Showing posts with label tattered cover recommendations national reading group month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tattered cover recommendations national reading group month. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2010

The Official 2010 Recommendation List from NRGM (Part Two)

Molly Fox's Birthday

A successful playwright borrows the Dublin flat of her close friend, the well-known actress Molly Fox. In the course of one day, as she thinks about their friendship, explores Molly's possessions, and speaks to other friends and family, her life is changed by what is revealed.


The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

On her ninth birthday, Rose Edelstein discovers that she can feel the emotions of others by eating the food they prepare. Far from fantasy, this story about fraught family relationships is filled with insight and tenderness.



The Queen of Palmyra

Thick with the atmosphere of early 1960s racial tension, Florence, an 11-year old white girl in a southern town in the early 1960s tries to understand the emotions and motivations of the people around her, both black and white, from her abusive Klan-loving father to the family of Zenie, her grandparents' longtime black maid.


Room
For five-year old Jack, the only world he knows is Room, where he lives with Ma and endures nighttime visits from Old Nick, their keeper. Ma has made desperate plans to escape from this place where she's been held prisoner, but it's not clear how the bond between mother and child will survive the enormous change.


Safe from the Sea

After years of estrangement, Noah Torr returns to the cabin north of Duluth, MN where his father, now near death, is living in solitude. As father and son move toward a tentative reconciliation, Olaf tells the pivotal story of how he survived the tragic sinking of his Great Lakes ore boat thirty-five years ago.


Up From the Blue

Eight-year old Tillie Harris loves her beautiful, unstable mother, a free-spirited contrast to her distant, harsh father. When the family moves from New Mexico to Washington, DC her mother vanishes, and Tillie turns to outsiders for support and encouragement until she uncovers her father's treachery.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Official 2010 Recommendation List from NRGM (Part One)

Blame
History professor Patsy McLemoore thought she could manage her drinking problem until she was arrested and jailed for running down a mother and daughter. No longer a free spirit, Patsy's life takes a sharp turn into sobriety and remorse in this gripping story of life changes.




The Blessings of the Animals
When her husband unexpectedly leaves her, veterinarian Cami Anderson turns to friends and family for support, but it is the animals she cares for who teach her the most enduring lessons about love.


Cheap Cabernet
A memoir of how Beck, divorced, frustrated, and bored with her life in her late thirties, started a women's group and met the remarkable free-spirited Denise. Their intense friendship, until Denise's illness, provided a springboard for Beck to change her life.







The Girl Who Fell From The Sky
Rachel Morse, daughter of a Danish mother and black American father, sole survivor of a family tragedy, is sent to live with her African American grandmother, where her biracial heritage causes confusion and brings unwanted attention. Social commentary and family tragedy mix in this unusual coming of age story.


Little Bee
A horrific encounter on the beach in Nigeria has repercussions in the lives of a London couple and the young Nigerian immigrant girl, Little Bee, who escapes to England and finds them.




The Lotus Eaters
This sweeping, suspenseful novel follows photojournalist Helen Adams in Vietnam from 1965-1975, as she learns the hard way about objectivity, guilt, and love in the maelstrom of war. Particularly relevant in the light of current conflicts, Soli also examines the role that photographers and journalists play in wartime.

Friday, October 1, 2010

National Reading Group Month Announces the 2010 Great Group Reads List

These titles were selected on the basis of their appeal to reading groups for whom they are bound to open up lively conversations about a host of timely and provocative topics, from the intimate dynamics of family and personal relationships to major cultural and world issues. The Committee also made a conscious decision to focus its attention on under-represented gems from small presses and lesser-known mid-list releases from larger houses. All are books with strong narratives peopled by fully realized characters; books which perhaps have flown under the radar of reviewers and reading groups overwhelmed by the sheer number of new releases each year.

The books are:

Blame by Michelle Huneven (Picador)

The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle (Harper Perennial)

Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship by Cathie Beck (Voice)

Eternal on the Water by Joseph Monninger (Gallery Books)

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow (Algonquin Books)

Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks)

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli (St. Martin’s Press)

Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden (Picador)

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (Doubleday)

The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin (Harper Perennial)

Room by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)

Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye (Unbridled Books)

Up from the Blue by Susan Henderson (Harper Paperbacks)


Further information is available at: www.NationalReadingGroupMonth.org