Hardcover

A Good Hard Look by Ana Napolitano (Penguin Press) has shipped & we're hoping you're devouring it as we speak. If you haven't had a chance to crack it open yet, here's some food for thought… Washington Post wrote, "she has spun an absorbing, old-fashioned tale about how, as in Flannery O’Connor’s stories, “Grace changes a person. . . . And change is painful.”

"Crippled by lupus at twenty-five, celebrated author Flannery O'Connor was forced to leave New York City and return home to Andalusia, her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. Years later, as Flannery is finishing a novel and tending to her menagerie of peacocks, her mother drags her to the wedding of a family friend." And so begins the description. 

The third hardcover selection is East of the West: A Country in Stories by Miroslav Penkov. After reading the galley of this book, we immediately ordered it. But the author is traveling in Bulgaria and the publisher, FSG, offered to have the books signed upon his return to the United States. We gratefully accepted and should receive them within the month.So DON'T buy the book. It is coming.

The book is receiving rave reviews. You may have read them or heard NPR's. (Read the NPR text.) NPR certainly tops anything I can write.

This is the first time we've chosen a book of short stories — a big departure from our previous selections. We found these stories to be worthy so relax and enjoy these wonderful, witty, sad, and insightful stories set in Bulgaria.

Another summer release, You Believers (Unbridled Books) — described by Booklist in its starred review: “In a riveting narrative, Bradley offers both unending compassion and a chilling assessment of the kind of harm that people are able and willing to inflict on one another. In heartrending detail, she lays out the ruined lives and broken hearts inevitably left in the wake of those ubiquitous missing posters tacked up in store windows. Harrowing reading from a gifted writer.” The book will be released shortly in hard back and we're sending signed copies to our Readers this month.

A Geography of Secrets (Unbridled Books) by Frederick Ruess Well, we are stretching our book club parameters again. Frederick Ruess' beautifully written book, A Geography of Secrets is his fifth book but we couldn't let you miss it. "The interlocking stories which examine the collateral damage of a lifetime of keeping secrets bringing a page-turning urgency to the interior dramas of two men, and raising provocative questions about identity and individual responsibility.

Paperback Originals

Coming soon!

You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik and Purgatory by Tomas Eloy Martinez. We'll add their witty and wonderful descriptions in a few days. For now, enjoy the mystery of wondering what they are about… or find them elsewhere on the web. Whatever you do, stop back soon!

NEW SELECTIONS for 2011

Oil on Water by Helon Habila (W.W. Norton). Set in current day Nigeria, Oil on Water follows two reporters, one seasoned and jaded, but sage, Zaq, and Rufus, a novice who is eager to learn from Zaq as they pursue the kidnapping of a foreign oil company's executive's wife. The story is an old one: the conflicts between development and preservation and, of course, greed, government and powerful companies. One wonders who are the real militants in this story…

Stone Upon Stone (Archipelago) by Wieslaw Myśliwski A grand epic in the rural tradition —
a profound and irreverent stream of memory cutting through the rich and varied terrain of one man’s connection to the land, to his family and community, to women, to tradition, to God, to death, and to what it means to be alive. Wise and impetuous, plain-spoken and compassionate Szymek, recalls his youth in their village, his time as a guerrilla soldier, as a wedding official, barber, policeman, lover, drinker, and caretaker for his invalid brother. Filled with interwoven stories and voices, by turns hilarious and moving, Szymek’s narrative exudes the profound wisdom of one who has suffered, yet who loves life to the very core.

Still Hot! Books From 2010 Last Quarter

Quiet As They Come (Ig Publishing) by Angie Chau is a beautifully written collection of connected stories about an extended family of Vietnamese boat people who arrive in California in the 1970's. The characters are so authentically drawn that the reader is immediately taken into their stuggle to maintain their dignity as they assimilate into the bewildering American culture. A wonderful debut by a remarkable writer.

Heliópolis (Europa) by James Scudamore offers insights into Brazilian life and the vast chasms between the rich and the poor. Ludo straddles both worlds — the super-wealthy life and favelas of Sao Paulo from which he came. While benefiting from the wealth he is adopted into, he finds no true relationships and is haunted by the abject poverty and violence of the slum, Heliopolis. The author's writing is fast paced and edgy when writing of Sao Paulo and slows nicely when describing Ludo's young life on a country estate with his mother, the family's cook.