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BookBrowse Highlights
| February 20, 2014
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Hello,
In this issue of BookBrowse Highlights discover a haunting tale of love in The Ghost of the Mary Celeste; and Glitter & Glue, a memoir which examines the mother-daughter bond. You can also explore books publishing soon including the latest from Dinau Mengestu and Anne Fortier; and find out about the only World War II battle fought on American soil - our "beyond the book" article for The Wind is Not a River.
If you're in a book club the chances are you've experienced the quandary discussed in our latest blog post - what is the right size for a club and how do you turn away new members if your club is full? You can also try your hand at our various quizzes and games - including the latest Wordplay. All this and much more to explore below.
Thanks for reading!
Best regards
Davina Morgan-Witts, Editor
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| Free Trial |
Are you passionate about books? Do you like to spend your reading hours curled up with captivating storytelling and provocative ideas?
If that's you, you'll love being a BookBrowse member. Although you can view a lot of BookBrowse for free, full access to our reviews, previews, backstories and more is for members only. Membership is just $29.95 for a year or $9.95 for 3 months. Start your one-month free trial today!
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 Editor's Choice
The Ghost of the Mary Celeste
by Valerie Martin
Hardcover (Jan 28, 2014), 320 pages.
Publisher: Nan A Talese.
ISBN 9780385533508
Critics' Consensus: 4.5/5
Orange Prize-winning Valerie Martin creates a haunting tale of love in The Ghost of the Mary Celeste. Working with historical accounts of the accident, which occurred in 1872, Martin inhabits the world of spirits, sea voyages, and familial separations to discover how we process the pain of death. Though not a ghost story per se, the narrative is full of haunting elements, such as seances, that help create a chilling atmosphere ... continued
Read the full review, backstory and an excerpt
Reviewed by Sarah Sacha DollackerMore Editor's Choice featuresAlthough visitors can view a lot of BookBrowse for free, full access to our reviews, previews, backstories and more is for members only. But you will always find four free Editor's Choice reviews and backstories on our homepage.
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 First Impressions: Members Recommend
Each month we give away books to US resident members to read and review (or discuss). Members who choose to take part receive a free book (including free shipping) about every three months. Here are their opinions on one recently published book:
 Glitter & Glue by Kelly Corrigan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: Feb 2014
Memoir, 240 pages
Number of reader reviews: 27
Readers' consensus: 4.3/5.0
"I loved Glitter and Glue. Reading it made me feel as if I were talking to my best friend who was telling me her story about the five months when she launched herself far from home into a country - and family -- she didn't know. It is an honest and heartfelt memoir about her experience caring for children who had lost their mother, children who pretended not to need her, but did ultimately need her. It is funny, endearing and loving." - Ann O. (Kansas City, MO)
"I really enjoyed Glitter and Glue - the first person I texted after reading it was my own mother - with the words, "I have a book for you!" - Amber B. (East Sparta, OH)
More about this book | Read all the reviews | Buy at Amazon
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Book Clubs & Discussions |
 The BookBrowse Book Club
Discussions Opening Soon
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Discussion opens Feb 25
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Discussion opens Mar 11
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 Also Recommended for Book Clubs
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Beyond The Book
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 The Battle of the Aleutian Islands
 Every time we review a book we also go beyond the book to explore a topic related to the book. Here is a recent "beyond the book" backstory for The Wind is Not a River by Brian Payton. In The Wind Is Not A River, the protagonist, journalist John Easley, finds himself on the Aleutian island of Attu in April 1943, when the Battle of the Aleutian Islands is taking place. We've all heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the precipitating event that led the United States to fight in World War II. But perhaps we might not be as familiar with the Battle of the Aleutian Islands that took place from June 1942 to August 1943 - the only WWII campaign to be fought on U.S. soil. Possibly due to an embargo on information from the Alaskan front, it was overshadowed by the more dramatic war stories from Europe and the South Pacific. This might explain why the long struggle to reclaim two American islands from the Japanese occupiers has sometimes been called "The Forgotten Battle."
Read this backstory in full, plus an excerpt & BookBrowse's review More backstories linked from "Editor's Choice" Only paying members have access to all our reviews and backstories but you will always find 4 free on our homepage. |
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 Author Interview
 Tamara Smith interviews Amy McNamara about her debut novel, Lovely Dark and Deep - a gorgeous book set in coastal Maine, full of unspeakable pain but also buzzing with truth, hope and love. Read the Interview | Lovely Dark & Deep
More in our author section including:
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Blog: What is the right size for a book club?
How do we turn people away?
At BookBrowse we get asked a lot of book-related questions. While we can provide our own answers we've found it's often much more useful to turn the question over to our Facebook followers to get a broad range of opinions. Here is their advice for addressing a common but knotty book club problem: Q. Our Book Club started about 4 years ago. We have 15 members of whom 12 attend regularly. New people have shown an interest in joining and there have been discussions about closing our membership but not all agree. How do we politely turn new members away and is it necessary? continued...
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 News According to the Center for Public Policy & Social Research at Central Connecticut State University, once again Washington, D.C. tops the list of most literate USA cities. The survey has been run annually since at least 2005 and has placed Washington, D.C. top for the past four... (more) Feb 11 2014: The New Yorker has an interesting article on the evolution of Amazon, including that before settling on the name of the world's largest river by volume, founder Jeff Bezos considered calling his fledgling website Relentless.com - which, if you enter the URL, will take you to Amazon's... (more) Feb 10 2014: Maxine Kumin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose spare, deceptively simple lines explored some of the most complex aspects of human existence - birth and death, evanescence and renewal, and the events large and small conjoining them all - died on Thursday at her home in Warner, N.H. She was... (more) Feb 10 2014: In a deal that brings together one of the oldest independent e-book publishers with one of the largest, Open Road Integrated Media has signed an agreement to acquire E-Reads, the digital publisher founded by Richard Curtis in 1999. The purchase will add more than 1,200 e-books to Open Road's list... (more) Feb 07 2014: Sony, one of the early players in the ebook business, has closed its ebook store. The company did not explain why it shut down, but despite being early to the scene, Sony has lagged behind Amazon and others in device innovations and ebook sales penetration. All Sony client accounts will... (more)
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Themed Reading
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 California
Whatever your interests you can find the books that are just right for you by browsing and cross-referencing our recommended reading lists by genre, time period, setting and wide variety of themes - including books set in California:
 The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Written in flowing prose that sweeps the reader down an adventurous path from late nineteenth century America to the cusp of World War II in China, this is a portrayal of strong women you will not soon forget. The Valley of Amazement is well worth the long wait.
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 Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon knows how to do narrative sweep; he knows how to write an epic. The author is skilled at knitting the various elements of a story together with material borrowed from a larger setting or theme.
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Goat Mountain by David Vann
If David Vann's parable is too overt and repetitive (even at novella length it can feel too long), its subversion of religious imagery is still unforgettable. Could it be that violence is a language of its own? Might the seemingly inescapable cycle of taboo and transgression simply be a random product of human evolution? These are some of the questions Vann raises in this disturbing, audacious, and deeply impressive allegory.
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 Readalikes
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Free & Fun
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 Wordplay
Solve this clue "L O Milk A H" and be entered to win the book of your choice: Enter
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 Why Do We Say?
"To Bite the Bullet"
Find out the origins of this well-known expression, and many others! |
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 Win This Book
The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger
Publication Date: March 14
Enter the Giveaway
From the Jacket Witty and wonderful, sparkling and sophisticated, this debut romantic comedy brilliantly tells the story of one very messy, very high-profile divorce, and the endearingly cynical young lawyer dragooned into handling it.
Twenty-nine-year-old Sophie Diehl is happy toiling away as a criminal law associate at an old line New England firm where she very much appreciates that most of her clients are behind bars. Everyone at Traynor, Hand knows she abhors face-to-face contact, but one weekend, with all the big partners away, Sophie must handle the intake interview for the daughter of the firm's most important client. After eighteen years of marriage, Mayflower descendant Mia Meiklejohn Durkheim has just been served divorce papers in a humiliating scene at the popular local restaurant, Golightly's. She is locked and loaded to fight her eminent and ambitious husband, Dr. Daniel Durkheim, Chief of the Department of Pediatric Oncology, for custody of their ten-year-old daughter Jane-and she also burns to take him down a peg. Sophie warns Mia that she's never handled a divorce case before, but Mia can't be put off. As she so disarmingly puts it: It's her first divorce, too.
Debut novelist Susan Rieger doesn't leave a word out of place in this hilarious and expertly crafted debut that shines with the power and pleasure of storytelling. Told through personal correspondence, office memos, emails, articles, and legal papers, this playful reinvention of the epistolary form races along with humor and heartache, exploring the complicated family dynamic that results when marriage fails. For Sophie, the whole affair sparks a hard look at her own relationships-not only with her parents, but with colleagues, friends, lovers, and most importantly, herself. Much like Where'd You Go, Bernadette, The Divorce Papers will have you laughing aloud and thanking the literature gods for this incredible, fresh new voice in fiction Reviews
"Rieger's hilarious debut is sure to be a must-read for the summer." - EW.com
"Starred Review. Clever and funny....Lovers of the epistolary style will find much to appreciate. Rieger's tone, textured structure, and lively voice make this debut a winner." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Extremely clever, especially the legal infighting; this book should prove hugely popular with the legal set as well as anyone who has ever witnessed a divorce in process." - Kirkus Reviews 5 people will each win a hardcover copy of The Divorce Papers.
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.
Enter the giveaway Past Winners |
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