eras in America, Virgin Soul will resonate with readers of Monica Ali and Ntozake Shange.

***

In the early ’60s, I lived in SF and attended university there.  I didn’t get involved with much back then, however; it would be a few years later, in Sacramento, that I would join some groups.  But I love remembering those times and what I knew about the events that defined a decade.