Who is Too Fond of Books? I’m Dawn, welcome to my book blog's page for giveaways and product reviews!
When you're done here, please return to the main She is Too Fond of Books website
If you’d like to respond to something written here, start a conversation, or want to get in touch about scheduling a giveaway, product review, etc., please leave a comment on any post, or send me an e-mail.
Shop: She is Too Fond of Books may earn a small commission through these Affiliate links.
|
 Congratulations to Lucky #13, Trudi, who won the drawing for Krys Lee’s Drifting House!
Trudi, I hope you enjoy this short fiction collection.
I’m a huge fan of short fiction, and really appreciate the satisfaction a good story can give in just one sitting (we don’t always have time to sit and read for hours!).
Recently, Krys Lee’s Drifting House came to my attention. Lee is a Seoul-based author whose stories are set in Korea and the US; her work “explores love, identity, war, and the homes we make for ourselves.” Here’s the publishers synopsis of Drifting House:
Lee portrays nuanced, haunting characters struggling with war, religion, and the secrets and complexities of damaged families. She illuminates the difficulties of living an unmoored existence in America and she traverses the collective sorrow brought on by a legacy of political strife. Weaving intricate tales of family and love, abandonment and loss, in Korea and the US, Lee’s deeply moving stories are about people whose lives are threatened by civil war, military dictatorships, and the psychological fallout that tore Korea apart for decades.
In the title story, “Drifting House,” children escaping famine in North Korea are forced to make unthinkable sacrifices to survive. In “The Salaryman” a middle class, middle-aged man toils in the wake of South Korea’s financial crisis, and in “The Goose Father” a man deserted by his family stumbles upon love unexpectedly. “A Small Sorrow” tells of the confidence and inspiration to control her life that a painter gains after striking up a friendship with one of her husband’s many lovers.
In America, the stories are set against the backdrop of the cramped, shared apartments and vacant strip malls of Koreatowns, where makeshift families are cobbled together from fragmented pasts to forge new identities.
In turns tragic, powerful, and hopeful, Drifting House is a collection that will linger with you long after you have finished reading it.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? The settings, the struggles … the favorable comparisons to Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies …
The publisher, Viking/Penguin, has generously offered one giveaway copy to a lucky reader of She Is Too Fond of Books. To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below; this post will be open for entries until midnight ET on Thursday, February 9, at which time a winner will be drawn at random. Open to US/Canada mailing addresses only.
 Thanks to all who entered the giveaway for Taylor M. Polites’ The Rebel Wife … and for the many suggestions of books with Southern settings.
I’ve selected three winners at random, they are:
- #7 – Sherrie Gil - I love also Fried Green Tomatoes and Driving Miss Daisy
- #12 – Sue Rice - I have loved GWTW since I was 11 years old. Also, I was thrilled to see Thane’s Yankee Stranger; I own the whole series from Revolutionary War thru WWII
- #16 – Cilla - How about “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, use of her (Henrietta’s) cells (called HELA) after her death, unknown to her family, to great advantage to health fields and pharmaceutical industry? And obviously “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett
Yahoo to each of you! You’ll now add The Rebel Wife to your collection of great books set in the south!
Please email me with your US/Canada mailing address, and I’ll pass them along to the publisher who will send the books your way. Thanks, Simon & Schuster!
Brimming with atmosphere and edgy suspense, The Rebel Wife presents a young widow trying to survive in the violent world of Reconstruction Alabama, where the old gentility masks a continuing war fueled by hatred, treachery, and still-powerful secrets.
Allow me to introduce you to Taylor M. Polites and The Rebel Wife:
In this novel, set in Reconstruction Alabama, Augusta “Gus” Branson is a young widow whose quest for freedom turns into a race for her life when her husband Eli dies of a swift and horrifying fever and a large package of money – her only inheritance and means of survival – goes missing. Gus begins to wake to the realities that surround her: the social stigma her marriage has stained her with, what her husband did to earn his fortune, the shifting and very dangerous political and social landscape that is being destroyed by violence between the Klan and the Freeman’s Bureau, and the deadly fever that is spreading like wildfire. Nothing is as she believed, and everyone she trusts is hiding something from her.
Readers will find tattered fragments of Gone with the Wind, and meet completely subverted versions of the white Southern Gentleman, the good Mammy, the conniving Scalawag, and the defenseless Southern Belle.
Author Taylor M. Polites was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the basis for the town of Albion in this book, and has been researching this novel since he was a teen. He became obsessed with the Southern experience during the Civil War – reading diaries, memoirs, and letters from that time – and ultimately imagined and mapped out the town of Albion, much like William Faulkner created his Yoknapatawpha County.
The publisher, Simon & Schuster, has generously offered THREE copies of The Rebel Wife to be shared with readers of She Is Too Fond of Books. To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below, indicating one novel (or work of nonfiction) set in the South, that you have enjoyed. This post will be open for entries until midnight ET on Thursday, January 26, 2012. Winners will be selected at random; giveaway open to US/Canada mailing addresses only.
Random.org has spoken …
Congratulations to Teri B, winner of The CHICK-tionary by Anna Lefler! Teri will soon be able to converse with all the hottest lingo and catch-phrases of the day … hip to everything “From A-Line to Z-Snap, the Words Every Woman Should Know.”
Did you read Anna Lefler’s recent Spotlight on Bookstores post? It was in memoriam to Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore, which closed in 2008. While this post was a serious piece, an ode to a “gone but not forgotten” neighborhood bookstore, Anna Lefler has a funny side, too. A very funny side!
Her The CHICKtionary: From A-Line to Z-Snap, the Words Every Woman Should Know was published last month. A few sample entries:
- Aberzombie: Derived from the name of the popular clothing stores, Aberzombie refers to any of the nation of plaid shirt-and-tank-top-wearing undead that can be seen staggering through the food courts of malls across America.
- Bandeau: From the French word meaning “there’s no way that’s staying up,” this is a type of woman’s top that consists of a strip of fabric encircling the chest at breast level and remaining aloft through snugness and prayers.
- George Glass: Originally invented by Jan on The Brady Bunch after “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” won yet another boy’s heart, “George Glass” is now the generic term for an imaginary boyfriend. It is most often invoked in an effort to hide the fact that you are single or currently sleeping with someone else’s husband.
As the mother of a 15-year-old, I’m too well acquainted with Aberzombies; as a 40-something who is way past her Victoria’s Secrets days, I wear bandeaus more like belts these days; and as a child of the 70s, I got the George Glass reference immediately (and started thinking “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” and humming “When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange …”)
Anyhoooo ….
As part of her TLC Book Tour, the author and her publisher are offering a copy of The CHICKtionary to one lucky reader of She Is Too Fond of Books.To enter the random drawing, simply leave a comment below. If you have a fun/funny definition you’d like to share, please do (but it’s not required). This post will be open for entrants until midnight ET on Thursday, December 22, with the winner announced on or about December 23. Giveaway is open to US/Canada mailing addresses only, no PO Boxes.
 I’ve enlisted the aid of random.org to select the winner of Erin Blakemore’s The Heroine’s Bookshelf.
Congratulations to Kathy at Bermudaonion, lucky #1, who said:
I was trying to hold off coming over here, so I wouldn’t be #1 since we all know #1 never wins. Oh well. I’m going to go with Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird.
Ha! Well, #1 is the winner this time, Kathy! Enjoy the book, and, yes, Scout is featured prominently!
I’m so pleased that The Heroine’s Bookshelf is out in paperback in time for holiday giving; it’s the perfect book to share with women in a book group, your sister, mother, or best friend.
Here’s the publisher’s description:
Jo March, Scarlett O’Hara, Scout Finch—the literary canon is brimming with intelligent, feisty, never-say-die heroines and celebrated female authors. They placed a premium on personality, spirituality, career, sisterhood, and family, not unlike women of today. When they were up against the wall, authors like Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott fought back—sometimes with words, sometimes with gritty actions.
Witty, informative, and inspiring—full of beloved heroines and the remarkable writers who created them—The Heroine’s Bookshelf explores how the pluck and dignity of literary characters such as Jane Eyre and Lizzy Bennet can encourage modern women, showing them how to tap into their inner strengths and live life with intelligence and grace. From Zora Neale Hurston to Colette, Laura Ingalls Wilder to Charlotte BrontË, Harper Lee to Alice Walker, here are authors whose spirited stories and characters are more inspiring today than ever.
To enter the giveaway for The Heroine’s Bookshelf, simply leave a comment below, telling me who one of your literary heroines is. Giveaway will be open for entries until midnight ET on Thursday, December 8, with the winner selected in a random drawing and announced on December 9. Giveaway is open to US/Canada mailing addresses only.
Thanks to author Erin Blakemore for providing the book for the winner!
 I used random.org to select a winner from among those who entered this giveaway.
Congratulations to lucky #2, Teri B!
Teri, please email me with your full name and address, and I’ll pass it along to TLC Book Tours.
Did you read this thoughtful post about Hole in the Wall Bookstore, in which author Ann Weisgarber praises this special indie near Mount Rushmore for not only its unique setting and theme, but also the large selection of local (western-based) books? Ann spent a lot of time in this part of the country while researching her novel, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree; here’s a synopsis:
An award-winning novel with incredible heart, about life on the prairie as it’s rarely been seen.
When Rachel, hired help in a Chicago boardinghouse, falls in love with Isaac, the boardinghouse owner’s son, he makes her a bargain: he’ll marry her, but only if she gives up her 160 acres from the Homestead Act so he can double his share. She agrees, and together they stake their claim in the forebodingly beautiful South Dakota Badlands.
Fourteen years later, in the summer of 1917, the cattle are bellowing with thirst. It hasn’t rained in months, and supplies have dwindled. Pregnant, and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but she knows that her husband, a fiercely proud former Buffalo Soldier, will never leave his ranch: black families are rare in the West, and land means a measure of equality with the white man. Somehow Rachel must find the strength to do what is right-for herself, and for her children.
Reminiscent of The Color Purple as well as the frontier novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree opens a window on the little-known history of African American homesteaders and gives voice to an extraordinary heroine who embodies the spirit that built America.
Can you imagine? Those women (and men!) of the frontier really were isolated – the racial divide made life even more challenging for Rachel and her family.
As part of Ann Weisgarber’s blog tour with TLC Book Tours, the publisher is offering a copy of The Personal History of Rachel DuPree to one lucky reader of She Is Too Fond of Books; simply leave a comment below to enter. Giveaway will be open for entries until midnight on Saturday, November 26, and the winner drawn randomly and announced on Sunday, November 27. Giveaway is limited to US/Canada addresses only, no PO Boxes, please.
|
Giveaway guidelines: Read each giveaway offer for specifics.
Names of winners are posted when indicated, both in the original giveaway post and a "winners!" announcement at the end of the giveaway period.
It is the responsibility of the winner to contact She is Too Fond of Books to claim prize within the specified time period.
You may wish to subscribe to She is Too Fond of Books via RSS or email in order to not miss a giveaway or "winners!" announcement.
|
Congratulations to Lucky #13, Trudi, who won the drawing for Krys Lee’s Drifting House!
