Monday Memes - Mailbox Monday/In My Mailbox/It's Monday! What are YOU Reading? - February 5, 2012, 2012

"Mailbox Monday" is the brainchild of Marcia at The Printed Page.  Martha has closed The Printed Page effective December 18th and set up Mailbox Monday on it's own blog here:  http://mailboxmonday.wordpress.com/

February's host is Metroreader!   Hop on over, link up, and join the fun!

"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.

I guarantee that you will add to your reading list by visiting the participating blogs in both of these memes!

Here are the books I've received in the past two weeks (I skipped these memes last week and almost forgot to put this up this week! :)

Dust to Dust by Benjamin Busch - ARC for review from the publisher - Releases March 20, 2012 - (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

Tim O’Brien meets Annie Dillard in this remarkable memoir by debut author Benjamin Busch. Much more than a war memoir, Dust to Dust brilliantly explores the passage through a lifetime—a moving meditation on life and death, the adventures of childhood and revelations of adulthood. Seemingly ordinary things take on a breathtaking radiance when examined by this decorated Marine officer—veteran of two combat tours in Iraq—actor on the hit HBO series The Wire, and son of acclaimed novelist Frederick Busch. Above all, Benjamin Busch is a truly extraordinary new literary talent as evidenced by his exemplary debut, Dust to Dust—an original, emotionally powerful, and surprisingly refreshing take on an American soldier’s story.

Whole Latte Life by Joanne DeMaio - ARC for review from author - Releases March 19, 2012

Goodreads description:

Would you leave everything behind to know who you are?

Sara Beth Riley never dreamt she'd walk straight out of her life. Actually she'd never dreamt a lot of things that had happened this year ... From being kidnapped by her own best friend, to throwing her wedding rings into the Hudson River, to calling an old love in France, to getting inked with said best friend, painting the passionate constellation of these choices into permanence. But mostly, she could never have dreamt what started it all. How could it be that her mother's unexpected death, and the grief which lingered painfully long, turned her into the woman she was finally meant to become?

Sara Beth's escape begins a summer of change - of herself, of marriage, of the lives of those around her. In a story that moves from Manhattan to the sea to a quaint New England town, Whole Latte Life looks at friends we never forget, at decisions we linger with, at our attempts to live the lives we love.

The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan - ARC for review from the publisher - Releases April 3, 2012 - (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Cover description: 

The Big Chill meets Mary McCarthy's The Group in Deborah Copaken Kogan's wry, lively, and irresistible new novel, about a once-close circle of Harvard alumni at their life-altering 20-year class reunio.

Every five years, every graduate of Harvard is asked to submit a short essay highlighting their latest career and personal accomplishments, each of which is collected and published in a red-covered book, known as the Red Book, and sent out to their former classmates.

Four roommates from the class of '89 head for their 20th reunion weekend just as their lives are crumbling around them:  a recently pink=slipped securities broker, eager to conceive a baby before her fertility window closes; a blue-blood artist and former lesbian, married to a writer's-blocked male novelist; a former actress turned stay-at-home wife to a famous Hollywood director; an adopted war orphan, now a foreign correspondent, whose war journalist husband has recently been killed.  The four women bring their families, their successes, their failures, their questions, and their desires to a relationship-changing, score-settling, and completely unforgettable reunion weekend.

Bloodland by Alan Glynn - ARC for review from the publisher - Released January 31, 2012 - (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

A helicopter crash off the coast of Ireland sends unexpected ripples through the international community in this intricate new thriller from the author of Winterland and Limitless (now a major motion picture).

Susie Monaghan was on the cusp of stardom when her life was cut short by a tragic helicopter crash. After a full investigation, her death was ruled an accident: case closed. But a hungry young journalist named Jimmy Gilroy isn't buying the official story. Before dying, Susie's path had crossed with an unlikely gallery of powerful men: an ex-Prime minister with a carefully guarded secret; the businessman brother of a U.S. Senator angling for the Oval Office; and a billionaire investor with his eye on an extremely rare commodity. Might there also be a link between Susie's death and a deranged security contractor operating in Congo? Piece by piece, Jimmy uncovers a bizarre nexus of coincidence among these disparate people and events, revealing a conspiracy of frightening reach and consequence--one that could cost him his life.

Set against a vividly drawn world of corporate and political intrigue, Alan Glynn's Bloodland is a riveting paranoid thriller of uncommon depth and page-turning suspense.

The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy - For review from the publisher - Released January 24, 2012 - (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

"To understand what it meant to be a Hathaway, you'd first have to see Aurelia."

For generations, Aurelia was the crowning glory of more than three thousand acres of Iowa farmland and golden cornfields. The estate was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name - no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process. It was a desperation that wrought the downfall of the Hathaways - and the once prosperous farm.

Now the last inhabitant of the decaying old home has died - alone. None of the surviving members of the Hathaway family want anything to do with the farm, the land, or the memories.

Especially Meredith Pincetti. Now living in New York City, for seventeen years Lavinia's youngest grandchild has tried to forget everything about her family and her past. But with the receipt of a pleading letter, Meredith is again thrust into conflict with the legacy that destroyed her family's once-great name. Back at Aurelia, Meredith must confront the rise and fall of the Hathaway family... and her own part in their mottled history.

"Our farm was like the world when people still thought it was flat. And when you left it, it was as if you had simply sailed too far and fallen off the surface into the void."

The Odditorium: Stories by Melissa Pritchard - ARC for review through Library Thing Early Reviewers program - Released January 10, 2012 - (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

In each of these eight lyrical and baroque tales, Melissa Pritchard transports readers into spine-tingling milieus that range from the astounding realm of Robert LeRoy Ripley’s "odditoriums” to the courtyard where Edgar Allan Poe once played as a child. Whether she is setting the famed figures of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, including Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull, against the real, genocidal history of the American West, or contrasting the luxurious hotel where British writer Somerset Maugham stayed with the modern-day brothels of India, her stories illuminate the many ways history and architecture exert powerful forces upon human consciousness.Melissa Pritchard is a Flannery O’Connor, Janet Heidinger Kafka, and Carl Sandburg award-winning author whose two previous short fiction collections were New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice selections. She has also been an embedded journalist in Afghanistan and is member of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, which helps to promote literacy and education for Afghan women and girls. She lives in Arizona.

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"What Are You Reading?" is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.  Click over to see what other readers are into this week and add to your TBR pile!  Again, these are books read in the past two weeks (helped along by participation in a readathon):

READ:

Book Depository Amazon	Book Depository Amazon  Review	Book Depository Amazon
Book Depository  Amazon	Book Depository  Amazon Review Upcoming	Book Depository  Amazon Review Upcoming
Book Depository Amazon	Book Depository Amazon Review Upcoming	Book Depository Amazon Review Upcoming
Book Depository Amazon   Review Upcoming	Book Depository Amazon Review Upcoming

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REVIEWED:  (click the cover to go to the review):

3.25 of 5 stars	4.75 of 5 stars	3.4 of 5 stars
4 of 5 stars

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CURRENTLY READING:

(Click on the cover for the Goodreads page)

Read-together	Hard copy	eGalley
Kindle

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Next to be read on the personal pile (click cover for Goodreads page):

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Next to be read on the hard copy review pile (click cover for Goodreads page):

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FAVE OF THE (TWO) WEEKS:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Book Depository

Amazon

When I started this book, I felt as though I were simply tossed into late 18th century Japan with no lead-in and no introduction - I was a bit lost.  As I continued, however, everything came together and I was wholly immersed in this story of an honest man among thieves. 

How was YOUR reading week?  Please leave a link to YOUR "What Are You Reading/In My Mailbox/Mailbox Monday" post(s) in the comments (I'd love to come visit) or simply comment with what your reading week was like!