"Waiting On" Wednesday: Rich Boy

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Rich Boy

By Sharon Pomerantz

Publication Date: August 2

From Amazon:

Robert Vishniak is the favored son of Oxford Circle, a working-class Jewish neighborhood in 1970s Philadelphia. Handsome and clever, Robert glides into the cloistered universities of New England, where scions of unimaginable wealth and influence stand shoulder to shoulder with scholarship paupers like himself who wash dishes for book money. The doors that open there lead Robert to the highest circles of Manhattan society during the heart of the Reagan boom where everything Robert has learned about women, through seduction and heartbreak, pays off. For a brief moment, he has it all...but the world in which he finds himself is not the world from which he comes, and a chance encounter with a beautiful girl from the old neighborhood, and the forgotten life she reawakens, threatens to unravel his carefully constructed new identity.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

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"Waiting On" Wednesday: Strangers at the Feast

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Strangers at the Feast

By Jennifer Vanderbes

Publication Date: August 3

From Simon & Schuster:

On Thanksgiving Day 2007, as the country teeters on the brink of a recession, three generations of the Olson family gather. Eleanor and Gavin worry about their daughter, a single academic, and her newly adopted Indian child, and about their son, who has been caught in the imploding real-estate bubble. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line between suburban privilege and urban poverty, and culminating in a crime that will change everyone’s life.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

Weekend Cooking: Two New Food Memoirs

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

If I read non-fiction, it's usually a memoir, and I'm particularly fond of food memoirs. (Check out my all-time favorites here.)

Two new releases recently caught my eye and are definitely on my "must-read" list:

Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life
By Kim Severson

From the prominent New York Times food writer, a memoir recounting the tough life lessons she learned from a generation of female cooks, including Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Rachael Ray, and Marcella Hazan. (Amazon)

Cakewalk

By Kate Moses

From the author of Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath comes a funny, touching memoir of a crummy—and crumby—childhood. Filled with the abundance and joy that were so lacking in Kate’s youth, Cakewalk is a wise, loving tribute to life in all its sweetness as well as its bitterness and, ultimately, a recipe for forgiveness. (Amazon)

Also, I love the annual installments of Best Food Writing...and I just came across a similar series, Cornbread Nation (fifth edition just released), which spotlights the best of Southern food writing each year. Anyone familiar with these? Worth checking out?

Library Loot 5/13

Library Loot is a weekly event hosted by The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader.

I just finished Brunonia Barry's The Map of True Places, and I enjoyed it so much that I went back and picked up The Lace Reader (I know, I'm the very last person to read this). I had it in my head that it would be too "mystical" for my taste, but after reading her latest, I had to read it...because, well, I love her now.

In the meantime, several books came up on my library list that I've been tap-tap-tapping my fingers waiting for:

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin

Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

By Accident by Susan Kelly

Twelve Rooms with a View by Theresa Rebeck

"Waiting On" Wednesday: A Stranger Like You

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

A Stranger Like You

By Elizabeth Brundage

Publication Date: August 5

From Amazon:

Hedda Chase is a top-flight executive producer at Gladiator Films, fast-tracked in the business since she graduated from Yale. An aggressive businesswoman, she recently pulled the plug on a film project initiated by one of her predecessors. The screenwriter on the project was Hugh Waters, a wannabe with a dead-end marriage and a day job at an insurance company. This script was his ticket out--until Hedda tampered with his plans, claiming his violence was over the top, his premise not credible, and his ending implausible. Hugh decides to prove otherwise by staging his script's ending and casting Hedda Chase as the victim. He flies to Los Angeles and finds Hedda, kidnaps her, and locks her in the trunk of her vintage BMW in the parking lot at LAX. He leaves the keys in the ignition, the parking ticket on the dash, and lets "destiny" take its course.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Widower's Tale

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Widower's Tale
By Julia Glass
Publication Date: September 7

From Amazon:

In a quirky farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling enjoys a vigorous but mostly solitary life—until, in a complex scheme to help his oldest daughter through a crisis, he allows a progressive preschool to move into his barn. The abrupt transformation of Percy’s rural refuge into a lively, youthful community compels him to reexamine the choices he’s made since his wife’s death, three decades ago, in a senseless accident that haunts him still. No longer can he remain aloof from his neighbors, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

Quotables with Diane Meier

When I'm reading, I love coming across "just-right" passages that have me reaching for my quote book. With Quotables, I present authors with a meaningful (to me) passage from their novels and ask them to speak to it in whatever way they wish.

I recently finished Diane Meier's debut novel, The Season of Second Chances, a compelling later-in-life coming-of-age story that follows a college professor as she trades in Manhattan for Massachusetts and discovers how little she had actually been "living."

The following quote in the book really appealed to me (and, it turns out that it's one of the author's favorite passages, as well):

"Change rarely happens in doses large enough to choke you. Every day you swallow a little more and expect a little less."

From Diane Meier:

First of all, thank you for choosing this particular quote. It’s one of the things I like to read to groups who attend signings, as it – so immediately – lets us into my main character’s sardonic and thorny personality, while setting up the idea of change. And “change” is, of course, one of the central themes of the book.

When we first meet Joy Harkness, we can see right off the bat, that she’s smart, successful, well-educated, capable, independent, witty and fundamentally very, very cranky. What we suspect, is that she’s more considerable than she lets on. And – I hope the reader is ahead of Joy in recognizing those achievements and finding her an unreliable narrator – which, naturally, casts some question on so much that she tells us.

The idea of change in this book is two-fold. First, a change of loss. While this happens before we meet her, we learn that Joy had aspirations to lead a sophisticated life of purpose and connection to what she saw as the center of literary culture and New York was a big part of that dream. The childhood death of her brother, Tim, and what we might, in small bits of discovery, decipher as her parents’ subsequent and chronic depression, may have conspired to keep a number of social skills and a level of confidence beyond her grasp. Add to this a Second-Wave Feminist confusion, if not rejection, of things domestic and previously sanctioned as ‘feminine’, and we have a character destined to miss the chances of self-discovery and self-expression that could make up a more fulfilled and healthy life.

The very “joy” in Joy’s life just leached away, through the decades. She allowed herself few pleasures, and most of them could be found within the covers of her beloved books, but her caustic wit was both a personally enjoyable distraction and a way to keep the world at bay. Most of all, the loss was in doses so incremental, it, literally, went unnoticed and unacknowledged.

The second change was of gain: From the moment Joy accepts the interview with Bernadette and looks forward to the job being offered, we might suppose that the woman who had never unpacked her china, or had a visitor to her apartment, or took a stand at her university, or made more than one friend on campus, might have made a secret, or at least, a subconscious, decision to embrace change. And I suspect, somewhere deep and unspoken, Joy knew it was likely to be one of her last chances for a major change in an unfulfilling life.

It is, I think, interesting and so much more like life, that we don’t see Joy change overnight. It’s all very incremental and she is exasperating in her missteps. But I think the change is more profound for the fact that each step is so hard won. With each gain, we see the toll of vulnerability and risk. And somewhere along the line, we spot Joy beginning to acknowledge and appreciate her own development.

If Bernadette had leveled the discussion about style and its importance in life, much earlier in the story, can you imagine Joy understanding a word of what she was talking about? I can’t. That’s how much growth has gone on in that one winter of change.

Only one real season, and yet the growth was still, evidently, so slow. But like the song that promises the rose in Spring, there is the confirmation of change and transformation in every part of Joy’s new idea of possibility.

Thank you, again for asking about this. It’s a part of the book I love and I’m just delighted it connected with you, too.

Click here to visit Diane Meier's website.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Stiltsville

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Stiltsville

By Susanna Daniel

Publication Date: August 3

From author's site:

Stiltsville is the family’s island oasis—until suddenly it’s gone, and Frances is forced to figure out how to make her family work on dry land. Against a backdrop of lush tropical beauty, Frances and Dennis struggle with the mutability of love and Florida’s weather, and with temptation and chaos and disappointment.

But just when Frances thinks she’s reached some semblance of higher ground, she must confront an obstacle so great that all she’s learned about navigating the uncharted waters of family life can’t keep them afloat.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

What Have I Been Reading?

I've been a reading fool the past few weeks, with some hits and misses.

Two of my long-time favorite authors have new novels this spring: Elizabeth Berg's The Last Time I Saw You and Sue Miller's The Lake Shore Limited. While both enjoyable books, these two weren't my favorites from these writers.

However, if you're a fan, I'd still give them a read...and if you've never read anything by these authors before, might I suggest The Year of Pleasures (Berg) and While I Was Gone (Miller).

On the other hand, two other seasoned novelists knocked my socks off with their new releases.

Anna Quindlen's Every Last One was a powerful read, exploring the journey of a mother rebuilding her life and finding her way after a devastating family tragedy. When mid-way through the novel, the meaning of the title revealed itself, I had to put the book down and walk away for a little bit, so chilled was I by it.

Lionel Shriver's So Much for That focuses on our best-laid plans...and how we have to adjust when life throws a curve our way. After saving up money for years for "The Afterlife," a retirement plan in which he escapes to a yet undecided remote island, a husband must rethink the future when his wife becomes ill...and the funds are diverted to paying for her healthcare bills.

Finally, if you're looking for new writers to fall in love with, I'd recommend these impressive new debut novels: The Swimming Pool by Holly LeCraw and The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier.

Today, I'm starting Dianne Dixon's The Language of Secrets...Happy Sunday!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Sea Escape

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Sea Escape

By Lynne Griffin

Publication Date: July 6

From the author's site:

Laura Martinez is wedged in the middle place, grappling with her busy life as a nurse, wife, and devoted mom to Henry and Claire, when her estranged mother, Helen, suffers a devastating stroke. In a desperate attempt to lure her mother into choosing life, Laura goes to Sea Escape, the pristine beach home that Helen took refuge in when her carefully crafted life unraveled years ago, after the death of her beloved husband, Joseph. There, Laura hunts for legendary love letters her father wrote to her mother when he served as a reporter for the Associated Press during wartime Vietnam. Believing the beauty and sway of her father’s words have the power to heal, Laura reads the letters bedside to her mother. As Laura delves deeper into her tangled family history, each letter revealing patchwork details of her parents’ marriage, she finds a common thread: a secret, mother and daughter unknowingly share.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!