J u l y *Y*B*S*

* * Revealed Books * *

and Archived Moves

Jordanne asks Giz to reveal Stuart
Sejent asks for Ace's reveal: Bloodsucking Fiends
Marlene asks For MsJoanna's reveal Messiah
MsJoanna asks AM10000 to reveal Storyville
AM10000 asks KathyB to reveal Songs for the Missing
Krin steals Stuart from Jordanne
Jordanne asks Sunny to reveal Summerland
Juliako steals Stuart from Krin
Krin steals Songs for the Missing from AM10000
AM10000 asks sejent to reveal Back When We Were Grownups
KathyB asks GateGypsy to reveal The Midnight Garden of Good & Evil
TwiggyWig asks Xeyra to reveal Interpreter of Maladies
Blue asks Marlene's reveal An Ordinary man +/or Girl in The Cellar
Candy is away so at her request Sunny bumps her down a few :) mking it the turn of momx3lovesbooks who doesn't show so it's over to Ace.
Ace steals Storyville from MsJoanna
msjoanna steals Summerland from Jordanne
Jordanne steals Songs for the missing from Krin511
Krin steals Interpreter of Maladies from TwiggyWig
TwiggyWig steals Summerland from MsJoanna
MsJoanna asks Jordanne to reveal The Tenth Circle
Giz steals Songs for the Missing from Jordanne
Jordanne steals Messiah from Marlene
Marlene steals Storyville from Ace
Ace steals Messiah from Jordanne
Jordanne asks Twiggywig to reveal The Sweet Potato Queens' Big Ass Cookbook
Cat ask's for Perdue's reveal Sad Bastard
Perdue steals Storyville from Marlene
Marlene steals Stuart from Juliako
Juliako steals Interpreter of Maladies from Krin
Krin asks cats-eye to reveal The Book of Lost Things
Xeyra asks Candy to reveal Mr Henry Mulligan
after bumping Candy down a couple of places to wait for her return ...
Elsi steals Back When We Were Grownups from AM10000
AM steals An Ordinary man + Girl in The Cellar from Bluecat
Bluecat steals The Book of Lost Things from Krin
Krin steals Stuart from Marlene
Marlene asks for Camis reveal Big Boned
GateGypsy steals Summerland from Twiggywig
Twiggywig goes missing and is bumped
Candy leaps in (having already been bumped twice wink2.gif ) and steals An Ordinary Man & Girl in the Cellar from AM
AM asks ChronicBooker to reveal A Hidden Life
Sunny steals Stuart from Krin
Krin steals Songs for the Missing from Giz-Angel
Giz steals Mr Henry Mulligan from Xeyra
Xeyra steals Big Boned from Marlene
Marlene takes Songs for the Missing out of the game from Krin
Krin steals The Book of Lost Things from Bluecat
Bluecat steals An Ordinary Man & Girl in the Cellar from Candy
Candy takes the Interpretation of Maladies from Juliako
Juliako steals An Ordinary Man & Girl in the Cellar from Bluecat
Bluecat asks for Elsi to reveal Two Books from Sandra Dallas
Camis asks for Bluecat to reveal Girls of Riyadh
Chronic steals Sandra Dallas from Bluecat
Bluecat steals An Ordinary Man & Girl in the Cellar out of the game!
Juliako steals The Book of Lost Things from Krin511
Krin swoops in, stealing Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil from Kathy
Kathy steals Book of Lost Things from Juliako
juliako steals Interpreter of Maladies from candy
Candy steals Girls of Riyadh from Camis
Camis steals Storyville from Perdue
Perdue has Juliako reveal The White Bone
Twiggywig steals A Hidden Life from AM
AM steals Book of Lost Things out of the game
KathyB steals Summerland from GateGypsy
GateGypsy asks Krin511 to reveal Knowledge of Angels

... end of game ...

Final results:

*1. Jordanne: Sweet Potato Queens' Cookbook : (~) : The Tenth Circle
*2. sejent: Bloodsucking Fiends : (~) : Back When We Were Grownups
*3. Marlene: Songs for the Missing : (5) : An Ordinary man + Girl in The Cellar
*4. MsJoanna: The Tenth Circle : (~) : Messiah
*5. AM10000: Book of Lost Things : (5) : Storyvillle
*6. Krin511: Midnight Garden of Good & Evil : (1) : Knowledge of Angels
*7. juliako: Interpreter of Maladies : (4) : The White Bone
*8. KathyB: Summerland : (4) : Songs for the Missing
*10. BlueCat07: An Ordinary Man & Girl in the Cellar : (5) : Girls of Riyadh
*13. AceofHearts: Messiah : (2) : Bloodsucking Fiends
*14. Giz-Angel: Mr Henry Mulligan : (1) : Stuart
*15. cats-eye: Sad Bastard : (~) : The Book of Lost Things
*16. Perdue: The White Bone : (~) : Sad Bastard
*17. Xeyra: Big Boned : (1) : Interpreter of Maladies
*18. Elsi: Back When We Were Grownups : (1) : Sandra Dallas 2-fer
*19. GateGypsy: Knowledge of Angels : (~) : Midnight Garden of Good & Evil
*11. Candy-is-Dandy: Girls of Riyadh : (1) : Mr Henry Mulligan
*20. Sunlightbub: Stuart : (5) : Summerland
*21. camis: Storyville : (4) : Big Boned
*22. chronicbooker3: Sandra Dallas 2-fer : (1) : Hidden Life
*9. twiggywig: A Hidden Life : (1) : Sweet Potato Queens' Cookbook


Sweet Potato Queens' Cookbook, Jill Connor Browne, twiggywig, Jordanne, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/2729327
Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore, AceofHearts, sejent, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5018415/
Songs for the Missing, Stewart O'Nan ,KathyB, Marlene, http://bookcrossing.com/journal/6311860
The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult, Jordanne, MsJoanna, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5578774/
Book of Lost Things, John Connolly, cats-eye, AM10000, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5272297
Midnight Garden of Good & Evil, John Berendt, GateGypsy, Krin511, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5886072
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri,Xeyra, juliako, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6254701/
Summerland, Michael Chabon,Sunlightbub, KathyB, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1040992
An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina, Marlene, BlueCat07, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5385887
Girl in the Cellar, Allan Hall & Michael Leidig, Marlene BlueCat07, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6150738
Messiah, Boris Starling, MsJoanna, AceofHearts, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6077837
Mr Henry Mulligan, Vernon Coleman, Candy-is-Dandy, Giz-Angel, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6236904
Sad Bastard, Hugo Hamilton, Perdue, cats-eye, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4778993
The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy, juliako, Perdue, http://bookcrossing.com/journal/3013755
Big Boned, Meg Cabot, camis, Xeyra, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5715252
Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler, sejent, elsi, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4438739
Knowledge of Angels, , Krin511, GateGypsy, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5733418
Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea, BlueCat07, Candy-is-Dandy, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6221131
Stuart, Alexander Masters, Giz-Angel, Sunlightbub, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4957208
Storyville, Lois Battle, AM10000, camis, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6308413
Persian Pickle Club, Sandra Dallas, elsi, chronicbooker3, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5720054
Alice's Tulips, Sandra Dallas, elsi, chronicbooker3, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5720056
A Hidden Life, Adele Geras, chronicbooker3, twiggywig, http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6261745

Giz's reveal:

Stuart: A Life backwards by Alexander Masters



I chose this book because it was brilliant - it made me laugh and cry, and so I wanted to share it with everyone ;)

Synopsis
This is the paperback edition of the most original, captivating and award-winning memoir of the year. "Stuart, A Life Backwards", is the story of a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator ('a middle class scum ponce, if you want to be honest about it, Alexander) and a chaotic, knife-wielding beggar whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison. Interwoven into this is Stuart's confession: the story of his life, told backwards. With humour, compassion (and exasperation) Masters slowly works back through post-office heists, prison riots and the exact day Stuart discovered violence, to unfold the reasons why he changed from a happy-go-lucky little boy into a polydrug-addicted-alcoholic Jekyll and Hyde personality, with a fondness for what he called 'little strips of silver' (knives to you and me). Funny, despairing, brilliantly written and full of surprises: this is the most original and moving biography of recent years.

BC Link

AceofHeart's Book is:

Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore



From the Publisher
Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley Dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching neck, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the decision has been made for her.

Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that’s where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be Kerouac from Incontinence, Indiana, Tommy (to his friends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen-turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful undead redhead walks through the door ... and proceeds to rock Tommy’s life -- and afterlife -- in ways he never imagined possible.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5018415/J_10766629

msjoanna's reveal:

Messiah by Boris Starling



From Publishers Weekly
Scotland Yard's Redfern Metcalfe "gets inside killers' heads and reels them in." But Britain's latest serial killer (an evil genius dubbed "Silver Tongue" for his grisly technique and distinctive "calling card") is the worst Red's ever seen, leaving the hardened investigator shaken to his core. While Red and his hand-picked team of detectives concoct half-baked theories and chase shadows, the elusive Silver Tongue taunts them by racking up victims. With no forensic evidence to go on, Red is forced to play an excruciating game of "wait and see" with the killerAsending his personal and professional life into a downward spiral. Starling's debut sustains a sense of fear and uneasiness by seamlessly moving between Red's increasing obsession with the manhunt and his haunting memories of guilt-inducing past misdeeds. When it seems the case is close to resolution, Starling manages to step up the already considerable tension, and the simultaneous story lines dramatically and unexpectedly converge.
------------------------------------
This book is still TBR, so it'll probably be a few months before I send it out. I know this isn't my usual reveal -- I was just given this by giz in the All New To Me Exchange as a book outside my usual reading to try out. I'm really looking forward to trying this highly recommended thriller/SS type book. I hope not everyone has read this already.

My reveal is: Storyville by Lois Battle



Synopsis
New Orleans, turn of the century. Storyville was where prostitution
flourished, legal for nearly twenty years, in a city renowned for sin,
seduction, and sex. In between comes this story of two women inextricably
linked by, as they called it, "the District." Kate, young, beautiful, and
completely green, abandoned by a man who doesn't love her, finds herself
thrown on the mercies of the city. She knows that Mollie Q. - one of
New Orleans's most enterprising madams - is offering the best she's likely
to get. Julia Randsome is a transplanted Yankee - a supporter of women's
rights, who, against everyone's advice, marries into one of the city's most
prominent families. She will discover too late that her husband Charles,
owns considerable property in Storyville - and isn't prepared to give it
up - even for her. Kate and Julia occupy different universes in New Orleans,
but somehow, in that city, all roads lead to the same place - back to the
District. These two women, one a patrician, the other a prostitute, are so
richly drawn, so complicated, that they seem as real as our own families.
You will never forget them - or this novel, the kind of once-in-a lifetime
book that reminds us just how pleasurable reading can be. As lush and
provocative as New Orleans itself, Storyville sweeps across lines of caste
and blood, money and desire - and into the voluptuous secrets of a city as
tempting as any on earth.


-I thought this book was well done, it was one I was always wanting to get
to reading more in.

(my copy has a different cover which I couldn't find a picture of online,
but somehow bookcrossing did, so that is the correct picture on the BCID link)

BCID

KathyB's Reveal



Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan

Advanced Readers Copy - 2008
BCID - http://bookcrossing.com/journal/6311860

An enthralling portrait of one family in the aftermath of a daughter’s disappearance

“It was the summer of her Chevette, of J.P. and letting her hair grow.” It was also the summer when, without warning, popular high school student Kim Larsen disappeared from her small Midwestern town. Her loving parents, her introverted sister, her friends and boyfriend, must now do everything they can to find her. As desperate search parties give way to pleading television appearances, and private investigations yield to personal revelations, we see one town’s intimate struggle to maintain hope, and finally, to live with the unknown.

Stewart O’Nan’s new novel begins with the suspense and pacing of a thriller and soon deepens into an affecting family drama of loss. On the heels of his critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling Last Night at the Lobster, Songs for the Missing is an honest, heartfelt account of one family’s attempt to find their child. With a soulful empathy for these ordinary heroes, O’Nan draws us into the world of this small Midwestern town and allows us to feel a part of this family.

Summerland is a magical place, where the local Little League gathers to play baseball on a perfectly manicured lawn, and the sun is always shining in a flawless blue sky. However, the small beings known as ferishers, who ensure this perfect weather, are threatened by an ancient enemy and need a hero-a baseball star, in fact-to vanquish their foe.

The ferishers recruit Ethan Feld, possibly the worst ballplayer in the history of the league, as their chosen leader. No one is more surprised than Ethan at their choice, but their faith spurs him on.

Accompanied by his determined friend Jennifer T. Rideout and a motley crew of creatures that includes everything from a Sasquatch to a werefox, Ethan struggles to defeat giants, bat-winged goblins, and one of the toughest ball clubs in the realms of magic to save the Summerlands, and, ultimately, the world.

Michael Chabon, one of the most acclaimed storytellers of our time, creates a whole new universe richly drawn from American folklore, with legendary beings, monsters, and mythical creatures inhabiting a magical landscape where the powers of the past and the future, of good and evil, are locked in grand battle.

BC LINKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**NOTE: Edited to fix the linky! ;)

My reveal:



Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler

"The first sentence of Anne Tyler's 15th novel sounds like something out of a fairy tale: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." Alas, this discovery has less to do with magic than with a late-middle-age crisis, which is visited upon Rebecca Davitch in the opening pages of Back When We Were Grownups. At 53, this perpetually agreeable widow is "wide and soft and dimpled, with two short wings of dry, fair hair flaring almost horizontally from a center part." Given her role as the matriarch of a large family--and the proprietress of a party-and-catering concern, the Open Arms--Rebecca is both personally and professionally inclined toward jollity. But at an engagement bash for one of her multiple stepdaughters, she finds herself questioning everything about her life: "How on earth did I get like this? How? How did I ever become this person who's not really me?"
She spends the rest of the novel attempting to answer these questions--and trying to resurrect her older, extinguished self. Should she take up the research she began back in college on Robert E. Lee's motivation for joining the Confederacy? More to the point, should she take up with her college sweetheart, who's now divorced and living within easy striking range? None of these quick fixes pans out exactly as Rebecca imagines. What she emerges with is a kind of radiant resignation, best expressed by 100-year-old Poppy on his birthday: "There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be." A tautology, perhaps, but Tyler's delicate, densely populated novel makes it stick."

GateGypsy's Reveal

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
by John Berendt



This copy is a hardcover.

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Women's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

BCID: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5886072

Xeyra's Reveal

Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri



Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession.

In Lahiri's sympathetic tales, the pang of disappointment turns into a sudden hunger to know more... Lahiri's achievement is something like Twinkle's. She breathes unpredictable life into the page, and the reader finishes each story reseduced, wishing he could spend a whole novel with its characters. There is nothing accidental about her success; her plots are as elegantly constructed as a fine proof in mathematics.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6254701/

Marlene's Reveal
b]An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina [/b]
This book is TBR



For former hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, words are the most powerful weapon in the human arsenal. For good and for evil, as was the case in the spring of 1994 in Rwanda. Over 100 days, some 800,000 people were slaughtered, most hacked to death by machete. Rusesabagina—inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda—used his facility with words and persuasion to save 1,268 of his fellow countrymen, turning the Belgian luxury hotel under his charge into a sanctuary from madness. Through negotiation, favor, flattery and deception, Rusesabagina managed to keep his "guests" alive another day despite the homicidal gangs just beyond the fence and the world's failure to act. Narrator Hoffman delivers those words in a stirring audio performance. With a crisp African accent, Hoffman renders each sentence with heartfelt conviction and flat-out becomes Rusesabagina. The humble hotel manager not only illuminates the machinery behind the genocide but delves into Rwanda's complex and colorful cultural history as well as his own childhood, the son of a Hutu father and Tutsi mother. Hoffman successfully draws out the understated elegance of Rusesabagina's simple and straightforward prose, lending the story added vividness. This tale of good, evil and moral responsibility winds down with Rusesabagina visiting a church outside Kigali where thousands were massacred and where a multilingual sign-cloth now pledges, "Never Again." He once more stops to consider words, the ones he worries lack true conviction like those at the church as well as the ones with the power to heal.

An Ordinary Man JE


OR/AND

Girl in the Cellar: The Natascha Kampusch Story
This book is available



On March 2, 1998, while on her way to school, ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was abducted. More than eight years later, on August 23, 2006, she escaped with a story that shocked and horrified the entire world. She spent the most delicate years of her life hidden in a cellar underneath an ordinary Austrian suburban home. How was she able to survive? What sort of woman had emerged? What kind of man was Wolfgang Priklopil, her abductor—and what demands had he made of her?

As the days and weeks passed, and Natascha's only TV interview failed to quell the world's curiosity, the questions began to multiply: What exactly was the relationship between the abductor and the hostage? Why had Natascha waited so long to make her bid for freedom when it seemed she had earlier opportunities to do so? Did Natascha's parents know Priklopil before he kidnapped their daughter?

Allan Hall and Michael Leidig have covered the story from the first days of the ten-year-old's disappearance, interviewing police investigators, lawyers, psychiatrists, Priklopil's coworkers and the family members closest to Natascha. A work of extraordinary investigative reporting, Girl in the Cellar gets to the heart of this very tragic case to reveal a truth no one would have imagined.

Girl in The Cellar JE

If the one that ends up with my reveal would let me know once the swap is done if they want 1 or both books. Thanks :)

Jordanne's reveal:



The tenth circle - Jodi Picoult



There is more than one way to lose a child.

Daniel Stone had thought it would never happen to him. How could it, when Trixie's face lit up every time she saw him, when for her whole life he'd been the centre of her world? But recently it seems, without him noticing it, his daughter is gone, and in her place is a stranger.

Until the night fourteen-year-old Trixie comes home from a party claiming she was raped, and suddenly she needs him more than ever. Because the whole school knew Jason Underhill broke Trixie's heart, but that doesn't make him a rapist, does it?

For Daniel there is no doubt: his daughter is innocent. He has failed to protect her once. Now he will do anything to save her.

Twiggywig's reveal:



The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook


They're wild,beloved, and all round fabulous, but with the Sweet Potato Queens, there're just never enough times-or enough good eats. Well, now all fabulous women everywhere can have their own mountains of royal fun andfood, because bestselling author and Boss Queen Jill Conner Browne is revealing her big-ass top secret recipes-and the events that inspired them. And, of course she's dishing up plenty of hilarious stories, including:

* Queenly advice in mothering
* The tiniest bit of plastic surgery
* The all-true story of the Cutest Boy in the World...."

The recipe that first caught my eye was:
BITCH MEATBALLS WITH SEXY RED SAUCE...'nuf said...


http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/2729327

Sad Bastard by Hugo Hamilton





From Publishers Weekly (through Amazon.com)
The eponymous antihero of Hamilton's sequel to Headbanger is once again Pat Coyne, a down-and-out Dublin police officer given to paranoid rantings and delusions of grandeur: "He shouted at the radio, railing against corruption as if it affected him personally. Every change in his country, every sign of progress was an assault on his persona." It hasn't been a good year for Coyne: he has been out of work since an injury during a traumatic fire; he's separated from his wife, Carmel, a New Age healer whose affections he desperately wants to win back; and his son, Jimmy, a young man with "a vocation for pure mayhem," is still living with him. Out on a bender one evening, Jimmy inadvertently steals a bag of money from thug Mongi O Doherty, who then kills Coyne's friend Tommy Nolan when he happens upon the scene. Jimmy becomes a suspect in Tommy's murder, but even worse, he's got Mongi on his tail. Plenty of other characters are thrown into the mix, including the bothersome Sergeant Corrigan, who is investigating the murder; Ms. Dunford, Coyne's platitude-spouting therapist; and Corina, a Romanian woman who owes Mongi money and is befriended by Coyne after she is caught shoplifting. For all Coyne's bluster, there is something sad and vulnerable about him; he is reminiscent of a (slightly) more well-adjusted Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, as Roddy Doyle might have imagined him. There are plenty of hilarious scenes in this short novel, and Hamilton ties them together skillfully, but audiences will have more fun tracking Coyne's various tribulations if they first read Headbanger, released in the States earlier this year. (Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.)



So far I’ve enjoyed the book. The beginning is a bit slow and confusing, but you’ll get the (black) humour – the small and bigger absurdities of seemingly mundane situations, and of less frequent ones – once you’ve read past the very beginning. Also, if you’re less than familiar with Ireland, there are a few things that are good to know, for example: Guards, Garda and Gardaí refer to the Police, and professional artists and writers enjoy state sponsorship, such as less taxation.

As said, the book is currently (13 July) still a bit TBR, but I’ll be done in no time (hopefully by the time we start)!
The book's Bookcrossing journal

Cats-eye's reveal:


The Book of Lost Things
By John Connolly




I chose this because it has been one of my favourite reads of the year, and I hope you'll like it! It's a brilliant mix of fairy tale and horror, and it has received 4 out of 5 stars (64 reviews) on Amazon.

Synopsis:

'Once upon a time, there was a boy who lost his mother. As twelve-year-old David takes refuge from his grief in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother, he finds the real world and the fantasy world begin to blend. That is when bad things start to happen. That is when the Crooked Man comes. And David is violently propelled into a land populated by heroes, wolves and monsters, his quest to find the legendary Book of Lost Things.

BC link

Candy's reveal:



This poignant and heart-warming novel tells the story of an old man who disapppears from a geriatric hospital. His wife, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, disappears with him.

A newly qualified doctor has made friends with the couple and decides to try and find them.

Mr Henry Mulligan is an extraordinarily moving novel and is based on a true story.

I've just started reading this and am enjoying it very much.

Camis Reveal

Big Boned by Meg Cabot



Heather should be happy. She's finally got a boyfriend and although he was only supposed to be her "rebound guy", things have gotten serious fast ...She's also actually passing her first college course, and better yet her dad's moving out. On the down side, her boss, Dr. Veatch, may well be the most boring man on the face of the planet ...But that hardly seems reason enough to put a bullet through his head. Can Heather find her boss' murderer, answer Tad's question, and get her landlord Cooper to realize that by letting her go, he's making the biggest mistake of his life, all while maintaining a fifteen hundred calorie per day diet?


NOTE - this book is also known as Size Doesn't Matter

Candy-is-dandy's BC linky of Mr Henry Mulligan

Thank you - I was just about to post it!! :P

Chronicbooker's Reveal



BCID is 495 6261745

When Constance Barrington dies, she leaves behind a wealthy estate and a complex family network. But when the whole family gathers to hear her last will and testament, they are in for a terrible shock. Constance - possessed of a long memory and a spiteful disposition - altered her will shortly before her death. The new provisions are far from fair; some benefit hugely and others hardly at all. Constance's granddaughter, Louise, is bequeathed the copyright for her late grandfather's novels (barely remembered, long-since out of print and valuable only as a reminder of the man she loved). It is a paltry inheritance and one that comes to symbolise the inequity at the heart of the Barrington family. Soon, old family feuds and long-hidden resentments come to the surface - and with them, secrets start to emerge. But it is through Louise's inheritance - those dusty, long-forgotten books - that the most explosive secret of all will come to light, bringing with it a very different future for her and the rest of the family.

Elsi's reveal:

Two by Sandra Dallas


Persian Pickle Club

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5720054

From the back cover:

It is the 1930s, and hard times have hit Harveyville, Kansas, where the crops are burning up and there's not a job to be found. For Queenie Been, a young farm wife, a highlight of each week is the gathering of the Persian Pickle Club, a group of local ladies dedicated to improving their minds, exchanging gossip, and putting their quilting skills to good use. When a new member of the club stirs up a dark secret, the women must band together to support and protect one another. In her magical, memorable novel, Sandra Dallas explores the ties that unite women through good times and bad.




Alice's Tulips

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5720056

From the back cover:

Alice Bullock is a young newlywed whose husband, Charlie, has just joined the Union Army, leaving her on his Iowa farm with only his formidable mother for company. Alice writes lively letters to her sister filled with accounts of local quilting bees, the rigors of farm life, and the customs of small-town America. But no town is too small for intrigue and treachery, and when Alice finds herself accused of murder, she discovers her own hidden strengths. Rich in details of quilting, Civil War-era America, and the realities of a woman's life in the nineteenth century, Alice's Tulips is Sandra Dallas at her best.

My reveal is:

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea



Book Description
An inside peek into a hidden world: four young women navigate
the narrow straits between love, desire and Islamic tradition.
Every week after Friday prayers, an email circulates among a group of
subscribers to a vast online network. Over the course of a year, the
realities of four university students from Riyadh's elite classes, Gamrah,
Michelle, Sadeem and Lamees, are revealed. Living in a society with strict
cultural traditions while Sex and the City, dating and sneaking around
behind their parents backs consume their lives, these four young girls face
numerous social, romantic, professional and sexual tribulations.
Never-ending cultural conflicts underscore the difficulties of being an
educated modern female growing up in the 21st century in a culture firmly
rooted to an ancient way of life.

Girls of Riyadh presents a rare and unforgettable insight into the
complicated lives of these young Saudi women, whose amazing stories are
unfolding in a culture so very different from our own.

Juliakos reveal is:

The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy

>From Amazon



By yingmintp5@yahoo.com (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Bone (Paperback)
The reader is transported into an unfamiliar yet evocative landscape and made to view things through the eyes of elephants. The author has created a fascinating yet believable universe filled with sympathetic creatures with their unique social structure, world view and beliefs, all trying desperately to understand the slaughter of their kind.
'The White Bone' is beautifully written. The language of the animals are a delight to read. Elephants speak in a formal timbre, birds of prey are taciturn and aloof, mangooses twitter repetitively. The elephants call snakes 'flow sticks', the ostrich is a 'big fly', the zebra is called 'ribs' (because in an earlier incarnation its skeleton covered its flesh), 'rouge's web' are wire fences put up by humans and the helicopters used to hunt them are 'roar flies' .

Not a simple act of creativity, the author based her book on work done by animal behaviourists, showing how elephants are intelligent creatures, how they live in matriarchal groups, how they communicate, how they mourn their dead, etc.

If the tragedy of the elephants do not move you, nothing will. Highly recommended.

Krin511's reveal

Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh (TBR)


"Capturing the mood of William Golding's haunting medieval love story, The Spire, Knowledge Of Angels is a suspenseful fable set on a mythical island in the time of the Inquisition, a time of unquestionable and unquestioned faith and unmerciful justice. The fable spins a tale of two outcasts: a wild, flesh-eating wolf child and a foreign prince, captured separately and taken to the cardinal prince of the island. The wolf girl is remanded to a nunnery, where her caretakers are ordered to teach her to speak but not to speak of God, so that the cardinal can ask her if God exists. On her answer depends the life of the heretic prince, condemned because he does not believe in God. The federal creature and the elegant paladin are used as pawns by the town's religious council to answer the question of whether or not believing in God is an inherent part of being human."

BC URL: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5733418