Showing posts with label tattered cover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tattered cover. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2013

Jackie's A Bit Misty-eyed About This Book


Maeve Binchy returns with a cast of characters you will never forget when they all spend a winter week together on holiday at Stone House, a restful inn by the sea...

Stoneyville is a small town on the coast of Ireland where all the families know each other. When Chicky decides to take an old decaying mansion, Stone House, and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, the town thinks she is crazy. She is helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the place) and her niece Orla (a whiz at business). Finally the first week of paying guests arrive: John, the American movie star thinks he has arrived incognito; Winnie and Lillian, forced into taking a holiday together; Nuala and Henry, husband and wife , both doctors who have been shaken by seeing too much death; Anders, the Swedish boy, hates his father's business, but has a real talent for music; Miss Nell Howe, a retired school teacher, who  criticizes everything and leaves a day early, much to everyone's relief; the Walls who have entered in 200 contests (and won everything from a microwave oven to velvet curtains, including the week at Stone House); and  Freda , the psychic who is afraid of her own visions.

You will laugh and cry as you spend the week with this odd group who share their secrets and might even have some of their dreams come true.


Jackie says:
"I read a LOT of Binchy's books in my late teens and twenties, and felt profoundly sad when I heard of her death last year.  She brought me many, many hours of delight and escape, and I will be forever grateful for that. I pretty much did a happy dance when I saw that there was one more coming. A Week in Winter is a lovely way to say goodbye to Maeve. These characters are vivid and endearing (even the grumpy ones), and this story of the making of a hotel, and the saving of many people in the process, is a glowingly warm story with touches of tremendous magic all around. It is a feel-good retreat from your life and into a delightful island off Ireland.  It's one last hug from Maeve—don't miss it."

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Many Talents of Nick Arvin

"Ellis's life is all about accidents.  He works as a forensic reconstructionist, examining the engineering of auto accidents.  It's analytical and straight forward, the numbers tell the tale.  But there are other accidents in his life that he just doesn't have the
equations for, and they haunt him.  It began with his half-brother's death in a fiery crash that he witnessed, and then an accident of his own, and the "accident" of falling into an affair with his bosses wife.  After his boss finds out about his affair, the man disappears and Ellis goes on a very strange quest, accident site after accident site, looking for him, leading himself into grief and guilt fueled madness that sends him, and the readers, down a twisted path to a very unclear enlightenment. The writing is brilliant, with more twists and hairpin turns than any mountain pass might have.  This book is well worth the literary ride."


--Jackie









Want to learn more about auto accident reconstructions? Click HERE.

Read Arvin's recent Wall Street Journal article, "An Engineer's Blueprints for Writing" HERE. 


Watch the movie on one of Arvin's 25 word stories HERE.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Bookart of Matej Kren

The Prague-based artist Matej Kren has created a number of gigantic book sculptures, fascinating pieces for all literary folk to check out. Above is a photo of his "Passage" installation, below is from "Book Cell".
Visit his website to see more.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

TC Tidbits: Better Late Than Never!

Book that George Washington borrowed from New York library is returned - 221 years later

Read more: http://bit.ly/alGSkf

Friday, May 21, 2010

What's Neil Gaiman doing???

"Bestselling novelist and award winning comics writer Neil Gaiman is the latest author to submit a conceptual book idea to the Hypothetical Library, a fanciful blogsite launched by book designer Charles Orr that creates jacket designs for imaginary books—books that don't really exist—from very real authors."
read the rest of this Publisher's Weekly article here

Yes, that's really a picture of a very young Neil. Check out the photo gallery on his website.

Visit the Hypothetical Library's blog.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Check out our Word Cloud on Wordle

I've been dying to play with Wordle since I learned about it a month or so ago. Way too much fun! This is the word cloud it made of the last few blog entries we've posted here.


--Jackie

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Penguin Publishing's "We Give Books" Program


We Give Books is a free website that enables anyone with internet access to put books in the hands of children who don't have them, simply by reading online. Share the power and pleasure of reading, and teach a child in your life about the importance of helping others at the same time. For every children's book read, a brand new book will be donated to the nonprofit you select.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Tennessee Writers Share Essays About The Flood


Margaret Renkl at the website www.chaper16.org, "a community of Tennessee writers, readers and passersby", explains the motivation and inspiration behind this collection:

"Everyone in town has a camera in his pocket, so this flood has already been documented beyond any inevitably iconic moment in Tennessee history. But at Chapter 16 we wanted to try to give words to the experience, too.

We aren't trying to blunt the full impact of the disaster, to render it less overwhelming by boxing it into the artful shape of an essay. There will be time for someone in love with language to capture the sweep and majesty of this breathtaking natural event, and the sweep and majesty, too, of the way Tennesseans have responded to it. But with water still standing in people's kitchens and mud still caked in their hair, this is not that time.

Instead, we're offering a series of tiny vignettes, each telling one small part of the story of Tennessee's flood. In many ways, these are only the barest edges of the tapestry, for no one truly devastated this week had the time, or the heart, to write an essay. You won't read here—at least not yet—about what it feels like to lose every piece of furniture in your house, or to learn that someone you love didn't make it out in time. The real heart of the story of this flood is still to come."

Read The Essays

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Some 4/20 reading on our shelves right now


Featuring information by more than 300 contributors--a veritable "who's who" of cannabis cultivation--this is the most complete book on the subject available. New greenhouse and outdoor growing chapters have been added to this edition.



This practical, informative guide is packed with more than 700 full-color illustrations, photographs, and descriptive text that deal with more than 150 affordable marijuana growing setups.


Tvert and Armentano compare and contrast the relative harms and legal status of the two most popular recreational substances in the world--marijuana and alcohol. The authors explain why the message that marijuana is safer than alcohol must be a prominent part of the public debate over legalization.



High rollers looking for something more adventurous than The Joy of Cooking will find it in The Marijuana Chef Cookbook. This guide to cannabis cuisine takes satisfying the munchies to a new level. In addition to such scrumptious and imaginative recipes as Primo Poultry, Nutter Butter, Midnight Pizza, Primeval Pasta, and Chocca Mocha, the book covers potency issues, health information, legal tips, and a culinary history of the weed.

An estimated 40 million Americans have medical symptoms that marijuana can relieve. "Marijuana Medical Handbook" is a one-stop resource that gives candid, objective advice on using marijuana for healing, understanding its effects on the body, safe administration, targeting illnesses, side effects, and the various delivery methods from edibles and tinctures to smokeless vaporizer pipes. The book also details supply issues, cultivation solutions (in a chapter by renowned expert Ed Rosenthal), and legal consequences. This thoroughly revised edition incorporates the most up-to-date information on the ever-changing politics of marijuana, the plant's usage, and medical research on it.