MONDAY MEMES: MAILBOX & WHAT ARE YOU READING? — JUNE 6

CURL UP AND READ!

Welcome to our Monday Memes, in which we spotlight our adventures in the previous week and plan the upcoming one.  Mailbox Monday will be hosted in June at the Bluestocking Guide.

What Are You Reading? is hosted byBook Journey.

MAILBOX MONDAY:

This past week, I received two books in my mailbox for review, and downloaded one e-book for Sparky, my Kindle.

1.  Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan (Amazon Vine)

“Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan is a powerful novel about the ties that bind families tight, no matter how dysfunctional. Sullivan has created in the Kelleher women a cast of flawed but lovable characters so real, with their shared history of guilt and heartache and secret resentments, that I’m sure I’ll be thinking about them for a long time to come.” –Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot….

2.  Daughters of the Revolution, by Carolyn Cooke (Amazon Vine)

From the O. Henry Award–winning author of the story collection The Bostons—a New York Times Notable Book, Los Angeles Times Book of the Year and winner of the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers—an exquisite first novel set at a disintegrating New England prep school.

It’s 1968. The prestigious but cash-strapped Goode School in the town of Cape Wilde is run by its aging, philandering headmaster, Goddard Byrd, known to both his friends and his enemies as God. With Cape Wilde engulfed by the social and political storms of integration, coeducation and the sexual revolution, God has confidently promised coeducation “over my dead body.” And then, through a clerical error, the Goode School admits its first female student: Carole Faust, a brilliant, intractable fifteen-year-old black girl….

3.  To the Lighthouse (e-book), by Virginia Woolf

“To the Lighthouse is one of the greatest elegies in the
English language, a book which transcends time.” –Margaret Drabble

“Without question one of the two or three finest novels of the twentieth century. Woolf comments on the most pressing dramas of our human predicament: war, mortality, family, love. If you’re like me you’ll come back to this book often, always astounded, always moved, always refreshed.” –Rick Moody

***

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

It has been an exciting week, with some blogging, some reading, and some writing.

Some Blog Posts:

May Reading Wrap-Up

Monday Morning Sparks

Weekend Potpourri

My Guest Spotlight at Beth Hoffman’s Site

Now for the reading….and how enjoyable that was!

Books Read and Reviewed – Click Titles for Reviews:

1.  A Pug’s Tale, by Alison Pace

2.  Mini Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella

3.  The Bird Sisters (e-book), by Rebecca Rasmussen

4.  Getting The Pretty Back, by Molly Ringwald

What’s Up Next?

1.  Disturbing the Peace, by Richard Yates

To all appearances, John Wilder has all the trappings of success, circa 1960: a promising career in advertising, a loving family, a beautiful apartment, even a country home. John’s evenings are spent with associates at quiet Manhattan lounges and his weekends with friends at glittering cocktail parties. But something deep within this seemingly perfect life has long since gone wrong. Something has disturbed John’s fragile peace, and he can no longer find solace in fleeting affairs or alcohol. The anger, the drinking, and the recklessness are building to a crescendo—and they’re about to take down John’s career and his family. What happens next will send John on a long, strange journey—at once tragic and inevitable.

2.  The Pumpkin Eater, by Penny Mortimer

“A subtle, fascinating, unhackneyed novel . . . in touch with human realities and frailties, unsentimental and amused. . . .So moving, so funny, so desperate, so alive. . . . [A] fine book, and one to be greatly enjoyed.” -Elizabeth Janeway, The New York Times

3.  Violets of March, by Sarah Jio

“The Violets of March is a captivating, bittersweet tale of what happens when the long-buried truth finally makes its way to the surface. I didn’t want this book to end!”
-Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

4.  Sherry & Narcotics, Nina-Marie Gardner

“Sherry & Narcotics” is a raw, immersive debut. Nina-Marie Gardner is uncannily good at depicting the wantonly self-destructive behavior of a young woman who should know better.

-Howard County Times

And that’s it for this week!  I hope you’ll stop by and share your own reading week….