The Syringa Tree
Pamela Gien has had critical acclaim for her one-woman show on broadway called The Syringa Tree. The successful play has now been turned into a novel, a first for Gien. The story is about two families living in South Africa, one black, one white and both with a child born in the early 1960’s. The story spans 4 generations into the now free South Africa.
On stage Pamela Gien plays all 24 characters, pulling off stunning performances for each one. Her broadway show is going to be recorded for airtime on the Trio network. The novel comes out July 3, and Gien will be embarking on a long book tour.
Hard Cover Novels $9.95 at Zooba
Hard cover novels can cost $20 even $30 dollars a book but good news here’s a site called Zooba that allows you buy hardcovers for $9.95 plus free shipping. You can also create a personal reading list.
They have the latest in bestselling novels plus many fiction, non-fictions, cooking, and even books on current events. It works almost like an online dvd rental in the that you get your books.
You create that personal list I told you about and you put the books in the order that you want to recieve them. Then every month they send you out whichever book is in the number 1 slot for only $9.95. You can add more books or remove those you no longer want to recieve.
The Stolen Child
The Stolen Child By Keith Donohue is a story of a boy named Henry Day. He is seven years old and as he runs away one night he is kidnapped by changelings. Changelings are mythical creatures who never age and have a secret society unknown to humans.
While Henry is gone the changelings replace him with an identical looking changeling child. Each now has to blend into these different and new surroundings. However Henry’s father suspects that the child he is now raising is an imposter due to the symphony-worthy piano playing that his “son” is suddenly capable of.
The real Henry is now a changeling. Will each boy find his way in life?
What The Authors Are Reading
Authors don’t just write they love to read as well. Here is a list of what your favorite authors are reading this summer and why they love these novels.
Stephen King, author of Cell
The Ruins by Scott Smith
18 Seconds by George Shuman
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Gone by Jonathan Kellerman
Why these authors? “Because they’re good!”
Too find out what your other authors are reading go here:
What Your Favorite Authors Read
R.A.B.
Spoiler Alert — If you still haven’t read the sixth Harry Potter,that is.
R.A.B. is mentioned at the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince… oh yeah, spoiler alert. Anyway, it’s Regulus Black. He’s the younger brother of Sirius who joined the Death Eaters, left the Death Eaters and was offed in some as-yet-unmentioned manner by Voldermort or “on Voldemort’s orders, more likely” (pg 112 in OOTP).
1) The initials. We don’t know his middle name, yet, but two out of three is pretty good.
2) He was murdered by Voldemort just after trying to leave the Death eaters which implies he was high up in the evil-doers’ chain of command. If he was close to Voldemort, he could have known about the Horcruxes and that would have made it easier for him to find the locket.
3) Sirius, and all the rest of the Black family, actually, is dead so they can’t give any info on Regulus. Sidenote to JK Rowling, who I’m sure is an avid reader of my blog: No more Pensieve scenes unless they involve Harry’s parents meeting and falling in love, ok? They’re starting to feel like page-count increasers and plot cop-outs.
4) There is a “heavy locket that none of them could open” (pg 116 in OOTP and I promise I’ll stop footnoting now) in a dresser at 12 Grimmauld Place. Coincidence?
5) Unfortunately, Mundungus Fletcher swiped a bunch of the Black family silver and pawned it in THBP, so the locket could be anywhere. Hence, the seventh book.
6) Rowling is really into the classicist-friendly foreshadowing. Some of it’s a bit much, like Sirius becoming a dog and Remus Lupin becoming a wolf.
And Regulus is the name of a Roman general who was taken prisoner by the Carthaginians in the 2nd Punic War. He was given an opportunity to return to Rome to a peace treaty, which he did, then he told the Roman senate not to accept them (even though those terms made provision for his life + return to Rome) because the terms sucked for the OotP, I mean, for Rome as a whole. He went back to Carthage with the answer, instead of running away which he totally could have gotten away with,, and then Voldemort, I mean, the Carthaginians, killed him.
And THIS is what you do with a double major in English and Classics.
The Year Of Pleasure - Elizabeth Berg
Betta Nolan is newly widowed and totally at a loss for what to do without her husband John. A neighbor gives her John’s last gift, a box of seemingly random words. Betta first takes this as a sign that John really was losing it before his death, but then she realizes that each slip of paper is a key word for one of their happy memories.
Betta notices beauty in everything around her, from green bowls to laundry on a line to an unusual color palette. And because Berg sees this beauty, so do readers.
She reconnects with her college roommates, and meets Matthew, a young man who’s searching for love but failing disasterously, and Jovani, a frustrated artist. She starts to enlist the people she meets in her dream, a store with a random but beautiful collection. As the story unfolds, Betta remembers joyful moments with John and starts to make more memories of her own.
How Hurricane Katrina Rocked Our World
Hurricane Katrina was the fierce storm that hit the eastcoast in 2005 and almost a year later it has not been forgotten. Neither has the incredible stories of so many victims and survivors. A new book coming out soon titled How Hurricane Katrina Rocked Our World will have more than 30 stories from families and locals who survived this tragedy to tell us themselves what they went through.
The book will be available for $39.95 and the stories focus on those living in Alabama to Mississippi.
School Board Rejects Book Ban
Well, I have to say that I am surprised that the ban was rejected since officials usually start a bonfire whenever someone so much as points a bad finger at a book. Leslie Pinney was the only board member who wanted books replaced including Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.
She is adamant about it, because a few has a curse word or two and one talks about drugs. However Pinney then goes on to admit that she never even read the novels. She may have looked through them to specifically find things she wouldn’t like but she didn’t read them and instead picks out a few things and says that the entire book is unfit for schools and should be tossed.
Good work. I guess the students should flip through their workbooks to get a specific answer and not learn anything else?
Glamorous Disasters
Glamorous Disasters is a novel that debuted in April by author Eliot Schrefer.
The book is about Noah who after growing up poor, worked hard and put himself through Princeton. With a stack of bills and student loans hanging over his head, he decides to take on SAT tutoring and is in over his head with a mother making improper advances and super spoiled rich kids.
He is finally forced to make a moral decision which can change his life for years to come.
Books A Million Memorial Day Sale
Books-A-Million is having a clearance sale of up to 80% off on most books. It is a great deal especially for some of the hardcovers which can cost more than $20. Great sale which is only lasting a short time.