Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

Three very different books came into my house last week:



Baker's Blues by Judith Ryan Hendricks. This is the third book in Hendrick’s Bread Alone Trilogy. Now I want to make a weekend project of reading all three of them.



Singing with the Sirens: Overcoming the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Sexual Exploitation by Ellyn Roberts Bell and Stacey Ault Bell, published by She Writes Press. The authors address the long term complex trauma that results from the sexual abuse and exploitation of girls and young women.

In my law practice, I work with adults who were sexually abused as children, so I want to read this to see if I can recommend it to some of my women clients.



Hiroshima and Nagasaki: An Illustrated History, Anthology, and Guide by Magnus Bartlett and Robert O'Connor, published by Odyssey Books & Maps.

This is definitely the "unique and eclectic book" it promises on the back cover, with a breadth of information on these twin cities, beginning with ancient Japan, through the WWII bombings, to a guide for modern visitors. It is packed with art reproductions, photos, illustrations, unusual graphics, maps, historical documents, essays, and quotes.

Book Beginning: Landfall by Ellen Urbani

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

For nearly nineteen years, Rose lived with a woman she barely knew.

-- Landfall by Ellen Urbani, published by Forest Avenue Press. Hurricane Katrina brings the lives of two mothers and their teenage daughters together, first in a fatal car crash, then as the survivors battle the rising flood in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Landfall is a stunning debut that has people talking already. Urbani is on an ambitious book tour for the next three months. Check the schedule to see if she will be in your area soon.

Teaser Tuesday: Building a Better Nest

I do believe in living in the moment, as in being attentive, awake, grateful for what is here, today. The moment, after all, is the only place we can live.

-- Building a Better Nest: Living Lightly at Home and in the World by Evelyn Searle Hess, author of To the Woods.

After living for 15 years in a tent and trailer in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range, Hess and her husband built a real house on their 20 acres. But they wanted their "better nest" to be off-grid, sustainable, and reflect the personal and community values they had developed during their years of camping life.

Building a Better Nest is available from Powell's, on kindle from Amazon, at OSU Press, or ask your local bookseller to order it!

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Jenn at A Daily Rhythm, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday: Landfall and Exit Wounds

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

Two books came into my house last week:



Landfall by Ellen Urbani, published by Forest Avenue Press. This novel set during Hurricane Katrina just came out last week and is generating a lot of buzz. People are crazy for it.



Exit Wounds: Soldiers' Stories Life After Iraq and Afghanistan by Jim Lommasson, published by Schiffer Publishing. This is the book that grew out of a collaborative photo and oral history project about the trials of homecoming coordinated between Lommasson and returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. It's powerful stuff.

What Are They Reading? The View from Castle Rock

Authors tend to be readers, so it is natural for them to create characters who like to read. It is always interesting to me to read what books the characters are reading in the books I read. Even if I can't say that ten times fast.

Usually, the characters' choice of books reflects the author's tastes or, I sometimes think, what the author was reading at the time. But sometimes the character's reading material is a clue to the character's personality, or is even a part of the story.

This is an occasional blog event. If anyone wants to join in, feel free to leave a comment with a link to your related post. And feel free to use the button. If this catches on, I can pick a day and make it a weekly event.

THE VIEW FROM CASTLE ROCK BY ALICE MUNRO

Munro may convert me to a short story fan, I enjoyed this collection so much. The View from Castle Rock is a later collection of her stories, more autobiographical than most, even drawing on primary source material from some of Munro's immigrant forebearers.

One of my favorite stories is "The Hired Girl" about a teen-age girl from a small rural Canadian town who gets a job working for a family at their summer house on an island in Georgian Bay because "Mrs. Montjoy needed a country girl for the summer who was trained to do housework."

I love the story for nailing the excruciating awkwardness of first teenage jobs, especially for a bookish, unsocial girl too trapped in her own head to read the people around her. Elsa feels intellectually superior to her boss because she recognizes that the island is named for Nausicaa, a princess in Ulysses, not a character from Shakespeare as Mrs. Montjoy tells her. Elsa tries to establish their social equality from the get go by immediately announcing that, back home, they refer to the maids as hired girls, which Mrs. Montjoy simply ignores. There is a steady conflict between Elsa never admitting she is a servant and Mrs. Montjoy so absorbed with her own concerns to think of Elsa as anything but, and a temporary one at that.

Cutting across the tension in the story is Mr. Montjoy, who only shows up on weekends and spends most of them drinking and reading in the library. He is the only adult who treats Elsa more as an equal. When they first meet, he is reading Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dineson. He later gives her the book as a going away present. I hope Elsa accepted it as a sign that she would be one of the grown ups eventually.