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This Week's Top 10
| September 18, 2014
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Hello,
In this week's issue we round up a veritable wealth of books, including the National Book Award longlists (see news stories) and recommendations from one of our many themed categories: adult books from a child's perspective. Along the way we take a foray into YA literature - reviewing Jandy Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun and going "beyond the book" to recommend other beautifully written, hard hitting YA novels with a similar theme.
Don't miss our editor Poornima Apte writing about her childhood in India in "Reading Wodehouse in Mumbai". In addition, we've just opened a book club discussion of Island of a Thousand Mirrors and a new giveaway to win copies of Station Eleven (which has just been longlisted for the National Book Awards).
All this and more awaits you!
Davina, BookBrowse Executive Editor
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A lot of BookBrowse's content is available for free but full access is for members. Most readers of this newsletter are not members. Membership is $10 for 3 months or $35 for a year. Find out more!
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 1. The BookBrowse Book Club
Please Join Us to Discuss:
 Island of a Thousand Mirrors
by Nayomi Munaweera
Published Sep 2014, 224 pages
A stunning literary debut of two young women on opposing sides of the devastating Sri Lankan Civil War-winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize for Asia, longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize  More Discussions
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 2. Editor's Choice: Young Adult Book 
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Hardcover (September 16, 2014), 384 pages. Publisher: Dial Books. BookBrowse Rating: 5/5, Critics' Consensus: 4.6/5 Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie
Through gorgeous poetic language, and no-holds-barred examination of both emotion and its consequences, Nelson reminds us that we can only ever know our own perspective, and that seeking out other people's is the key to seeing the whole picture, and to survival. But in the end, this novel is a plea for deep love, and a testament to its power to heal. You don't read it as much as ingest it, gulp by gulp. It is that rich. It is that big and that alive. In I'll Give You The Sun, Jandy Nelson gives her readers the trees, the stars, the oceans and, yes, the sun ... continued
Read the review | More Editor's Choices | More reviews by Tamara Smith 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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3. Beyond the Book: Car Crashes in YA Lit
Every time we review a book we also explore a related topic. Here is a recent "beyond the book" article for
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Showcasing books that embrace teens where they are at - and in the spirit of I'll Give You the Sun, here are my top five picks for beautifully written, hard-hitting middle grade and YA novels that deal, in one way or another, with car crashes...
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
 Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents. Suddenly Willow's world is tragically changed when her parents die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. This extraordinarily odd but endearing girl manages to push through her grief.
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
 In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck. A sophisticated, layered, and heartachingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make and the ultimate choice Mia commands.
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 4. Adult Books From A Child's Perspective 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 adult books from a child's point of view...
 Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III
Hardcover: Oct 2013, Paperback Jun 2014
In this heartbreakingly beautiful book of disillusioned intimacy and persistent yearning, beloved and celebrated author Andre Dubus III explores the bottomless needs and stubborn weaknesses of people seeking gratification in food and sex, work and love. |
 We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
Hardcover: Jun 2014
Three lives are bound together by a split-second mistake, and a child's fate hangs in the balance.
What happens next will test - and restore - your faith in humanity. |
 In Darkness by Nick Lake
Hardcover: Jan 2012, Paperback Jan 2014
Raw, harrowing, and peopled with vibrant characters, In Darkness is an extraordinary book about the cruelties of man and nature, and the valiant, ongoing struggle for a country's very survival. |
 Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie
Hardcover: Oct 2012, Paperback Oct 2013
An indispensable collection of new and classic stories, Blasphemy reminds us, on every thrilling page, why Sherman Alexie is one of our greatest contemporary writers and a true master of the short story. |
 It's Fine By Me by Per Petterson
Hardcover: Oct 2012, Paperback Sep 2013
Sometimes tender, sometimes brutal, It's Fine By Me is a brilliant novel from the acclaimed author of Out Stealing Horses and I Curse the River of Time. |
 The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
Hardcover: Jun 2012, Paperback Jul 2013
From the author of the number one Canadian bestseller The Birth House comes the story of a young girl abandoned to the streets of post-Civil War New York City. |
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5. Editor's Choice 
The Lion Seeker by Kenneth Bonert
Hardcover (September 02, 2014), 576 pages. Publisher: Mariner Books. BookBrowse Rating: 5/5, Critics' Consensus: 4.2/5 Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie Ken Bonert's debut, The Lion Seeker, is a coming-of-age novel set primarily in Johannesburg, South Africa. It follows the adventures of Jewish immigrant Isaac Helger as he grows from boy to man, navigating a delicate path between his father Abel's faith and belief in the rewards of hard work and his mother Gitelle's unbridled ambition for her son. Along the way Isaac learns about love, labor, bigotry and the importance of family. The plot is pretty standard coming-of-age fare, but there are many other aspects of The Lion Seeker that are exceptional, which make the novel a stand-out. First,... continued Read the review | More Editor's Choices | More reviews by Kim Kovacs 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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 6. Beyond the Book
Every time we review a book we also explore a related topic. Here is a recent "beyond the book" article for
Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks
Paperback (September 09, 2014), 256 pages. Buy at Amazon | B&N | IndieReading Wodehouse in Mumbai
Growing up in an extremely cramped one-bedroom apartment on the bottom floor of a multi-rise building in Mumbai, I was looking for one thing - escape. And while India had been independent for just around 25-odd years at that time, the vestiges of colonialism remained. Try as we might, my friends and I could never bring ourselves to call Mumbai's fantastic train station Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. It would always be Victoria Terminus to us -- in fact, even the name Mumbai took a while to sink in. Growing up, it had always been Bombay. These colonial aftereffects showed themselves most readily in the English fiction my friends and I read. We grew up on a steady diet of Enid Blyton books in elementary school. The images of endless feasts with scones and crumpets and clotted cream were enough to get us through the dreary Mumbai monsoons. I was introduced to the world of P. G. Wodehouse when I was in eighth grade, and these books completely took over my every waking moment. I devoured every Wodehouse book I could get my hands on, including many from the Bertie and Jeeves series... continued Read in full | More about this book
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 7. Author Interview  Jo Baker discusses the inspiration for her novel, Longbourn, and how daunting it was to work with Jane Austen's characters. Read the Interview | Longbourn |
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 8. News Sep 17 2014: The National Book Awards have announced their fiction longlist - all books are on BookBrowse with excerpts of most ... (more)Sep 17 2014: This year's 21 MacArthur fellows have been announced including cartoonist and graphic memoirist Alison Bechdel, translator and Poet Khaled Mattawa, poet Terrance Hayes and playwright Samuel Hunter ... (more)Sep 17 2014: The National Book Awards longlist for nonfiction has been announced ... (more)
Sep 16 2014: The National Book Award longlist for this year's Young People's Literature category has been announced ... (more)
Sep 12 2014: Advocates for Independent Business, a coalition that includes the American Booksellers Association and a number of Local First groups, is launching #efairnessnow, a social media campaign in support of e-fairness. The goal "is to persuade customers of indie stores to show their support ... (more) Sep 11 2014: The New York Times Book Review is adding 12 new monthly bestseller charts to its current line up and will also publish some lists in print that were only available online. A newly designed print page will highlight four niche lists on a weekly rotating basis ... (more) Sep 11 2014: 88% of Americans aged 16-29 (aka Millennials) have read a book in the past year. This is higher than the 79% of those aged 30+ who have reada book in the past year. Of the Millennials 37% read at least one e-book. Interestingly, 50% of Millennials visited a library in the past year ... (more) Sep 09 2014: Forbes have published their annual list of highest-earning authors (measured from June 2013 to June 2014). E.L. James, author of the 50 Shades books is still in the list, but not at the top, and some new names have joined - Veronica Roth, Gillian Flynn and John Green ... (more) Sep 09 2014: The American authors Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler are among the six writers selected for the shortlist of the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, announced on Tuesday. Also on the shortlist are three British writers - Howard Jacobson, Neel Mukherjee and Ali Smith - and the Australian ...(more)
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 9. Notable Nonfiction Publishing This Week
Each month BookBrowse covers 80-100 notable books. Here are three particularly interesting nonfiction books publishing this week  The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: Sep 2014
History, Science & Current Affairs, 288 pages
Critic's Opinion: 5/5
An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl. In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child - a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world ... continued
More about this book | Read Reviews Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie An Empire on the Edge by Nick Bunker
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: Sep 2014
History, Science & Current Affairs, 448 pages
Critic's Opinion: 5/5
Written from a strikingly fresh perspective, this new account of the Boston Tea Party and the origins of the American Revolution shows how a lethal blend of politics, personalities, and economics led to a war that few people welcomed but nobody could prevent. In this powerful but fair-minded narrative, British author Nick Bunker tells the story of the last three years of mutual ...continued
More about this book | Read Reviews Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie Tennessee Williams by John Lahr
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: Sep 2014
Biographies/Memoirs, 736 pages
Critic's Opinion: 5/5
John Lahr has produced a theater biography like no other. Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds a light on Tennessee Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs ... continued
More about this book | Read Reviews Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie
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 10. Win This Book
 Station Eleven by Emily St. John MandelPublished Sep 2014
352 pages
Enter the Giveaway One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains - this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it. Reviews "Station Eleven is so compelling, so fearlessly imagined, that I wouldn't have put it down for anything." - Ann Patchett
"Mandel is an exuberant storyteller... Readers will be won over by her nimble interweaving of her characters' lives and fates... Station Eleven is as much a mystery as it is a post-apocalyptic tale... Mandel is especially good at planting clues and raising the kind of plot-thickening questions that keep the reader turning pages... Station Eleven offers comfort and hope to those who believe, or want to believe, that doomsday can be survived, that in spite of everything people will remain good at heart, and when they start building a new world they will want what was best about the old." - Sigrid Nunez, New York Times Book Review
"Rated A. Emily St. John Mandel's tender and lovely new novel, Station Eleven miraculously reads like equal parts page-turner and poem... This is not a story of crisis and survival. It's one of art and family and memory and community and the awful courage it takes to look upon the world with fresh and hopeful eyes." - Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly  5 people will each win a hardcover copy of Station Eleven. 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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