Mailbox Monday and In My Mailbox - November 8, 2010

"Mailbox Monday" is the brainchild of Marcia at The Printed Page

Mailbox Monday is now on a blog tour.  Click here to see the tour schedule!
 

This month's host is ME!   Visit every week this month to see links to the latest and greatest books arriving in mailboxes!  Be aware, though, visiting can lead to book envy and toppling TBR piles!

December's host will be Lady Q at Let Them Read Books!  So be certain to stop by her blog and show her some love! 

I will also be offering a different giveaway every week throughout November to encourage participation! 

Last week's winner:

Congratulations, Rose City Reader!  Look for my email!

This week's giveaway: 

A $10 gift certificate to either Amazon or The Book Depository (to open it up internationally) to use towards a book or two of your choice!  How to enter?  Simply link up YOUR Mailbox Monday post and then add a comment stating that you'd like to enter!  If you don't have a blog, leave a comment letting me know what you got in your mailbox and that you'd like to enter!   You have until the following Monday to link up and enter!

"In My Mailbox" is hosted by The Story Siren.

Every week we'll post about what books we have that week (via your mailbox/library/store bought)! Everyone that agrees to participate will try to visit each other's list and leave comments!  Everyone is welcome to join! You can join at anytime and you DO NOT have to participate every week. 

Monday:

My book-buying ban is now officially over.  I visited an indie bookstore here called Horizontal Books which I'd been eying .. buy 1 book-50% off, buy 2 books-60% off, buy 3 books or more-70% off.  Here's what I came out with:

The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: 2008 - As in every year since 1988, the editors tirelessly scoured story collections, magazines, and anthologies worldwide to compile a delightful, diverse feast of tales and poems.
On this anniversary, the editors have increased the size of the collection to 300,000 words of fiction and poetry, including works by Billy Collins, Ted Chiang, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Hand, Glen Hirshberg, Joyce Carol Oates, and new World Fantasy Award winner M. Rickert. With impeccably researched summations of the field by the editors, Honorable Mentions, and articles by Edward Bryant, Charles de Lint and Jeff VanderMeer on media, music and graphic novels, this is a heady brew topped off by an unparalleled list of sources of fabulous works both light and dark.

A Drink Before the War/Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane  - Having just finished his newest, Moonlight Mile, and totally enjoying it, I HAD to grab this one when I saw it! - With novels like Mystic River and Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane has dramatically altered the landscape of the crime thriller—while boldly overstepping the boundaries that have long separated mystery from literature. Now two of his sensational early novels have been combined in a single volume—two gritty and mesmerizing masterworks of suspense featuring the private eye duo of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro—brilliantly showcasing the unique voice and dark, exhilarating vision of a crime fiction phenomenon.

An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor - England 1819. Two enigmatic Americans arrive in London and soon after a bank collapses. A man is found dead on a building site; another goes missing in the teeming stews of the city's notorious Seven Dials district. A deathbed vigil ends in an act of theft, and a beautiful heiress flirts with her inferiors. A strange destiny connects each of these events to an American boy, Edgar Allan Poe, who was brought to England by his foster father and sent to the leafy village of Stoke Newington to be educated. An Unpardonable Crime is a twenty-first-century novel with a nineteenth-century voice. It is both a multilayered literary murder mystery and a love story, its setting ranging from the coal-scented fogs of late-Regency London to the stark winter landscapes of Gloucestershire. And at its center is the boy who does not really belong anywhere, an actor who never learns the significance of his part.

Day After Night:  A Novel by Anita Diamant - One of my all-time favorite novels is "The Red Tent", so, yes, anything Anita Diamant that I don't already have is going in the TBR pile - Anita Diamant's story of four women, refugees from Nazi Europe, who find friendship, love, and salvation in a post-war British camp in Palestine. 

Thursday:

From GoodReads bookswap:

Hunted:  A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast - Another one for Not-So-Bebe-Girl Autumn's Christmas book box! - The good news: Zoey’s friends have her back again and Stevie Rae and the red fledglings aren’t Neferet’s secrets any longer.  The bad news: Ancient evil with the face of an angel has been let loose – that and various other nasties (whose faces aren’t so angelic).  Grandma Redbird is in trouble.  Heath is in trouble.  The House of Night is in trouble.  Okay, let’s face it – Zoey’s whole world is in trouble!  But when the trouble comes from a being who appears to be beauty personified, will the world believe it? Especially when only a teenager and a group of misfits are the only ones who really understand the danger he brings.  Will Zoey have the strength and wisdom to reveal the truth?  Especially when, in the House of Night, the truth is often hard to come by… 

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years, from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding, that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives, the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness, are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heartwrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love, a stunning accomplishment.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - "Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell." Jacob was there because his luck had run out - orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act - in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

For Review:

Crazy Loco Love:  A Memoir by Victor Villasenor - from Atria Books/Beyond Words through Shelf Awareness - Publish Date 11/9/2010 - Growing up on his parents’ ranch in North San Diego County, Victor VillaseÑor’s teenage years were marked by a painful quest to find a place for himself in a world he did not fit into. Discriminated due to his Mexican heritage, Victor questions the tenets of his faith and the restrictions it places on his own spirituality and sexuality. Ultimately, his search for identity takes him to Mexico to learn of his family’s roots, where he soon discovers that his heritage doesn’t determine his intelligence or success. Through this often humorous and poignant tale, Victor deftly undermines the macho stereotype so often associated with Latinos, while exposing the tender vulnerability and naÏvetÉ of a young man grappling with the roles foisted on him by the church and society. Victor’s youthful misadventures elicit sympathy, laughter, and tears as he attempts to divine the mysteries of the opposite sex in this powerful, revealing memoir. “The clarity that comes from VillaseÑor’s personal and cultural experience is not matched in any of Steinbeck’s major works” (Los Angeles Times).

Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gately - from Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster - publish date 11/9/2010 - Blog Tour/Review/Giveaway scheduled 11/11/2010 - In this powerful debut novel, Elsa Murphy, a nurse from Boston, is assigned to serve one year in the trenches.

Friday:

For Review:

A Woman and Her Workplace by Rosemary Flaaten - for review through Kathy Carlton Willis Communications - Review scheduled for 12/19 - Why is it often so difficult to build healthy relationships with our coworkers? The grumpy boss, the arrogant team member, the lazy employee, or the backbiting woman may be part of our workplace reality, and it may be easier to blame them for our workplace woes. But, the easy blame isn t always the best solution.

A Woman and Her Workplace shows women how God can perform a deep heart transformation within us that will allow His love and care to flow through us to the people in our workplaces. By delving into the issues that wreak havoc on our workplace relationships, author Rosemary Flaaten provides readers the help they need to develop and apply strong biblical principles of humility, integrity, forgiveness, grace, and celebration in the workplace.

Through discussing relationships such as boss to staff, woman to man, woman to woman, and teamwork, Flaaten guides women on a transforming journey through the common workplace difficulties as they develop healthy interaction in their workplace.

Murder on the Down Low by Pamela Samuels Young - for Review through Pump Up Your Book - guest post/review scheduled for 12/12-12/13 - A high-profile lawsuit erupts into chaos, revealing its place in a larger spree of violence in this scandalous tale of lust, lies, and vengeance. A brazen gunman is targeting prominent African American men on the streets of Los Angeles, and police are completely baffled. At the same time, savvy big-firm attorney Vernetta Henderson and her outrageous sidekick, Special, lead the charge for revenge against a man whose deceit caused his fianceé's death. For Special, hauling the man into court and suing him for wrongful death just isn’t good enough. While she exacts her own brand of justice, a shocking revelation connects the contentious lawsuit and the puzzling murders.

Through GoodReads bookswap:

 

Freeze Tag by Caroline B. Cooney - One for Not-So-Bebe-Girl Autumn's Christmas book box. - When Meghan and West first played Freeze Tag with Lannie, it was no ordinary game. Because when Lannie tagged someone, they really froze. Icy blue and cold. Like death.Now Meghan, West, and Lannie are in high school, and Meghan and West are in love. They're the perfect couple. But Lannie is determined to have West for her very own... and if she doesn't get her way, she'll freeze Meghan... to death.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - Hear It/Read It with audio CD - I will enjoy this with my Bebe Boy - Hear The Secret Garden

Read by Jenny Agutter, who appeared in Peter Pan with the British National Theatre.

Mary Lennox doesnt want to move to England to live with her uncle, but she has no choice. At first she hates her uncles cold house, the gardens and moors that surround it and the servants with their funny way of talking. And at night she hears a child crying, but the servants insist its only the wind. Curious in spite of herself, Mary wanders the house and gardens and discovers that both are full of secrets.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren't so great back in the old country either--not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting cliches about drunken Irish manhood are based. Mix in abject poverty and frequent death and illness and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt's able hands it also has all the makings for a compelling memoir.

Saturday:

The Postcard Killers by James Patterson and Liza Marklund - Audiobook WON from Libby's Library News! - NYPD detective Jack Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him--he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each restaurant through a killer's eyes.

Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have become victims of the same sadistic killers. Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson. Every killing is preceded by a postcard to the local newspaper--and Kanon and Larsson think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, THE POSTCARD KILLERS may be James Patterson's most vivid and compelling thriller yet

What did YOU get this week?

 


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