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This Week's Top 10
| June 27, 2014
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Hello
In response to a number of requests, we're considering changing our publishing format from every two weeks to weekly, and in the process will streamline the content so as to send you information on only 10 features each week.
BookBrowse is always a work in progress with you as our guides and critics - so please let us know what you think by completing this brief survey.
Thanks for reading!
Davina Morgan-Witts, Editor
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 1. Editor's Choice
Hardcover June 2014, 432 pages.BookBrowse Rating: 5/5 Always one to emphasize plot and pace, Winton excels at crackling cinematic dialog, the best I have read in a long time. It serves to keep the tension high as the stakes grow increasingly desperate. Winton's signature characters - strong women and troubled men - are also a strong component of Eyrie. Tom Keely might not be a very likable character, but most readers can find something to relate to in his desperate struggle to hang on to some ballast in his life.... continued
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2. Editor's Choice for Young Adults
Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly
by Conrad Wesselhoeft
Hardcover April 2014, 352 pages.
BookBrowse Rating: 5/5
Wesselhoeft understands the power of stories. He believes we need them "to learn how to live and to understand who we are." And he knows how to write to achieve this power. Through Arlo, I felt that place of recent grief; a swirling of emotion, like standing on the edge of that New Mexico mesa and feeling the wind blow tough and hard in every direction. Wesselhoeft quotes Walt Whitman when he talks about grief: "Every moment of light and dark is a miracle." This is how Dirt Bikes, Drones and Other Ways to Fly reads. Like a series of small miracles. ... continued
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3. Publishing Soon
How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky
by Lydia Netzer
Hardcover July 1 2014, 352 pages
Publication Date: Jul 2014
Critic's Opinion: 4/5
George and Irene were born to be together. Literally. Their mothers, friends since childhood, hatched a plan to get pregnant together, raise the children together and then separate them so as to become each other's soulmates as adults. Can true love exist if engineered from birth?
Lydia Netzer's How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky is a mind-bending, heart-shattering love story for dreamers and pragmatists alike, exploring the conflicts of fate and determinism, and asking how much of life is under our control and what is pre-ordained in the stars.
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 4. Ice Cream Fun Facts 
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
by Susan J Gilman
Hardcover June 2014, 512 pages
Every time we review a book we also go beyond the book to explore a topic related to the book. For The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street we went beyond the book to explore the history of ice cream and fun ice cream related facts, such as... - In World War Two, the United States government became the largest ice cream maker in history, producing 800 million gallons a year. Most other countries could no longer produce ice cream, due to shortages of milk, sugar, and infrastructure. (Mussolini, meanwhile, banned ice cream in Italy outright; see below). But the U.S. military deemed ice cream "an essential item for troop morale" - and so it dedicated all available resources to manufacturing ice cream on a grand scale for the military.
- In 1945 the U.S. Navy commissioned two "Ice Cream Barges" - dubbed "the world's first floating ice cream parlors." The ships' sole responsibility was to produce ice cream for the U.S. military. Their machines and crews pumped out almost 1,500 gallons every hour. The concrete hulled vessels (which cost over $1.1 million apiece) had no engine; they had to be towed across the Pacific by tugs and other ships. One was stationed at a secret naval base called Ulithi, approximately 1,300 miles south of Tokyo, a tiny atoll in the southern Pacific. For the duration of the war, this barge churned out up to 15,000 gallons of ice cream a day for distribution to troops across the Pacific theatre.
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 5. Author Interview
Katherine Boo about Behind The Beautiful Forevers
Paperback April 2014, 288 pages
In an engrossing and thoughtful interview, Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo discusses her experiences researching the people of Annawadi, India for her book,
Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
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 6. News
Jun 25 2014 The Barnes & Noble board of directors has given its approval to separate B&N into two public companies with one holding the retail trade stores and the other holding its Nook operations plus the college bookstores. The hope is to complete the transactions by the first quarter of 2015. Jun 24 2014 The owners of the Perseus Books Group have agreed to a sale of the company, in an unusual three-way transaction. All things being equal, Hachette Book Group is purchasing PBG, and then in turn will sell to Ingram Content Group Perseus's extensive distribution companies. What HBG retains is Perseus's... (more)Jun 23 2014 The New York Times spoke with an unnamed employee at Hachette who speaking off the record about Amazon's dispute with Hachette says that Amazon has been demanding payments for a range of services, including the pre-order button, personalized recommendations and a dedicated employee at Amazon for ... (more) |
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 8. Readalikes: for Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland  Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are.
If you liked The Lowland, try these:
Set against the backdrop of the Bangladesh War of Independence, A Golden Age is a story of passion and revolution, of hope, faith and unexpected heroism. The first volume in a planned trilogy.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
This gorgeous first novel is the deeply moving story of one woman, Nazneen, born in a Bangladeshi village and transported to London at age eighteen to enter into an arranged marriage.
Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem
A dazzling novel from one of our finest writers - an epic yet intimate family saga about three generations of all-American radicals.
Orfeo by Richard Powers
The National Book Award winning author of The Echo Maker
delivers his most emotionally charged novel to date, inspired by the myth of Orpheus.
The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
With a rare combination of brilliant storytelling, exquisite prose, and remarkable insight into character, Elizabeth Strout has brought to life two deeply human protagonists whose struggles and triumphs will resonate with readers long after they turn the final page.
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9.  Blog: Movies Based on Books If you enjoy seeing your favorite books interpreted in film, or just enjoy a good movie, there are a number to look forward to between July and September 2014 including films based on Jane Mendelsohn's Innocence, Lois Lowry's The Giver, Gayle Forman's If I Stay and Alan Snow's Ratbridge Chronicles series. Read on for brief descriptions and trailers (and please be patient as the page will likely take a few seconds to load due to the multiple videos).
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 10. Win This Book  Dark Aemilia by Sally O'Reilly
The daughter of a Venetian musician, Aemilia Bassano came of age in Queen Elizabeth's royal court. The Queen's favorite, she develops a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a young woman known not only for her beauty but also her sharp mind and quick tongue. Aemilia becomes the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, but her position is precarious. Then she crosses paths with an impetuous playwright named William Shakespeare and begins an impassioned but ill-fated affair.
5 people will each win a hardcover copy of Dark Aemilia. This giveaway is open to residents of the USA only, unless you are a BookBrowse member, in which case you are eligible to win wherever you might live. |
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7. Themed Reads: Heroes
