Sunday, August 31, 2014

A Variety of Non-Fiction Titles For Your Reading Pleasure

http://bit.ly/1BT4hbz
An astonishing memoir for the untold number of children whose lives have been touched by bullying. Positive is a must-read for teens, their parents, educators, and administrators--a brave, visceral work that will save lives and resonate deeply.

Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. On an unremarkable day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status--and within hours the bullying began. From that moment forward, every day was like walking through a minefield. Paige was never sure when or from where the next text, taunt, or hateful message would come. Then one night, desperate for escape, fifteen-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills.

That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning. Paige's memoir calls for readers to choose action over complacency, compassion over cruelty--and above all, to be positive.


http://bit.ly/1wpXDJy
Discover your hidden brainpower with this newly expanded guide to the simple but powerful technique that unlocks potential in all areas of your life.

Former banker and CEO Bill Donius drove his bank's eightfold growth over twelve years. And the surprising secret to his success is something we all have access to, right in our own two hands.

The methodology described in Thought Revolution is simple and revolutionary--so simple, it begins by moving your pen from one hand to the other. Whether you're right-handed or left-handed, a whole world of change is possible. Writing with your non-dominant hand opens you up to creative solutions, giving you the ability to see new ways through problems in your business, career, relationships, health, and spiritual life.

In Thought Revolution, Donius explains the science behind non-dominant handwriting and teaches you how to incorporate the technique into your business and your life. New stories from Donius's extensive seminars illuminate how employees and managers can unite in a new vision for their company's growth and culture, increase employee and customer satisfaction, and improve profits. Thought-provoking, easy-to-do exercises and prompts show how to connect more fully with your subconscious right brain to help you reduce stress, discover your hidden talents, heal from trauma, and come to a deeper spiritual awareness.

Thought Revolution shows how your non-dominant hand serves as a direct pipeline to the right brain's wisdom. Incorporate this simple practice into your career and your life, and you'll find insights that lead to lasting change.


http://bit.ly/1p70FOV
New York Times bestselling author Steve Almond takes on America’s biggest sacred cow: football

In Against Football, Steve Almond details why, after forty years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions:

• Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia?

• What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a billion-dollar industry?

• How did a sport that causes brain damage become such an important emblem for our institutions of higher learning?

There has never been a book that exposes the dark underside of America’s favorite game with such searing candor.


It's a system, a tool kit, a recipe book. 

Beginning with one irresistible idea--a complete home bar of just 12 key bottles--here's how to make more than 200 classic and unique mixed drinks, including sours, slings, toddies, and highballs, plus the perfect Martini, the perfect Manhattan, and the perfect Mint Julep. It s a surprising guide--tequila didn't make the cut, and neither did bourbon, but genever did. And it's a literate guide--describing with great liveliness everything from the importance of vermouth and bitters (the salt and pepper of mixology) to the story of a punch bowl so big it was stirred by a boy in a rowboat.

Learn more about the folks who came up with this HERE.

Check them out on Facebook.  And Twitter.

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

http://bit.ly/1ojfQys

Sophie Porter is the last person in the world you'd expect to be stealing Renaissance masterpieces-and that's exactly why she's so good at it. Slipping objects out of her husband's office at the Philadelphia Museum of Art satisfies something deep inside, during a time in her life when satisfactions are few and far between. Selling the treasures also happens to keep their house out of foreclosure a house that means everything to Sophie. But the FBI is sniffing around, and Sophie is close to destroying the very life she's working so hard to build. She knows she should give up her thieving ways. But she may no longer be in control. The Objects of Her Affection is a riveting story about the realities of motherhood, the perils of secrecy, and the art of appraising the real treasures in our lives.

Read about the author's inspiration for her debut book HERE.

Praise for the book:

"Sophie Porter didn’t mean to become an art thief. Her husband is a curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and she knows how much effort goes into every acquisition. She never expected to be underwater on her mortgage, either. An admirably low-interest rate turned out to be temporary, and with rising day-care costs and school fees, the family’s carefully balanced finances are in danger of collapsing entirely. At least, that’s her reasoning behind lifting a gorgeous silver mirror off of a museum storage cart and tucking it into her diaper bag. After she finds an incredibly motivated buyer for the mirror, Sophie’s thievery increases. It’s not until the consequences start to catch up to her that she fully understands just how fragile her world has become. Feeling left behind in the freelance tech world after the birth of her children and anxious about her carefully planned future, Sophie is desperate. This thrilling, emotional, and tautly paced novel will appeal to fans of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Cobb’s clear, unburdened prose allows Sophie’s innermost hopes and anxieties to shine. Her brilliant first novel is the story of a woman with nothing and everything to lose." ~Booklist

"Cobb's real-life knowledge of the museum acquisition process-she's married to a curator-imbues this sizzling tale of suspense and moral dilemmas with a heightened sense of realism." - Publishers Weekly

Stephen King Hits The Silver Screen Again on October 3!




Based on a short story in this book:

http://bit.ly/bjVm1Y
"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger . . ." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922," the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.

In "Big Driver," a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.

"Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.

Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Some Fun New Titles For The Kids

http://bit.ly/1BSqx5j
Yippie-i-oh! Saddle up for the first in a spin-off series starring favorite characters from Kate DiCamillo’s New York Times best-selling Mercy Watson books.

Leroy Ninker has a hat, a lasso, and boots. What he doesn’t have is a horse — until he meets Maybelline, that is, and then it’s love at first sight. Maybelline loves spaghetti and sweet nothings, and she loves Leroy, too. But when Leroy forgets the third and final rule of caring for Maybelline, disaster ensues. Can Leroy wrestle fate to the ground, rescue the horse of his heart, and lasso loneliness for good?

Join Leroy, Maybelline, and a cast of familiar characters — Stella, Frank, Mrs. Watson, and everyone’s favorite porcine wonder, Mercy — for some hilarious and heartfelt horsing around on Deckawoo Drive.


http://bit.ly/1vBHX1D
Frank Einstein loves figuring out how the world works by creating household contraptions that are part science, part imagination, and definitely unusual. After an uneventful experiment in his garage-lab, a lightning storm and flash of electricity bring Frank’s inventions—the robots Klink and Klank—to life! Not exactly the ideal lab partners, the wisecracking Klink and the overly expressive Klank nonetheless help Frank attempt to perfect his Antimatter Motor . . . until Frank’s archnemesis, T. Edison, steals Klink and Klank for his evil doomsday plan!

Using real science, Jon Scieszka has created a unique world of adventure and science fiction—an irresistible chemical reaction for middle-grade readers.


http://bit.ly/1BStzXk
In the #1 New York Times bestselling novel Wonder, readers were introduced to memorable English teacher Mr. Browne and his love of precepts. Simply put, precepts are principles to live by, and Mr. Browne has compiled 365 of them—one for each day of the year—drawn from popular songs to children’s books to inscriptions on Egyptian tombstones to fortune cookies. His selections celebrate kindness, hopefulness, the goodness of human beings, the strength of people’s hearts, and the power of people’s wills. Interspersed with the precepts are letters and emails from characters who appeared in Wonder. Readers hear from Summer, Jack, Charlotte, Julian, and Amos.

There’s something for everyone here, with words of wisdom from such noteworthy people as Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Confucius, Goethe, Sappho—and over 100 readers of Wonder who sent R. J. Palacio their own precepts.

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

http://bit.ly/1zktVlt

On the day that Obinna's village is savagely attacked by the rebel army and his father murdered, he witnesses violence beyond his imagination. Along with his older brother he finds himself thrown into a truck when the soldiers leave, to be shaped into an agent of horror -- a child soldier. Marched through minefields and forced into battle, enduring a brutal daily existence, Obinna slowly works out which parts of himself to save and which to sacrifice in this world turned upside down.

http://bit.ly/YOLkYc
Listen to the author reading a few pages from his book HERE.

Learn more about the author HERE.

First Look Photo From Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Inherent Vice'

http://bit.ly/1nr3JQj
Read more about the movie HERE.











The book that they are adapting:

http://bit.ly/1ghlKm3
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon- private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era

In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.

It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Undeniably one of the most influential writers at work today, Pynchon has penned another unforgettable book.

The book trailer:

The movie trailer wont be released until October.

Friday, August 29, 2014

"Island of Legends" Pre-Order Prize Pack!

http://bit.ly/1qO6lZu
Readers can uncover adventure and dangerous secrets in this new installment of McCann's New York Times-bestselling series. As Alex grows more confident in his role as the mage of Artim, he expands his skills and brings his first creature to lifeNwith results that are both painful and wonderful.  (The first book in the series is The Unwanted.)





ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE

Randy Is Recommending:

http://bit.ly/1lqPDU6
A riveting portrait of the Gold Rush, by the award-winning author of Down the Great Unknown and The Forger's Spell.

In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as hundreds of thousands of men and women borrowed money, quit their jobs, and allowed themselves- for the first time ever-to imagine a future of ease and splendor. In The Rush, Edward Dolnick brilliantly recounts their treacherous westward journeys by wagon and on foot, and takes us to the frenzied gold fields and the rowdy cities that sprang from nothing to jam-packed chaos. 
 
With an enthralling cast of characters and scenes of unimaginable wealth and desperate ruin, The Rush is a fascinating-and rollicking-account of the greatest treasure hunt the world has ever seen.
 
 
http://bit.ly/1pWydOV
The spellbinding and revealing chronicle of Nazi-occupied Paris
 
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. 
 
Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation-even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords. At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose. Parisians of all stripes-Jews, immigrants, adolescents, communists, rightists, cultural icons such as Colette, de Beauvoir, Camus and Sartre, as well as police officers, teachers, students, and store owners-rallied around a little known French military officer, Charles de Gaulle.

When Paris Went Black evokes with stunning precision the detail of daily life in a city under occupation, and the brave people who fought against the darkness. Relying on a range of resources---memoirs, diaries, letters, archives, interviews, personal histories, flyers and posters, fiction, photographs, film and historical studies---Rosbottom has forged a groundbreaking book that will forever influence how we understand those dark years in the City of Light.
 
 
http://bit.ly/1qdPyCAA gripping and suspenseful novel about secrets, betrayal, and the power of the past.

Clive and Martha have been a couple since they met at university; they now have a young daughter, Eliza, and on the surface, all seems well in their family. But neither Martha nor young Eliza know that the story of this happy marriage harbors a secret scene: a momentary betrayal that could have destroyed the marriage before it even began. Only Clive knows about the trap door in their history but he's convinced that, with the intervening years, the incident has lost its power.

But when Eliza comes home from school one day and excitedly announces that she has a new piano teacher called Eliot Fox, the guise of domestic tranquility threatens to shatter. The enigmatic Eliot Fox knows the secret that Clive is desperate to keep hidden. As her presence in the family's life grows, so too does the ominous shadow of the past that looms over Clive.

Glazebrook's darkly suspenseful tale of a family in crisis reveals how seemingly ordinary lives can contain extraordinary acts of destruction. Told with intensity and penetrating emotion, Never Mind Miss Fox is a compelling tale of guilt, justice, and what it really means to make amends.


http://bit.ly/1qaCddp
The highly anticipated return of Tony Earley, celebrated author of Jim the Boy

Two decades after his debut collection Here We Are in Paradise heralded Tony Earley as one of the most accomplished writers of his generation, the rueful, bittersweet, and riotous stories of Mr. Tall reestablish him as a mythmaker and tale spinner of the first rank. These stories introduce us not only to ordinary people seeking to live extraordinary lives, but also to the skunk ape (a southern variant of Bigfoot), the ghost of Jesse James, and a bone-tired Jack the Giant Killer. Whether it's Appalachia, Nashville, the Carolina Coast, or a make-believe land of talking dogs, each world Earley creates is indelible. 

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds

http://bit.ly/1BPKE3W

Set in a small coastal town in North Carolina during the waning years of the American Revolution, this incandescent debut novel follows three generations of family--fathers and daughters, mother and son, master and slave, characters who yearn for redemption amidst a heady brew of war, kidnapping, slavery, and love.

Drawn to the ocean, ten-year-old Tabitha wanders the marshes of her small coastal village and listens to her father's stories about his pirate voyages and the mother she never knew. Since the loss of his wife Helen, John has remained land-bound for their daughter, but when Tab contracts yellow fever, he turns to the sea once more. Desperate to save his daughter, he takes her aboard a sloop bound for Bermuda, hoping the salt air will heal her.

Years before, Helen herself was raised by a widowed father. Asa, the devout owner of a small plantation, gives his daughter a young slave named Moll for her tenth birthday. Left largely on their own, Helen and Moll develop a close but uneasy companionship. Helen gradually takes over the running of the plantation as the girls grow up, but when she meets John, the pirate turned Continental soldier, she flouts convention and her father's wishes by falling in love. Moll, meanwhile, is forced into marriage with a stranger. Her only solace is her son, Davy, whom she will protect with a passion that defies the bounds of slavery.

In this elegant, evocative, and haunting debut, Katy Simpson Smith captures the singular love between parent and child, the devastation of love lost, and the lonely paths we travel in the name of renewal.




Read a sample from the book HERE.

Listen to the NPR interview HERE. 

Praise for the book:
“The arresting prose, vividly original characters, and narrative drive with which Smith tells this story of desperate familial love on a long-ago coast provided this reader with several hours of pure pleasure and a rare glimpse of grace in a fictional world.” ~Anita Shreve

“A marvel. With prose as meticulous as brushstrokes, I can think of no other debut filled with such wonder, grace, and beauty…a tremendous achievement, a masterful exploration of parenthood and faith…An heir apparent to Michael Ondaatje and Marilynne Robinson, Katy Simpson Smith has written a book for all of us.” ~Paul Yoon

“A luminous debut…” O, the Oprah Magazine

“Smith’s soulful language of loss is almost biblical, and the descriptions of her characters’ sorrows are poetic and moving.” ~Publishers Weekly

“A luminous Revolutionary War novel set to be the debut of the year” Vogue

“Smith’s spare prose and storytelling style is resonant of oral history or folk tales, and the early chapters focusing on John and his daughter Tabitha, and her desire for the sea, call to mind Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab's Wife.” ~Library Journal

Creepy Crawler Books + Crafts

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Eric B. Is Recommending:

http://bit.ly/1qap3NB
Like Snow Falling on Cedars, a stirring tale of wartime love

April, 1944. The quiet rural village of Stark, New Hampshire is irrevocably changed by the arrival of 150 German prisoners of war. And one family, unexpectedly divided, must choose between love and country.

Camp Stark is under the command of Major John Brennan, whose beautiful daughter, Collie, will serve as translator. Educated at Smith and devoted to her widowed father, Collie is immediately drawn to Private August Wahrlich, a peaceful poet jaded by war. As international conflict looms on the home front, their passion blinds them to the inevitable dangers ahead.

Inspired by the little-known existence of a real World War II POW camp, The Major’s Daughter is a fresh take on the timeless theme of forbidden love.


A new translation of a haunting tale about the lengths to which people will go to escape from guilt and book four of the Inspector Maigret series

On a trip to Brussels, Maigret unwittingly causes a man's suicide, but his own remorse is overshadowed by the discovery of the sordid events that drove the desperate man to shoot himself.

Collect this and other novels in the Inspector Maigret series, now available in thrilling new English translations.





http://bit.ly/1mFo18L
Speak meets The Scarlet Letter in this literary masterpiece, the recipient of five starred reviews and nominated for the 2014 Edgar Award

Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family.

Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home, silently pouring out her thoughts to the boy who's owned her heart as long as she can remember--even if he doesn't know it--her childhood friend, Lucas.

But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light, and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around her, forever.

The paperback edition includes an exclusive interview with the author and a list of discussion questions for book clubs!


http://bit.ly/1lqLcbN
A fearless and spirited pilot conquers Hollywood. Now can she survive movie stardom?

In 1945, Velva Jean Hart is a bona fide war heroine. After a newsreel films her triumphant return to America, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promises to make her a star. They give her a new life story and a brand new name. As “Kit Rogers,” she navigates the movie sets, recording sessions, parties, staged romances, and occasional backstabbing that accompany her newfound fame. She also navigates real-life romance, finding herself caught between a charismatic young writer and a sexy and enigmatic musician from her past. But when one of her best friends dies mysteriously and the most powerful studio in the world launches a cover-up, Velva Jean goes in search of the truth— risking her own life, as well as her heart, in the process.

Set during Hollywood’s Golden Age and peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters, American Blonde will mesmerize readers of The Chaperone as well as fans of the Velva Jean series. 

Indies Introduce Debut Authors



http://bit.ly/1p39ByF
 
It’s the rule—always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead.

Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine’s life in the road repair platoon. Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Their mission lacks the glory of the infantry, but in a war where every pothole contains a hidden bomb, road repair brings its own danger.

Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And there’s Kateb, known to the Americans as Dodge, an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture—from hip-hop to the dog-eared copy of Huck Finn he carries—is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country.

Returning home, they exchange one set of decisions and repercussions for another, struggling to find a place in a world that no longer knows them. A debut both transcendent and rooted in the flesh, Fives and Twenty-Fives is a deeply necessary novel.
http://bit.ly/1ojcafY
 Praise for the book:
"A thrilling, defining novel of the Iraq War." ~Booklist

"A heart-stopping debut novel about war and its aftermath by an Iraq War veteran—and an essential examination of the United States’ role in the world." ~Publishers Weekly

"Powerfully understated debut . . . Everything rings so unshakably true. A war novel with a voice all its own, this will stand as one of the definitive rendering of the Iraq experience." ~Kirkus

"More than any other novel about our recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fives and Twenty-Fives demonstrates how hard it is for troops to leave war behind them in a foreign country. The veterans of Michael Pitre's outstanding book are haunted by memory, riddled with guilt, and soaked in anesthetic liquor as they try to come back to themselves after a year spent repairing bomb-shattered roads in Iraq. It's not an easy trip for any of them, and Pitre puts us in his characters' boots every step of the way as he tells their interwoven stories with compassion, intelligence and grace. Just as these men and women can't shake the war from their souls, readers won't easily forget the Marines of Engineer Support Company." ~David Abrams, author of Fobbit

25 Authors Who Wrote Great Books Before They Turned 25

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Kate M. Is Recommending:

http://bit.ly/1qawwMt
Deepest winter. An isolated island off the coast of Maine. A man. A woman.
Puppets. (Yes, puppets) And an mysterious house looming over the sea . . .

He's a reclusive writer whose imagination creates chilling horror novels. She's a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows. He knows a dozen ways to kill his characters with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill an audience with laughs. But she's not laughing now.

Annie Hewitt has arrived on Peregrine Island in the middle of a snowstorm and at the end of her resources. She's broke, dispirited, but not quite ready to give up. Her red suitcases hold the puppets she uses to make her living: sensible Dilly, Spunky, Scamp, and Leo, the baddest of bad guys. Her puppets, the romantic novels she loves, and a little bit of courage are all she has left.

Annie couldn't be more ill prepared for what she finds when she reaches Moonraker Cottage or for the man who dwells in Harp House, the mysterious mansion that hovers above the cottage from a windblown cliff. When she was a teenager, he betrayed her in a way she can never forget or forgive. Now they're trapped together on a frozen island along with a lonely widow, a mute little girl, and townspeople who don't know how to mind their own business.

Is he the villain she remembers or has he changed? Her head says no. Her heart says yes.

It's going to be a long, hot winter.


http://bit.ly/1vCcpZD
End times are here again.

A half-human, half-angel with a bad rep and a worse attitude--we are talking about he former Lucifer here--James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has made a few enemies. None, though, are as fearsome as the vindictive Angra Om Ya--the insatiable, destructive old gods. But their imminent invasion is just one of Stark's problems, as L.A. descends into chaos, and a new evil stalks the city.

No ordinary killer, the man known as St. Nick takes Stark deep into a conspiracy that stretches from Earth to Heaven and Hell. Further complicating matters is that he may be the only person alive who knows how to keep the world from going extinct. He's also Stark's worst enemy--the only man in existence Stark would enjoy killing twice--and one with a direct line to the voracious, ancient gods.


http://bit.ly/1p4FkQd
Dignity and care for every dog

When Stephen McGarva and his wife moved to Puerto Rico, they hoped to find inspiration and adventure, and a break from the ordinary routine that their lives in the States had become. McGarva, an artist and adventure sportsman, was excited to pursue the boundary-pushing, adrenaline-rush activities he loved—hang gliding, scuba diving, kite surfing. One day he visited Playa Lucia, a postcard-perfect beach with shimmering white sand, palm trees, and dazzling blue water. There, instead of relaxation and fun, he found a sick and abandoned dog. This dog, and the quest to save him, transformed McGarva and gave him a new purpose in Puerto Rico. He soon learned that this slice of paradise was known to locals as Dead Dog Beach—a notorious dumping ground for the island's unwanted canines, and Stephen McGarva knew he had to act.

In The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach, Stephen McGarva shares the story of his time in Puerto Rico working to help the satos, or unwanted dogs, of the island. Often considered a threat to the area's lucrative tourism industry, these defenseless animals were in constant danger of brutality and death. Enraged, and refusing to accept such cruelty, McGarva began protecting these helpless animals in any way he could, soon discovering that there were many people working to do the same—but just as many, if not more, determined to stop him. In the process, McGarva's friendships, marriage, personal safety, and even sanity were in jeopardy.

McGarva spent but two years on Dead Dog Beach, and in the process saved hundreds of dogs. A call to arms for animal lovers everywhere, and full of insights and practical information to help strays anywhere in the world, The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach is as powerful as it is heartbreaking.


http://bit.ly/1qEoCZl
Simple, family-friendly recipes and practical advice to help you ditch processed food and eat better every day

Thanks to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, Lisa Leake was given the wake-up call of her life when she realized that many of the foods she was feeding her family were actually "foodlike substances." So she, her husband, and their two young girls completely overhauled their diets by pledging to go 100 days without eating highly processed or refined foods--a challenge she opened to readers on her blog. What she thought would be a short-term experiment turned out to have a huge impact on her personally. After wading through their fair share of challenges, experiencing unexpected improvements in health, and gaining a preference for fresh, wholesome meals, the Leakes happily adopted their commitment to real food as their "new normal."

Now Lisa shares her family's story, offering insights and cost-conscious recipes everyone can use to enjoy wholesome natural food prepared with easily found ingredients such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, seafood, locally raised meats, whole-milk dairy products, nuts, natural sweeteners, and more.

Filled with step-by-step instructions, this hands-on cookbook and guide includes: Advice for navigating the grocery store and making smart real food purchases Tips for reading ingredient labels 100 quick-and-easy recipes for such favorites as Homemade Chicken Nuggets, Whole Wheat Pasta with Kale Pesto Cream Sauce, Cheesy Broccoli Casserole, The Best Pulled Pork in the Slow Cooker, and Cinnamon-Glazed Popcorn Meal plans and suggestions for kid-pleasing school lunches, parties, and snacks A 10-day mini-starter program, and much more.

100 Days of Real Food offers all the support, encouragement, and guidance you'll need to make these incredibly important and timely life changes.


http://bit.ly/1qdKD4A
A delightful and salacious novel about the frightful world of high school, SATs, the college essay, and the Common Application—and how getting in is getting in the way of growing up

Anne Arlington is twenty-seven, single, and in demand: she is the independent "college whisperer" whose name is passed from parent to parent like a winning lottery ticket, the only tutor who can make a difference with the Ivy League.

Early Decision follows one application season and the five students Anne guides to their fates: Hunter, the athletic boy who never quite hits his potential, a kind, heavily defended kid who drives his mother mad; Sadie, an heiress who is perfectly controlled but at the expense of her own heart; William, whose intelligence permits him to dodge his father's cruel conservatism but can't solve the problem of loneliness; Alexis, a blazing overachiever whose midwestern parents have never heard of a tiger mom; and Cristina, who could write her ticket out of her enormous, failing high school, if only she knew how.

Meanwhile, Anne needs a little coaching herself, having learned that even the best college does not teach a person how to make a life.

In this engrossing, intelligent novel, Lacy Crawford delivers an explosive insider's guide to the secrets of college admissions at the highest levels. It's also a deft commentary on modern parenting and how the scramble for Harvard is shaping a generation. Told in part through the students' essays, this unique and witty book is so closely observed that it has been mistaken for a memoir or a how-to guide. A wise and deeply felt story, Early Decision reveals how getting in is getting in the way of growing up. 

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds: In the UK, This One Is Outselling J.K Rowling and has Penned the Fastest Selling Debut Since "50 Shades of Grey"


http://bit.ly/1q7KMpw

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office-leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella's life changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist-an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways...

Johannes's gift helps Nella pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand-and fear-the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation...or the architect of their destruction?

Enchanting, beautifully written, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

Read an excerpt HERE.


Learn more about the author HERE.


The dollhouse that inspired the book



Praise for the book:

“This debut novel, set in 17th-century Amsterdam, hits all the marks of crossover success: taut suspense, a plucky heroine--and a possibly clairvoyant miniature-furniture designer.”~ New York Magazine

“It’s a pleasure to discover an author who wields language in striking ways, and Burton’s setting and story line are equally singular. In her enticing debut, set in 1680s Amsterdam, she counterbalances her mischievous premise with stark commentary on greed, hypocrisy, and prejudice. … The interactions between these strong characters and their spirited maid, Cornelia, make this refreshingly different historical novel a standout portrayal of the wide range of women’s ingenuity.”
~Booklist

"Nella arrives alone in Amsterdam, readying herself for her unknown husband’s demands. Instead, she finds herself sleeping by herself, ignored by Johannes and dismissed by his brusque sister, Marin, who rules the house and influences the business, too. Distracted by the wedding present, Nella commissions a miniaturist to supply tiny items of furniture; but these exquisite objects and their accompanying messages soon begin to bear a chilly, even prophetic relationship to people and things—suggesting their maker knows more about the family and its business than is possible or safe. In a debut that evokes Old Master interiors and landscapes, British actress Burton depicts a flourishing society built on water and trade, where women struggle to be part of the world. Her empathetic heroine, Nella, endures loneliness and confusion until a sequence of domestic shocks forces her to grow up very quickly….With its oblique storytelling, crescendo of female empowerment and wrenching ending, this novel establishes Burton as a fresh and impressive voice; book groups in particular will relish it.”
  ~Kirkus Reviews

“Late 17th-century Amsterdam is the sumptuous backdrop for this debut novel… [and as] in all good historical novels, the setting is a major character; in this case the city of Amsterdam, with its waterways and warehouses, confectioners’ shops, and kitchens, teems with period detail.”
~Publishers Weekly

Why We Need Independent Bookstores More Than Ever

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Michele Is Recommending:

http://bit.ly/VJTLSV
The #1 New York Times Bestseller

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?



http://bit.ly/1pWjaEZ
From Susan Vreeland, bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Luncheon of the Boating Party, and Clara and Mr. Tiffany, comes a richly imagined story of a woman’s awakening in the south of Vichy France—to the power of art, to the beauty of provincial life, and to love in the midst of war.

In 1937, young Lisette Roux and her husband, André, move from Paris to a village in Provence to care for André’s grandfather Pascal. Lisette regrets having to give up her dream of becoming a gallery apprentice and longs for the comforts and sophistication of Paris. But as she soon discovers, the hilltop town is rich with unexpected pleasures.

Pascal once worked in the nearby ochre mines and later became a pigment salesman and frame maker; while selling his pigments in Paris, he befriended Pissarro top picture) and Cézanne (bottom picture), some of whose paintings he received in trade for his frames. Pascal begins to tutor Lisette in both art and life, allowing her to see his small collection of paintings and the Provençal landscape itself in a new light. Inspired by Pascal’s advice to “Do the important things first,"
Lisette begins a list of vows to herself (#4. Learn what makes a painting great). When war breaks out, André goes off to the front, but not before hiding Pascal’s paintings to keep them from the Nazis’ reach.

With German forces spreading across Europe, the sudden fall of Paris, and the rise of Vichy France, Lisette sets out to locate the paintings (#11. Find the paintings in my lifetime). Her search takes her through the stunning French countryside, where she befriends Marc and Bella Chagall, who are in hiding before their flight to America, and acquaints her with the land, her neighbors, and even herself in ways she never dreamed possible. Through joy and tragedy, occupation and liberation, small acts of kindness and great acts of courage, Lisette learns to forgive the past, to live robustly, and to love again.

The Place


Ochre canyons of Sentier des Ocres, Roussillon, where ochre ore was once mined for artists' pigments. Lisette gets lost here. 
Street Beyond the Arch in Roussillon where Lisette walks to her house. 

Fresh Ink: Spotlight on Debut Books of All Kinds (And It's A Debut for the Crowd Sourcing New Imprint Swoon Reads)

http://bit.ly/1rscyAO


The distinctive new crowdsourced publishing imprint Swoon Reads proudly presents its first published novel—an irresistibly sweet romance between two college students told from 14 different viewpoints.
The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together.

Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.

But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. You'll be rooting for Gabe and Lea too, in Sandy Hall's quirky, completely original novel A Little Something Different, chosen by readers, writes, and publishers, to be the debut titles for the new Swoon Reads imprint!