1. First Impressions: Members Recommend

Each month we give away books to U.S. resident members to read and review (or discuss). Members who choose to participate receive a free book about every three months. Here are their opinions on two recent releases.

 Maud's Line by Margaret Verble

 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
 Publication Date: Jul 2015
 Historical Fiction, 304 pages

 Number of reader reviews: 14
 Readers' consensus: 3.9/5.0

Members Say
"The amazing, hard-working, passionate heroine of this novel, Maud Nail, is truly an inspiration for modern eighteen-year-old girls. In addition to farming the land and caring for the animals on her small Indian allotment in 1920s Oklahoma, Maud spends her 'leisure time' reading classic literary works. I so enjoyed learning about her extended Indian family: their love, their habits, their caring closeness. This is a novel which could be discussed and shared by booklovers anywhere." - Rose N. (Saginaw, MI)

"This would make a great book club read. It is written with such immediacy that I felt swept into Maud's world - what more can a reader ask?" - Josephine J. (Goshen, CT)

"This book exceeded all my expectations... The writer's descriptions of locales were so vivid and realistic, it made this reader feel the starkness of Maud's life. I felt her loneliness and yearning for a better life." - Gloria Ganderbilt

More about this book | Read all the reviews   Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie 

 Between the Tides by Susannah Marren

 Publisher: St. Martin's Press
 Publication Date: Jul 2015
 Novels, 304 pages

 Number of reader reviews: 26
 Readers' consensus: 3.7/5.0

Members Say
"This is a wonderful debut novel! Ms. Marren's prose is beautiful, she reminds me a little of Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway because of the way she describes scenes from ordinary everyday life. Your are immediately drawn into the story of the family's move from New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey. When Lainie encounters her old friend Jess the pace begins to pick up... This would be an excellent choice for a book club; there is a lot to discuss. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to pass it along to a friend so that I could talk about it with someone. I really am looking forward to reading Ms Marren's next book; hope she has already started writing it" - Joan V. (Miller Place, NY)

"The story is told in alternating points of view and that technique was very effective in developing the characters. It was well written with the tension building in a way that turned the novel into a surprising thriller. It's a fun read." - Vicki O. (Boston, MA)

"Gripping from start to finish. Well done, Susannah Marren!" - Lisa E. (Naugatuck, CT)

More about this book | Read all the reviews   Buy at Amazon | B&N | Indie  

The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg

Published Jul 2015, 384 pages

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. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom.

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4. Editor's Choice

Every time we review a book we also explore a related topic. Here is a recent "beyond the book" article for The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

Synesthesia, which manifests in many different forms, is a condition where two or more senses intertwine. For example, Thanial, one of the main characters in The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street, "sees" music. For him, notes, voices and other sounds are perceived as specific colors. He has chromesthesia, a form of synesthesia where a person associates a sensation (usually hearing) with color.

While the concept of synesthesia has been recorded since at least the early nineteenth century, it was only in the 1980s that research into the phenomenon really started to take off and since the '90s has been the subject of research papers and novels. While scientists are still uncertain about the exact mechanisms of synesthesia, many believe that it's caused by a kind of cross-wiring of the neurons and synapses in the brain, so a sensation in one area automatically sets off a perception in another. The condition presents on a spectrum, with those affected experienced varying different levels of synesthesia. continued...

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Where did the idea for The Gracekeepers come from?
I wrote the book a few years after my father died very suddenly at the age of fifty-eight (I was twenty-seven at the time). He was rushed into intensive care and was there for a week before my family had to make the decision to switch off the life support. He never woke up in that week, and I don't think he even knew he was in the hospital. While he was there, I visited every day and read him Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, which he'd read to me when I was a child. He spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, and I thought the stories were things that had really happened to him. I've always associated my dad with water and the sea. He was born on the small Scottish island of Bute. When I was a child, he had a small sailboat called First Symphony on Lake Windermere, and he used to take me out sailing. After he died, my mother and brother and I scattered his ashes on the beach at Culzean Castle, which looks out on Bute. Now, every time I'm by the sea, I feel that I'm with my dad...

Read the Interview | The Gracekeepers

More interviews, plus pronunciation guide, games & biographies

If you liked Take This Man, try these:

Paperback May 1999  

 

Imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion. This is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

Paperback Sep 2001  

 

An incandescent memoir of an ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable, Blackbird will carry your heart away.


 

Paperback Jan 2006

 

A tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave the author the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. 

Paperback Aug 2006   

 

In the grand tradition of landmark memoirs - a classic American story of self-invention and escape, of the fierce love between a single mother and an only son, it's also a moving portrait of one boy's struggle to become a man, and an unforgettable depiction of how men remain, at heart, lost boys. 

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The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach by Pam Jenoff

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From the Jacket
Young Adelia Montforte flees fascist Italy for America, where she is whisked away to the shore by her well-meaning aunt and uncle. Here, she meets and falls for Charlie Connally, the eldest of the four Irish-Catholic boys next door. But all hopes for a future together are soon throttled by the war and a tragedy that hits much closer to home. 

Grief-stricken, Addie flees-first to Washington and then to war-torn London-and finds a position at a prestigious newspaper, as well as a chance to redeem lost time, lost family...and lost love. But the past always nips at her heels, demanding to be reckoned with. And in a final, fateful choice, Addie discovers that the way home may be a path she never suspected.

"A beautiful story of love and redemption."
- Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Heartbreaking, authentic and ultimately uplifting."
- Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Download the reading guide, complete with author interview and recipes!


5 people will each win a paperback copy of The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach.
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