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This Week's Top 10
| July 24, 2014
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Hello,
In this issue we invite you to meet the cumugeonly but ultimately loveable Ove who has already won the hearts of readers in the author's home country of Sweden, go beyond the book to discover Eastern European and Russian authors, find out the source of the expression "out of the frying pan, into the fire", and much more!
Thanks for reading!
Davina
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1. Editor's Choice
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Hardcover (July 15, 2014), 352 pages. Publisher: Atria Books. BookBrowse Rating: 5/5 Critics' Consensus: 5.0/5
A Man Called Ove is a perfect selection for book clubs. It's well written and replete with universal concerns. It lacks violence and profanity, is life-affirming and relationship-driven. The book is bittersweet, tender, often wickedly humorous and almost certain to elicit tears. (Reviewed by Linda Hitchcock)Read the review | More Editor's Choices | More reviews by Linda Full access to our reviews & beyond the book articles are for members only. But there are always four free Editor's Choice reviews and beyond the book articles on our homepage.
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2. The BookBrowse Book Club
Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families who Share the Tomlinson Name - One White, One Black
by Chris Tomlinson
Published Jul 2014, 448 pages
Foreign correspondent Chris Tomlinson returns to Texas to discover the truth about his family's slave owning history.
Tomlinson Hill tells the story of two families, one black and one white, who trace...
More Discussions
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3. Beyond the Book: Yaddo Artists' Retreat
E very time we review a book we also go beyond the book to explore a related topic. Here is a recent "beyond the book" article for The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
Hardcover (July 10, 2014), 352 pages.
Rebecca Makkai makes clear in her dedication that although nothing in The Hundred-Year House is based on her stay at Yaddo, a creative artists' retreat in Saratoga, New York, the book is indebted to the time and space they gave her to write it. Like Laurelfield, it was once a privately held estate. Yaddo was founded in 1900 by Spencer Trask and his wife, Katrina, a poet. Their four ...continued
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4. Author Interview
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5. Publishing Soon Each month BookBrowse previews 80-100 notable books. Here is a particularly interesting title from these upcoming books.
A Spy Among Friends by Ben MacIntyre
Hardcover (July 29, 2014), 384 pages. Publisher: Crown. Critics' Consensus: 5.0/5.0
Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain's counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War - while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby's best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world.... continued Read full synopsis & reviews
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6. Editor's Choice
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Hardcover (July 15, 2014), 448 pages.
Publisher: Ecco.
BookBrowse Rating: 5/5
Critics' Consensus: 4.6/5
"Mirror, Mirror on the wall I am my mother after all!"In my pre-retirement days as a professor of women's studies, I made this the official mantra of a class I periodically taught called "Mothers and Daughters." Honesty compels me to admit that I did not think this up myself. I borrowed it from a poster or a T-shirt I came across in a catalog somewhere. And how true this saying is! For better or worse, the mother-daughter relationship is pivotal in a woman's life, and often when we least expect it, we find ourselves saying or doing something learned from our mothers that we swore we never... continued(Review by Judi Sauerbrey) Read the review | More Editor's Choices | More reviews by JudiFull access to our reviews & beyond the book articles are for members only. But there are always four free Editor's Choice reviews and beyond the book articles on our homepage.
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7. Beyond the Book
Here Come the Russians and East Europeans!
Every time we review a book we also go beyond the book to explore a related topic. Here is a recent "beyond the book" article for A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
Hardcover (June 03, 2014), 336 pages.
Belarusian-born Boris Fishman is part of a group of outstanding American writers of Russian or East-European origin which includes Josip Novakovich, from Croatia; Aleksandar Hemon, from Bosnia; Olga Grushin, from Russia; and Gary Shteyngart, of Russian-Jewish origin (who is explored thoroughly in this review of Little Failure). With the exception of Olga Grushin, whose novels take place entirely ... continued Read "beyond the book" in full | More about this book
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8. Themed Reading: Russia
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 Russia: |
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9. Wordplay
Solve one of our fiendish wordplay puzzles, and be entered to win the book of your choice! This week Solve this clue: "E C H A Silver L" Enter now_____________
The answer to last Week's Wordplay: O O T F P, Into T F " Out of the frying pan, into the fire" This expression appears to have its roots in the fables of 15th century Italian scholar Abstemium, who wrote 200 fables based on the themes of the classic Aesop's fables. The Fish and the Frying Pan. Some fish, still alive, were being cooked in hot oil in a frying pan. One of the fish said, "Let's get out of here, my brothers, in order to save our lives." Then the fish all leaped out of the frying pan together, and fell into the burning coals. Stricken by even greater pain as a result, they cursed the plan which they had followed, saying, "What a far more horrible death we are facing now!" Many of the fables traditionally attributed to the slave known as Aesop who lived in Greece in the 5th century cannot be traced any earlier than a few centuries after Aesop's death and a great many others have their roots in more modern times. Indeed it is far from clear whether even the early fables are correctly attributed to Aesop or whether such a person even existed. Both Herodotus and Aristophanes make passing mention to Aesop in their writings later in the 5th century BC but even at that time it seems that Aesop's fables had come to encompass certain types of fables in the oral tradition that did not have a known origin. ... continued
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10. Win This Book
The Angel of Losses by Stephanie Feldman Publication Date: Jul 2014 Enter the Giveaway From the Jacket The Tiger's Wife meets A History of Love in this inventive, lushly imagined debut novel that explores the intersections of family secrets, Jewish myths, the legacy of war and history, and the bonds between sisters. Reviews "Feldman's debut novel is an unusual combination of literary thriller, family drama, and Jewish mysticism... Fans of Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian or the works of Lev Grossman will find something here in a similar vein, but with a little quieter pacing and a little more spirituality." - Library Journal "This impressive debut from Feldman is a page-turner that celebrates sisterly love." - Publishers Weekly "Family saga, mystery, and myth intersect in Feldman's debut novel...the vivid, imaginative unraveling makes the investigative approach to reading this tale worthwhile." - Booklist 5 people will each win a hardcover copy of The Angel of Losses. 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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