First up are two copies of Rachel Simmon’s The Curse of the Good Girl (my review).  A copy of this smart and practical book will be going to:

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Next is an MP3 Audio [...]]]> I’ve had several giveaways running over the past week or so; here, in a combined post, I’ll announce the winners:

First up are two copies of Rachel Simmon’s The Curse of the Good Girl (my review).  A copy of this smart and practical book will be going to:

• #6 - Sandy
• #14 – amandasue

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Next is an MP3 Audio of Thomas N. DeWolf’s Inheriting the Trade.  Tom DeWolf’s guest post tells why his topic is especially important for our time.  The audio is going to:

• #7 – Belinda M

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In honor of BBAW we had five signed copies of Michael Greenberg’s memoir Hurry Down Sunshine.  Four will be shipped in the US/Canada to:

• #4 – Rebecca S. Cox
• #7 – Sue
• #18 – Julie
• #24 – Karen Haney

and one copy is heading internationally to:

• #29 – Violet (I’m sending this one to India)

Congratulations to all the winners!  Please send me your mailing address so we can get your prizes out to you.

Great news!  I can offer SIGNED copies of the paperback to FIVE readers who [...]]]> I loved Michael Greenberg’s memoir, a sensitive portrait of his daughter’s manic breakdown.  Last year I read and reviewed Hurry Down Sunshine, and in my recent review of Beg, Borrow, Steal I mentioned that the book has just been published in paperback.

Great news!  I can offer SIGNED copies of the paperback to FIVE readers who visit during Book Blogger Appreciation Week!

To enter, simply leave a comment below, with your contact information.  Indicate whether your mailing address is “US/Canada” or “International” (anyplace else!). Four books will ship from the publicist to US/Canadian addresses, and I’ll send one copy anywhere outside the US/Canada.  We want to include the international book bloggers as much as possible!

Entries will be open until noon EST on Thursday, September 17.

9/20/09: winners announced!
Four will be shipped in the US/Canada to:

* #4 – Rebecca S. Cox
* #7 – Sue
* #18 – Julie
* #24 – Karen Haney

and one copy is heading internationally to:

* #29 – Violet (I’m sending this one to India)

From Marie, the Boston Bibliophile:  Early Reviewers- do you participate? How many books (approximately) have you received through the program? Have you liked them generally? What’s your favorite ER book? Do you participate in the discussion group on LT?

I joined LibraryThing on April 1 of this year, just about six months ago.  After entering a [...]]]>

From Marie, the Boston Bibliophile:  Early Reviewers- do you participate? How many books (approximately) have you received through the program? Have you liked them generally? What’s your favorite ER book? Do you participate in the discussion group on LT?

I joined LibraryThing on April 1 of this year, just about six months ago.  After entering a few dozen books and poking around a bit I discovered the Early Reviewers program and promptly signed up.  I have been very fortunate that the “mighty algorithm” likes my library … or maybe it’s all the cheese I FedEx to Abby (kidding!)!  Here are my matches, with links to my reviews.

• April 2008:  Love You To Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs
• April 2008 bonus batch:  The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler
• May 2008:  The Genizah at the House of Shepher by Tamar Yellin
• June 2008:  What We All Long For by Dionne Brand
• July 2008:  Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg
• September 2008:  Serfitt and Cloye Gift Catalog by Bob Woodiwiss (not yet received)

Yes, I’ve liked them generally.  The Genizah at the House of Shepher was my favorite work of fiction from the group, and I co-hosted a giveaway for three copies of the book (provided by the publisher).  The author has an engaging writing style – storytelling, narrative, going back-and-forth in time …  I can see this being made into a movie.

Hurry Down Sunshine was another favorite, a memoir of a father’s experience when his daughter “loses it” to mental illness and their journey toward coping.  I would love to interview Michael Greenberg, but haven’t been able to find a contact for him.

I participate in a few forums: Tuesday Thingers (of course!),  Early Reviewers (of course, again!), BN First Look, and ARC Junkies.  An Early Reviewers thread grew into the ARC Junkies group,a “support group” for those of us who just can’t get enough; I feel “at home” surrounded by other junkies there!

Hurry Down Sunshine is Michael Greenberg’s candid memoir of the summer of 1996, the summer his 15-year-old daughter, Sally, suffered a manic breakdown that left her hospitalized for several weeks, and medicated for years.  It is a vivid portrayal of a [...]]]>

Hurry Down Sunshine is Michael Greenberg’s candid memoir of the summer of 1996, the summer his 15-year-old daughter, Sally, suffered a manic breakdown that left her hospitalized for several weeks, and medicated for years.  It is a vivid portrayal of a father watching his child struggle against the inner turmoil that has a hold on her.  As a parent, I found it difficult to read – we all want to protect our children from any kind of “monster”;  yet it was also compelling -  I felt Greenberg’s compassion for Sally, and pieces of her brilliance shone through. 

As Greenberg describes it, Sally is his bright beautiful daughter one day, and a complete stranger the next.  Convinced that she has uncharacteristically experimented with drugs, he tries to wait out the madness; soon, with the encouragement of his wife, Pat, Greenberg accepts that they need professional help to deal with Sally’s crisis.  The reader follows their heart-wrenching journey through the next few months, guided by the author’s honest and descriptive prose.

Throughout most of the book, Greenberg uses long narrative passages which flow smoothly in the present tense, as the hot sticky Manhattan summer trudges along outside the doors of the psychiatric hospital.  His experience as a freelance writer and widely-published essayist are reflected in this polished style.  A few passages reflect a more urgent telling - at one point the family becomes “initiates to [the psych ward's] tacit code of behavior and arcane ways”; Greenberg lists them in a quick staccato burst:

Keep your empathies to yourself.  Avoid eye contact with patients.  Never argue.  Resist overidentifying with others, and maintain the illusion of privacy with fellow visitors as you would with picnickers on separate blankets in a crowded park.  Make friends with members of the staff, if possible, and expect nothing in the way of reassurance from them in return.

The author writes of his marriage to Sally’s step-mother, “we have been married for two years and our life together is still emerging from under the weight of the separate worlds each of us brought along.”  That weight, in his case, includes not only Sally and her illness, but also Greenberg’s older brother for whom he acts as guardian and caretaker, awkward interactions between Pat and Robin (Greenberg’s former wife), financial strain, and an uncertain living arrangement.

Greenberg is distressed, yet as supportive as he knows how to be, and surprisingly doesn’t show anger.  He remembers to bring special treats to Sally, artichokes and chocolates, although he is almost paralyzed at the newsstand, overwhelmed by the magazine choices and wondering if any of the cover articles would spark a reaction from her.  Greenberg keeps up a steady stream of positive hope, despite the weight of the situation; day after day he waits with family in the visitors’ lounge, hoping that Sally will emerge from the ward and sit with them, “when I question why we’re sitting here without her, I tell myself: If we weren’t waiting for her to come back to us, she would lose the sense that there was a point of return.”

The memoir is divided into three parts, breaking at each major turning point over the summer.  The tone stays the same throughout – bewildered and cautiously optimistic.  The author does an excellent job telling his experience; he makes no attempt to get inside Sally’s head and make her story his own.  It is a tale that leaves you rooting for the best for each member of the family, yet knowing that there are rarely fairy-tale endings in real life.

Click here to read the first ten pages of Hurry Down Sunshine.  This linkwill take you to a short and haunting video presentation in which Greenberg describes the genesis of Sally’s breakdown and his compulsion to write about it (scroll down, the video box is on the left, just under the product listing).  Click here to order the book from amazon.com, or click here to order from your local IndieBound independent bookseller.

I received my review copy of Hurry Down Sunshine courtesy of Other Press LLC and LibraryThing.

The LibraryThing Early Reviewers’ mighty algorithm matched me with Hurry Down Sunshineby Michael Greenberg.  The book will be published in September, so look for my review at the end of this month.  Here’s a product description:  Hurry Down [...]]]> MizB over at Should Be Reading asks what books have come into our lives this week, here’s my list:

The LibraryThing Early Reviewers’ mighty algorithm matched me with Hurry Down Sunshineby Michael Greenberg.  The book will be published in September, so look for my review at the end of this month.  Here’s a product description:  Hurry Down Sunshine tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Michael Greenberg’s daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally’s visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city’s most sweltering months. “I feel like I’m traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,” Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her–her brother and grandmother, her mother and stepmother, and, not least of all, the author himself. Among Greenberg’s unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary dreams. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine holds the reader in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent.

I was asked to review The Smart One by Ellen Meister for an author tour with Blog Stop Tours.  This will be available for sale the middle of next week, on August 5, so some of you may be enjoying the book at the same as I.  Ms. Meister’s stop at She Is Too Fond of Books will be August 29.  A synopsis of The Smart One: Bev is the Smart One, who finally leaves her artistic ambitions in chalk dust (and her humor-impaired husband in the arms—and legs—of his nubile protégée) to become a schoolteacher. Clare is the Pretty One, who married well and seems to be living a designer version of the suburban dream. Joey is the Wild One, struggling to stay clean and sober now that she’s used up her fifteen minutes of fame as a one-hit-wonder rock star. They love each other but mix like oil, water, and hundred-proof gin . . . a combination that threatens to combust over family tensions, suspected infidelities, a devastating accident, a stunning confession, and the sudden reappearance of their handsome, now all-grown-up former neighbor, Kenny Waxman, who’s back in town making his mark as a TV comedy writer.  It seems they’ll never understand where their differences begin and their own destructive tendencies end. Then it happens: the sisters discover a decades-old body stuffed inside an industrial drum and begin a bold, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious journey that will either bring them together . . . or tear them apart for good.

And, I received a book that I won in a trivia contest sponsored by the author and her publisher!  I was excited to find an international mailing envelope from Susan Ronald, with her book, The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire.  This came out in paperback at the end of June.  The product description:  Dubbed the “pirate queen” by the Vatican and Spain’s Philip II, Elizabeth I was feared and admired by her enemies. Extravagant, whimsical, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the epitome of power. Her visionary accomplishments were made possible by her daring merchants, gifted rapscallion adventurers, astronomer philosophers, and her stalwart Privy Council, including Sir William Cecil, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Nicholas Bacon. All these men contributed their vast genius, power, greed, and expertise to the advancement of England.  In The Pirate Queen, historian Susan Ronald offers a fresh look at Elizabeth I, focusing on her uncanny instinct for financial survival and the superior intellect that propelled and sustained her rise. The foundation of Elizabeth’s empire was built on a carefully choreographed strategy whereby piracy transformed England from an impoverished state on the fringes of Europe into the first building block of an empire that covered two-fifths of the world.  Based on a wealth of historical sources and thousands of personal letters between Elizabeth and her merchant adventurers, advisers, and royal “cousins,” The Pirate Queen tells the thrilling story of Elizabeth and the swashbuckling mariners who terrorized the seas, planted the seedlings of an empire, and amassed great wealth for themselves and the Crown.

Have any of you read The Pirate Queen?  Is The Smart One on your list to pick up next week?  How about Hurry Down Sunshine?  I love the variety this week – memoir, fiction, and history!