It may be widely accepted that the movie is never as good as the book but I’m excited for this one!  Author David Ebershoff recently visited the Calgary, Canada set of the forthcoming Lifetime TV original movie based on his novel, The 19th Wife. The book and film center around Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of Mormon Church leader Brigham Young. From left to right in the photo are the film’s cast, Matt Czuchry, Chyler Leigh and Jeff Hepner. Mr. Ebershoff is pictured on the far right. We don’t have to wait too long for the movie. It will premeire on Lifetime on September 20th.

If you haven’t yet read The 19th Wife, you’d better get on it. Historical fiction fans will especially love it! Read my review of the book in a past issue of our Random Revelations newsletter here.

-Marie

Last night, during the spin cycle at my neighborhood laundromat, I plopped myself down on the stoop outside to enjoy the summer evening air and finished David Nicholl’s acclaimed novel, One Day. The story of the friendship of Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley (”Dex and Em, Em and Dex”) the book provides snapshots of them from the late 1980’s to 2000’s on July 15th of each year. In alternating perspective, the reader is able to be a fly on the wall as the pair navigate their twenties and thirties, the highs and the lows, both together and apart.

The dialogue is witty (at times hilarious) and sharp, the characterization pitch-perfect and the plot all-too-familiar as Nicholls addresses the idea that life is fluid – full of ever-changing currents that ebb and flow within friendship, career, romance and everything inbetween. Sorry for the bad generalization there. Simply put, this book is a delightful yet simultaneously moving read and the British pop culture references captured this Anglophile’s heart. Thank you, Mr. Nicholls, for including many references to rocket. You made me feel so cultured and “in-the-know.”

Random House loved this book so much they gave all of us two copies – one to keep and one to share. I would love to share my extra copy with one of you. Comment below for your chance to win!

-Marie

Bloomwood fans rejoice!

Becky is back… this September!

I know you all already have this one on your lists but I figured I’d pop in and let you know how much I’m enjoying Sophie Kinsella’s latest Becky adventure, Mini Shopaholic. Here’s a little teaser for you: Minnie, the bundle of joy who made her appearance at the end of Shopaholic & Baby is now a terrible two. And her favorite word, of course… “MINE!”

Becky and Luke are still living with Becky’s Mum and Dad and a very timely financial crisis has struck the nation and threatened to put the brakes on Becky’s little habit…

Once again, I wish I were Sophie Kinsella. It must be so fun to write these books.

-Marie

The rest of the gang is away at BEA so I thought I’d say a quick “hello” and share with you a great book I’ve recently read.

Lisa Grunwald’s new novel, The Irresistible Henry House began with a barebottomed baby.  Says Grunwald of coming across Joan’s photo: “I clicked on the photograph and read that he had been a “practice baby,” an infant supplied by a local orphanage to Cornell’s home economics ‘practice house,’ where college students learned home-making, complete with a live baby…” Turns out the first baby in the Cornell University program was Joan Domecon (for Domestic Economics) who lived in the practice house for one year in 1919.

What must it have been like for these babies? And who did they turn out to be?  These types of questions inspired Henry House, the title character who has had a way with the ladies his entire life. (I could practically see the dough eyes and gorgeous smile myself.) Brought into a university “practice house” at just a few months old, he is placed in the care of Martha Gaines, a no-nonsense expert who has been doing this for a long time thankyouverymuch. In the hey day of Dr. Spock and his childcare revolution, Martha struggles with her own maternal instincts while instructing her students not to spoil the baby. Eventually Henry becomes the one practice baby to stay.

The reader follows Henry through his odd childhood and into an adolescence filled with grim realizations and burning questions. Grunwald accurately captures the inner turmoil of resentment mixed with love and forges ahead as Henry attempts to reconcile his own complicated identity. Add to this a background that involves Disney’s California, a very Sixties New York, and the Beatles’ London and the result is a delightful mixture of fact and fiction, character and place. Grunwald seems to have hit a topical gold mine (I wanted to Google “practice baby” late into the night!) and fleshed it out with just the right amount of  psychology, history, and narrative. Bravo!

If you do not yet have this on your shelves you must get it! Be sure to point your patrons in the direction of the baby photo in the back. You’re sure to hook a few that way!

-Marie

I’ve begun to notice a pattern in my reading. This happens a lot. I’ll jump from historical fiction to literary coming-of-age stories to popular best sellers and back, gobbling them all up along the way.

It seems there is an abundance of Appalachian fiction these days and it would appear that I am slightly addicted to it. We all know how I felt after reading Sweeping Up Glass. I also ventured outside the Random House family last fall and read Velva Jean Learns to Drive and The Well and the Mine, both fine reads. My latest favorite, Bloodroot, is set in East Tennesse’s Smoky Mountains and follows three generations of a family haunted by secrets and madness, blood red love and intense hatred, from the Great Depression to present day. And I must say I agree with a fellow Goodreads.com member who said not to be fooled by the peaceful looking cover, this book is vicious. A debut novel, it is wonderfully written. Somber and heartbreaking, even the most difficult moments are gorgeous. Also woven into the narrative and the lives of the characters are smidges of magical realism that enable the reader to vividly imagine each wild woman and her “haint blue” eyes as well as the ghosts that haunt the residents of Bloodroot Mountain. 

This one is available now. Pick it up. You won’t be sorry!

-Marie

The Dayton Metro Library blog, Dayton’s Best Bets, recently reviewed The Night Counter by Alia Yunis.  Our many thanks to Kristen @ the Main Library for giving kudos to this in-house favorite!

-Erica

As I trek to and from work each day, it’s easy to forget the presence Random House holds in the public’s consciousness.  I still get a thrill from the fact that both Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts uttered our company name in Stepmom, when I was in high school. And I admit that I barely glance around the impressive lobby as I make my way up to our Library Marketing office space most days.

So imagine my glee to watch the hilarious Kathy Griffin experience the thrill of entering the Random House offices.  Her memoir, Official Book Club Selection, is coming in September and I’m so excited for it!  That woman cracks me up, never fails.

Kathy Griffin – Getting a Book Deal clip from My Life on the D-List 

Now, if I could just  accomplish a real celebrity sighting here at work!  I had thought it would be inevitable, but so far Bon Jovi, Martha Stewart, and ANDRE AGASSI have eluded me.  And now Kathy Griffin, as well.  I must spend far too much time at my desk…

-Erica

Do you or your patrons use BookGlutton?  It’s a social reading platform and Random House Publishing Group has teamed up with them to promote Sarah Dunant’s newest title, SACRED HEARTS  (which I just loved and am now a bit obsessed with nuns as a result).  BookGlutton has the ability to allow its users to read the same book simultaneously and share the experience by making notes online, chapter by chapter.  And readers can chat with Sarah Dunant in real time! 

-Erica

Hi. My name is Marie, and I’m a “buzz book” addict.

It started with Cutting for Stone and now, unabashedly influenced by Jen’s post, I hereby declare my love for Carolyn Wall’s Sweeping Up Glass. If you are at all a To Kill a Mockingbird fan, read this. If you found Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes charming, read this. If Bastard Out of Carolina is one of your favorites, read this. If you were as enamored as I was with God of Animals by newcomer Aryn Kyle, read this. If you’ve never read any of those books but have a hankering for great characters with names like Wing and Love Alice, the hauntingly clear setting of Pope County, Kentucky and a complex narrative full of family, legacy, and wolves… read this. This gem of a book is a surprising delight. You won’t be disappointed.

-Marie

Last week’s Newsweek featured the highly anticipated, candid memoir from the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Tribunal for Rwanda. 

“She’s faced down the mob and genocidal dictators.  So why is Carla Del Ponte barred from discussing her own book?” – Newsweek

-Erica