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Posts Tagged ‘Book Suggestions’

Free Book Friday – A Separation

Friday, September 13th, 2019

 

A Separation by Katie Kitamura

 

A mesmerizing, psychologically taut novel about a marriage’s end and the secrets we all carry. —— A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it’s time for them to separate. For the moment it’s a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, she gets word that Christopher has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged south of Greece; she reluctantly agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she’s not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild landscape, she traces the disintegration of their relationship, and discovers she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love.
A story of intimacy and infidelity, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create for ourselves. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting stylistic masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.
 

ISBN 9780399576102, Hardcover

There are currently 88 Members Wishing for this book.

1 lucky member will win a brand-new copy.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this Blog post. You must be a PaperBackSwap member in good standing to win.

We will choose 1 winner at random from comments we receive here on the Blog from PBS members.

You have until Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12 noon ET, to leave a comment.

Good Luck to everyone!

 

Note: All the books given away on Free Book Friday are available in the PBS Market. We have thousands of new and new overstock titles available right now, with more added hourly. Some of the prices are amazing – and you can use a PBS credit to make the deal even better!

 

 

 

Winner! Free Book Friday Winner!

Monday, September 9th, 2019

 

 

The Winner of the Brand-New Copy of

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

by Susan Jane Gilman

is:

Eta K. (busyreading)

 

Congratulations! Your Book will be on the way to you soon!

Thank you to everyone who entered!

 

 

And, if you would like to own a copy of this book, or any of thousands of other titles, you can find great books for great prices in the PBS Market.  Here is the link: PBS Market.

 

 

 

 

Free Book Friday – The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

Friday, September 6th, 2019

 

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

by Susan Jane Gilman

Now in paperback, bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman’s IndieNext Pick novel about an immigrant girl’s transformation into an indomitable businesswoman in early 20th century New York. — As a child in 1913, Malka Treynovsky flees Russia for New York with her family–only to be crippled and abandoned in the streets. Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, Malka survives. When she falls in love with Albert, they set off together across America in an ice cream truck to seek their fortune; slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, “The Ice Cream Queen of America”–doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality.

Spanning 70 years, Lillian’s rise–fraught with setbacks, triumphs, and tragedies–is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. And when her past starts catching up with her, her world implodes spectacularly.

ISBN 9780446696944, PaperBack

There are currently 11 Members Wishing for this book.

1 lucky member will win a brand-new copy.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this Blog post. You must be a PaperBackSwap member in good standing to win.

We will choose 1 winner at random from comments we receive here on the Blog from PBS members.

You have until Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12 noon ET, to leave a comment.

Good Luck to everyone!

 

Note: All the books given away on Free Book Friday are available in the PBS Market. We have thousands of new and new overstock titles available right now, with more added hourly. Some of the prices are amazing – and you can use a PBS credit to make the deal even better!

 

 

 

 

 

Free Book Friday Winner!

Sunday, September 1st, 2019

The Winner of the Brand-New Copy of

& Sons by David Gilbert is:

 

 

Raymond Z.

 

Congratulations! Your Book will be on the way to you soon!

 

Thank you to everyone who entered!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery Monday Review – The Devil’s Disciple

Monday, August 12th, 2019

The Devil’s Disciple by Shiro Hamao

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This fictional work consists of two interesting stories that abound in mystery, murder and uncertainty. Nothing is what it seems. Hamao thinks the fact that motives are often impossible to identify limits our ability to a judge anybody with total confidence. In both of these dark short stories in the crime fiction genre, he presents first-person narratives of why a perp did what he did.

Writing between the wars in what the Japanese call the Taisho Era, Hamao was one of the first Japanese writers of modern detective fiction with elements of the police procedural. He covers the discovery of the crime and the processing of suspects in custody and charging them in court. He is blunt about the Japanese police using psychological coercion and violence to extract confessions, false and not.

Japanese critics say that Hamao was influenced by S. S. Van Dine. Perhaps. In both stories, the setting is the upper crust of Tokyo society. We see that Japanese millionaires don’t behave any better than they ought, just like our home-grown rich. Plus, the story is told from multiple points of view, one of which is a defense lawyer who brings logical reasoning to develop alternative theories as to whodunnit. Finally, one victim in the second story was just as arrogant and in as much need of a good kick in the pants as Philo Vance.

But there the cozyish atmosphere ends with these superficial resemblances. These stories include adultery, sado-masochistic sex, and passion gone dark and consuming. It also deals with intense male-male friendships that we see in Japanese fiction like Mishima’s The Mask. Plus, there is uneasiness about unbridled female sexuality as we read about in Tanizaki’s Naomi, written in the same era. Readers into Japan will like how motive is influenced by living in an honor-bound culture, but no anthropological knowledge of Japan is in fact required. Readers who like Erle Stanley Gardner’s shots at the shortcomings of the criminal justice system will see that Hamao is Gardner’s counterpart. I think if a reader of exotic crime fiction is in the mood for pulpy grotesquery, this is the ticket.

Hamao was a viscount. Despite his aristocratic origins, he was a brilliant student and took up law as a career. He became a prosecutor, but when he saw there was money in fiction-writing (newspapers would pay for serials), he became a full-time author. He brought a deep legal knowledge and extensive experience with people from all walks of life to his fiction. His health was delicate, however, and he died when he was only 40 years of age in 1935.

 

 

 

 

 

Free Book Friday Winner!

Sunday, August 11th, 2019

The Winner of the Brand-New Copy of

A Place Called Winter
by Patrick Gale is:

 

Christi T. (Christi)

 

Congratulations! Your Book will be on the way to you soon!

 

Thank you to everyone who entered!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Book Friday!

Friday, August 9th, 2019

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

A privileged elder son, and stammeringly shy, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of his muted existence – until the shock of discovery and the threat of arrest cost him everything. — Forced to abandon his wife and child, Harry signs up for emigration to the newly colonised Canadian prairies. Remote and unforgiving, his allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the golden suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before.
In this exquisite journey of self-discovery, loosely based on a real life family mystery, Patrick Gale has created an epic, intimate human drama, both brutal and breathtaking. It is a novel of secrets, sexuality and, ultimately, of great love.

 

ISBN 9781455594085, Paperback

There are currently  3 Members Wishing for this book.

1 lucky member will win a brand-new copy.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this Blog post. You must be a PaperBackSwap member in good standing to win.

We will choose 1 winner at random from comments we receive here on the Blog from PBS members.

You have until Sunday, August 11, 2019 at 12 noon ET, to leave a comment.

Good Luck to everyone!

 

Note: All the books given away on Free Book Friday are available in the PBS Market. We have thousands of new and new overstock titles available right now, with more added hourly. Some of the prices are amazing – and you can use a PBS credit to make the deal even better!