Shem Creek — Dorothea Benton Frank
Linda, a divorced mom, moves her two daughters Lindsay and Gracie from Montclair, New Jersey back home to Shem Creek. She reconnects with her sister, Mimi, meets new friends and, of course, bumps into the man of her dreams. Scenes of Shem Creek are so beautiful and enjoyable, it made me want to move there immediately.
With chapters alternating between different characters, this book reads like a really great blog. It’s a great tale about the relationships between sisters. Frank describes the love, jealousy, compassion and annoyance of sisterhood perfectly. In fact, the relationships between mothers and daughters, sisters, and friends were so complex and interesting that I was disappointed that the romantic plotline was just fine. Of course, the final scenes had Fresca and me both giggling and sighing.
Meryl Streep The Narrator
Meryl Streep has agreed to narrate The Night Before Christmas and The Velveteen Rabbit for Starbucks coffeehouses. Starbucks says that they are simply continuing in their commitment to family entertainment.
The audiobooks will also feature soft musicals and the books will only be available at Starbucks for the first four months. After that I guess depending on how well they sell, they will be released generally.
Popularity of the Bee
Recently, spelling bees seem to be making a buzz all of their own. There is a play on broadway and even a spelling bee movie in theaters. Now comes a novel titled America Bee by James Maguire. The book tells readers all about the spelling bee competition way back to 1925 and gives you all the rules as well.
Laughing At Cancer
For years Miriam Engelberg was afraid to die and then she got cancer. To get over her fears Engelberg starting writing comic books and three are due to be released. All are cancer-themed comics. The first was released in May and is titled Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics.
Miriam Engelberg is not the first cancer patient to try to use humour to make her days lighter. In March, Brian Fie released Mom’s Cancer and Marisa Acocella Marchetto released Cancer Vixen.
The authors and their families hope that people can realize that they are not trying to make fun of cancer, but that using humour helps them get on with their lives and lose just a bit of their fear.
Two More Books
My school just acquired two more books for our English library. At first, I thought that was good news. One is a second copy of Harry Potter 6. Even assuming that whoever bought these books doesn’t read English and only picked the book based on color, what are the odds that he would pick one of the four books we already own?
The second is part four of seven in a certain pre-teen fantasy series. It picked up in media res, and ends on a cliffhanger.I’m not going to name the author, because Eric likes her writing, and I promised I’d stop bashing that series Dragonsocks or Dragonpiano or whatever it was called. (I didn’t know that Eric knew what “trite” and “derivative” meant! But he got annoyed and Eric never gets annoyed, so I shut up) Our new book isn’t about dragons, it’s actually about the intergalactic war between the psychic unicorn girl and the flesh-eating-bug aliens.
The unicorns win.
And, sadly enough, I’m looking for the rest of the series. The flesh-eating bugs have sworn revenge!
Oprah’s Big Book Deal
Oprah has signed a book deal with publisher Simon & Schuster and the amount she signed for is apparently more than Bill Clinton’s $12 million but no one is talking yet.
The book will be about healthy eating, weightloss and how to keep the weight off and under control. The book will be publisher next year and is being co-written with her trainer.
Anybody Out There? By Marian Keyes Book Review
Anna Walsh is one of Walsh sisters that author Marian Keyes has previously written about in novels like Angels. She is supposed to be in New York living up life as cosmetics company PR but she is in Dublin with her family healing from her fractures and bruises.
The main part of the story is her going back to New York to try and reclaim her life scarred face and all. However we are also trying to get the clues as to why she is injured.
The book is ok but the author is used to writing psychological drama and this book is more of a sad tear-jerker and might throw her fans for a loop. The book is enjoyable but if you grabbed it because you thought it was another one of her thriller’s you’ll be disappointed.
Bill Clinton’s Public Service
Former President Bill Clinton has previously written his autobiography and has now agreed to write another novel. This newest book will be about public service and activism and will focus on the experiences that he has has traveling around the world and some of the different people that he has met.
The book is yet untitled but is expected to be released in late 2008. The terms of the book deal signed is not yet public but for My Life he reportedly recieved between $10 million and $12 million. That true-life novel went on to sell millions of copies.
Slim Pickings For English Readers!
I teach at a school in China, and my school’s English library consists of Harry Potter 6, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities and, inexplicably, Chicken Soup for the Single’s Soul. Harry Potter is printed on what feels like fax paper and haphazardly bound, with weird gutters and strange formatting choices.
Pride and Prejudice and A Tale of Two Cities are part of the same incredibly low-budget English classics collection. Actually, the typos have increased my enjoyment. I quite liked Mr. Dancy’s proposal and the Bennets’ trips to Iambton (to compose sonnets, maybe?), but Sydney Carton’s final exhortation to “Cod above” is my favorite passage.
Chicken Soup is expertly bound and proof-read, but is ultimately a collection of short stories about dying alone.
It Never Lets You Go
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. 304 pages, $24.00 (hardcover) Knopf.
This is one of those books that a well-meaning book reviewer can completely ruin for a reader. Admittedly I wanted to read this book because I had read so many reviews praising it, but those same reviews taught me something important about spoilers.
If you thought spoilers were just for movies, let me tell you, knowing too much about what’s going to happen in a book can ruin it for you just as quickly as knowing the plot of a movie will make you not want to watch it. (For instance, don’t read the reviews on Amazon if you want to keep the suspense.)
Kazuo Ishiguro’s book Never Let Me Go should really be approached knowing as little about what’s going on as possible. Sure, you’ll be confused for a while, but when you find out what’s really happening in the story you will be rewarded for your patience.
What I can tell you is that the book revolves around three people, Kathy H., Ruth and Tommy, who lived together at Hailsham, a sort of boarding school where the chidren are taught by “guardians” to become “carers” and give their “donations.” It’s apparent pretty early on that these are not ordinary kids, but I’ll leave it to you reading the book to figure out what’s so special about them.
This is a really wonderful, sad book about the inevitability of our lives and the potential horrors of modern science. It’s a very subtle and beautiful book, with spare language that sends the reader rolling along the hillsides of England with Kathy H. as she remembers her childhood and the darkness that lay just below the surface of an otherwise idyllic seeming life.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone who has read Ishiguro’s other books, to lovers of literary fiction and even to those who normally like suspense books. Ishiguro is a master of the form, and you won’t be disappointed.