Fifteen year old Bee is wise beyond her years and when she scores exceptional grades in school, her parents promise her a trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette, Bee’s mom, is far from your average mother. Once a famous architect in Los Angeles, she now struggles to fit in with the super mothers in the elite Seattle, Washington area. When she disappears only days before Christmas, she leaves behind a guilty husband and a questioning daughter who will go to any extreme to find out what happened to Bernadette. Bee begins to piece together school memos, email messages, newspaper interviews and bits of “evidence” in the days leading up to Bernadette’s disappearance. The result?  A wildly entertaining, sometimes poignant, and often hilarious story about parenting in the 21st century, religion, American culture and finding oneself in the process.

Maria Semple is very funny. Her novel is often bitingly sarcastic as she skewers the superficiality of elitism. Semple has written for the television series Mad About You and also Ellen…and her ability to write satire is unparalleled. I found myself literally laughing out loud at the situations in which Semple’s characters find themselves. The book pokes fun at the green movement, private school parents (and the administrators of those schools), and corporate America, while delivering a tale about the relationship between mother and daughter.

One of the themes of the novel is identity – specifically Bernadette’s identity of artist which becomes lost amid her role as wife and mother. One character from Bernadette’s past observes:

If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.

That observation is prophetic and it is this idea of being true to oneself which ultimately drives the narrative in this delightful book.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette delivers on many levels: great characters, an original plot, and a witty format. Short listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year, it also demonstrates that smart women’s fiction has found its way into the literary circles.

Readers who are looking for humor, great writing, originality and ultimately characters who touch their hearts, need look no further.

Highly recommended.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
Publisher: Hogarth (May 7, 2013)
Hardcover: 400 pages

Thanks to all who entered to win a copy of this fabulous book…but there can only be one winner and I used Random.org to choose them. Congratulations to:

SERENA @ Savvy Verse and Wit

I’m sending you an email, Serena, to confirm your mailing address.

For those of you who did not win a copy, I do hope you’ll still find a copy of the novel somewhere – it is such a great book that I want everyone to read it!

The year is 1924 and sixteen year old Emma wakes one night in War, West Virginia with coal dust in the air. A train has overturned and spilled coal over the porch of her home. Caleb Sypher, a railroad man who is many years older than Emma, helps to dig her and her family out. A week later Emma marries Caleb who takes her far from her childhood home to the mountains of Virginia and 46 acres of pristine wilderness. Over the next several decades, Emma and Caleb’s family live their lives against the backdrop of stunning scenery. They have babies, and struggle against poverty and unimaginable losses. They despair over unfaithfulness and mourn when illness strikes. And they find the simple joy in the freedom of wild horses, the leaping of trout from a cold mountain river, and the breathtaking beauty of colorful wildflowers. Sometimes they leave, but they always return, anchored to the land which they call home.

In The Garden of Stone is a multi-generational novel about the power of family and what it means to be a part of the land on which one lives. Susan Tekulve has had many short stories published, and her first novel feels a bit like short stories woven together. The book is a very literary novel where the characters drive the narrative. Each chapter moves the story forward through the years, introducing successive generations of the Sypher family. When Caleb dies, Emma grieves so deeply that her son Dean briefly returns to the poverty stricken coal town of War, West Virigina where he is raised by his grandmother and aunt. Eventually he returns to the family homestead and begins his own family. The reader comes to understand Dean and his wife, Sadie, and gets to watch their daughter grow up to adulthood. There are also other minor characters including a disturbed tramp who lives off the land, a friendly (albeit alcoholic) veterinarian, and a neighbor whose wife leaves him after the suspicious death of their son.

An important aspect of In The Garden of Stone is that of the Italian immigrants who came to the United States to stake their roots, raise their families and find work in and around Virginia. Tekulve captures not only the challenges these immigrants faced, but the culture which they brought with them from Italy. Early in the book, Caleb brings home rocks to create an Italian inspired garden for him and Emma. He finds joy in creating this oasis as a reminder of what his family left behind.

Tekulve’s writing has a dreamlike quality and she writes with authority about the Virginia mountains and the depressed coal towns of West Virginia. Perhaps the strongest aspect of her novel are the descriptions of the landscape. There were times as I was reading where I could feel the warm breeze, smell the sweetness of wild roses, and hear the gurgle of water as it rushed around river rocks.

In The Garden of Stone is a quiet book. The plot is not exciting or fast paced, instead the novel celebrates the lives of its characters – their growth, their struggles, their dreams and disappointments. There were times I wished to stay longer with certain characters but Tekulve left them behind to pursue the stories of the next generation. I kept returning to the feeling I had from the beginning – that this was a series of linked stories, any one of which could have stood on their own, but were made stronger by being connected to each other.

Some readers may find the pace of this book too slow, but I enjoyed the leisurely journey through the lives of the characters. Those who like character-driven stories with a deeply rooted sense of place will find In The Garden of Stone a satisfying summer read.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher for review as part of a TLC Book Tour.

Read other reviews of this book by visiting the TLC Book Tour page for the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Susan Tekulve’s nonfiction, short stories and essays have appeared in journals such as Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, The Georgia Review, Connecticut Review, and Shenandoah. Her story collection, My Mother’s War Stories, received the 2004 Winnow Press fiction prize. Author of Savage Pilgrims, a story collection (Serving House Books, 2009), she has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Scholarship and teaches writing at Converse College. Her debut novel, In the Garden of Stone, won the South Carolina First Novel Prize.

WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK

• Contest open from May 14 through May 21, 2013 at 5:00 pm PST.
• Contest open ONLY for U.S. mailing addresses.
• I will randomly choose a winner using Random.Org and announce their name here on my blog by May 22, 2013. The winner will also receive a confirmation email.
• To Enter: Click here to take survey

This week I got some really wonderful books:

Alfred A. Knopf sent me a finished copy of My Fathers’ Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain by Patricio Pron and translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem (May 2013). This is the author’s American debut (although his shorter works have been featured in American journals), and it focuses on Argentina and its more troubling history. The novel is about a son who goes to visit his dying father. As the story unspools, the reader learns about a dark mystery, buried secrets and corruption. A cache of documents is uncovered which exposes Argentina’s dark political past and long-hidden memories of a family’s underground resistance against an oppressive military regime.

Read an interview with the author on Publisher’s Weekly.

Patricio Pron was born in Argentina in 1975 and earned a degree in Social Communication from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario in Argentina. He later went on to earn his PhD in Romance Philology from the Georgia August University of Gottingen, Germany. He is the author of three story collections and four previous novels and also works as a translator and critic. His short fiction has appeared in Granta, Zoetrope, and The Paris Review and has received numerous literary prizes. He was recently named one of Granta‘s Best Young Spanish-language Novelists. He lives in Madrid.

Mending the Moon by Susan Palwick arrived from Tor Forge (May 2013). Some readers may be familiar with this author’s writing in the fantasy genre, but in this latest novel she brings her talent to mainstream fiction in a book about grief and recovery. The book opens with the murder of sixty-four-year-old Melinda Soto who is killed while vacationing in Mexico. Melinda is survived by her nineteen year old adopted son, Jeremy and a tight knit group of friends. Within days, Melinda’s murderer is identified as a young American tourist named Percy who flies home to Seattle and commits suicide, leaving behind his distraught parents. When Percy’s mother, Anna, decides to connect with Melinda’s loved ones, the novel turns to the resilience of the human spirit and the process of healing after loss.

Susan Palwick’s debut novel, Flying in Place, won the Crawford Award for best fantasy debut. Her second novel, The Necessary Beggar, won the American Library Association’s Alex Award. She lives with her husband in Reno, Nevada.

Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher (May 2013) arrived from Penguin UK. This novel is described as a “semi-autobiographical” book and is being compared to work by Jojo Moyes and Jenny Colgan. When Sophie May meets the gorgeous Billy, an actor with huge ambition, she is unprepared to fall in love. She leaves her tiny village and is whisked away into Billy’s glamorous and ruthless world. After years of shying away from attention, can Sophie now handle the scrutiny that comes from being Billy’s girl?

Giovanna Fletcher is an actress and freelance journalist and is married to Tom Fletcher from McFly. She grew up in Essex. Billy and Me is her first novel. Learn more about Fletcher and her work by visiting her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Did any wonderful books arrive at YOUR home this week?

We’re using the book Pretty In Patchwork Holidays by John q. Adams and choosing projects every month to complete.  May’s project are these darling Drawstring Gift Bags:

I used one Moda Candy precut of Odds n’ Ends by Cosmo Cricket which allowed me to make two bags. I chose natural linen and some red checked fabric from my stash to complete the project. Instead of buying bias tape, I made my own using some of the same checked fabric I used for the lining.

I sent one of these to New Hampshire as the “packaging” for my mother’s gift for Mother’s Day. I’m hanging on to the second one for now.

This was a super fun, very quick project!!!

May 12, 2013

Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Salon. Visit the Facebook Page for links to other bloggers’ posts.

Before I start talking about books…HAPPY MOTHER”S DAY to all you moms out there – and also to those of you who may not have your “own” children, but certainly have children in your life who you mentor and love…because you are mothers by my definition! I hope you are finding something lovely to do today, being kind to yourself, and getting a bit spoiled by someone who loves you!

Last Sunday I promised you that I would be posting my review of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra and you may find that review here. I LOVED this book on so many levels. And after I wrote my own review, I went out to read what other people were saying. This book is getting universally awesome reviews. Last time  I checked, it was garnering an average of 4.86 stars on Library Thing (go to this page to check out those reviews). I have a feeling this book will be showing up on the best of the year and prize lists for 2013. I’m offering a giveaway to US and Canada mailing addresses which ends on Tuesday. Go to this post to enter.

I also finished reading another book for TLC Book Tours last week. In the Garden of Stone by by Susan Tekulve is a lovely, quiet novel about successive generations of one family living in West Virginia and Virginia. I’ve been reading some mixed reviews of Tekulve’s novel which feels a lot like a series of linked short stories. I enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of place and the dreamy quality of the writing. My review for this book goes up on May 14th and I’ll be offering one book for giveaway to US mailing addresses – so I hope you’ll come back to read my thoughts and enter for your chance to win a copy.

My current read is hilarious. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple has been short listed for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and I can see why. It is witty, original and clever. And that is all I’m going to say right now because I am only half way through the novel (although I expect to finish it soon). Bernadette claims she has trouble making friends, but I just want to go on the record and say I think we could be the best of friends! Have you read this book yet? If not, what you are waiting for?!?!? My review should post by Wednesday – hope you’ll come back to read more of my thoughts.

I think my next read is going to have to be The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout. I won this book as part of Library Thing’s Early Reviewer program and I adored Strout’s previous novel, Olive Kitteridge (read my review). The book came out in March and I have not read any reviews on it yet so I don’t know what other readers are thinking about this novel. Have you heard anything about this book? Have you read it?

Today promises to be beautiful here – warm and sunny with a little breeze. I’m going for a bike ride this morning (I’m loving my new bike!) and then I’ll be in my sewing room working on this quilt:

Since I took that photo, I’ve added about 5 more diagonal rows. This is a very picky quilt – everything is pieced diagonally and because I am working with bias cuts I have to be very careful about distortion. I think I’ve used about half a can of spray starch so this quilt could actually stand on its own! Anyway, I’m hoping to get the rest of this top pieced today so I can go back to working on the back of this quilt:

So you can see – I have a lot on my plate…but it is a wonderful therapy for me!

What about you? What are you doing today? Whatever it is, I hope at some point it involves a great book!

At the kitchen table she examined the glass of ice. Each cube was rounded by room temperature, dissolving in its own remains, and belatedly she understood that this was how a loved one disappeared. Despite the shock of walking into an empty flat, the absence isn’t immediate, more a fade from the present tense you shared, a melting into the past, not an erasure but a conversion in form, from presence to memory, from solid to liquid, and the person you once touched now runs over your skin, now in sheets down your back, and you may bathe, may sink, may drown in the memory, but your fingers cannot hold it.

One snowy night in Chechnya, in a small village called Eldar where everyone knows everyone else, Akhmed watches from behind his curtains as Russian soldiers drag his friend and neighbor, Dokka, from his home. As they torch the house, Akhmed watches horrified, and wonders, “Where is Haava?” After the soldiers leave, Akhmed races to the woods behind Dokka’s home where he finds Haava, only eight years old,  huddled in the dark with a blue suitcase of “souvenirs” at her side. Leaving his disabled and senile wife alone in her bed, Akhmed leads Haava through the woods, skirting the road blocks and land mines to a hospital in another town. He pleads with the hospital’s only doctor, a woman named Sonja, to take Haava in and offer her refuge. But Sonja has problems of her own including sleep deprivation, and her sister’s disappearance, and when she hesitates, Akmed quickly offers his services at the hospital.

Anthony Marra’s debut novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, is a powerful, poignant, and deeply moving story that unfolds over five days, but also takes the reader back into the pasts of its characters where surprising connections are revealed. The characters are who drive this narrative set in a war torn, violent part of the world between 1994 and 2004. To gain further insight into the novel and its characters, it is helpful for the reader to understand some of the major events which occurred in Chechnya during those years.

The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, happened between 1994 and 1996 and culminated in the Battle of Grozny. Brutal guerrilla warfare defeated Russian federal forces in their attempt to gain control of Chechnya. Despite a initial peace treaty, the Second Chechen War was launched by the Russian Federation in August of 1999. Later that year, the government restored Russian federal control over the territory. By the end of the war in 2009, death toll estimates ranged from 25,000 to 50,000 dead or missing, mostly civilians in Chechnya. Western European rights groups estimate there have been about 5,000 forced disappearances in Chechnya since 1999. These gruesome statistics are the backdrop for Maara’s novel.

What Marra does so effortlessly in his book, is to humanize the conflict in Chechyna. Sonja is an incredibly skilled doctor who has learned to set aside her emotions to do her job. Even her love for her sister, Natasha, has been tempered and controlled. But now, with fatigue and burnout taking their toll, her cool exterior has started to crack. Akhmed is a trained doctor who prefers art over science. Here is a man who reorders the stacks of art books at his ill wife’s bedside “so that the first book she reached for was new to her.” Here is a man who, when faced with the wrecked body of patient who has stepped on a land mine, walks past that person in order to drape a lab coat over the head of an eight year old girl so that she does not have to witness the horror. It is Akhmed who uses his skills as an artist in order to reconstruct the faces of the “disappeared” so that their families may somehow have them back.

When he graduated from medical school in the bottom tenth he didn’t know the disgrace weighing on him like a hundred rubles in five-kopek coins would one day be converted to less cumbersome denominations, when families, like this one, came, knowing he was too incompetent a doctor to save their son’s life, but so skilled and well-trained an artist he might bring their son back. - from A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, page 139 -

And then there is Haava, an eight year old girl who has lost her mother, watched her father be dragged away by soldiers, and is now living in a hospital where trauma arrives daily.

“Are the Feds going to take me, too?” To ask the question was to acknowledge that it could happen, and in Havva’s experience, any horror that could happen eventually did. Better to armor yourself with the unreal. Better to turn inward, hide in the dark waters among the sea anemones, down deep where the sharks can’t see you. - from A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, page 101-

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena weaves the lives of these primary characters back and forth in time. In doing so, Marra explores themes of interconnectedness, hope, betrayal, and love. Even while showing us the horror of a neighbor informing on a friend, Marra defines the very essence of what it means to be human.

This is a beautifully wrought novel that brought tears to my eyes. Achingly real and an unflinching look at the impact of war on every day people, it is not a story I will soon forget. Readers interested in historical fiction centered around Russia and its neighbors, as well as readers of literary fiction, will find this a book not to be missed.

Highly recommended.

Read other reviews of this novel by following the links on the TLC Book Tour Page.

Meg Wolitzer also wrote a terrific review of this book on NPR.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher as part of a TLC Book Tour.

About the Author:

Stegner Fellow, Iowa MFA, and winner of The Atlantic’s Student Writing Contest, ANTHONY MARRA has won the Pushcart Prize, the Narrative Prize, and a scholarship to Bread Loaf. He is also the recipient of the 2012 Whiting Writers’ Award. He has studied, resided, and traveled throughout Eastern Europe. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is his first novel.

WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK

• Contest is open from May 7, 2013 through May 14, 2013 at 5:00 pm PST.
• Contest is open for US and Canada mailing addresses.
• I will randomly choose a winner using Random.Org and announce their name here on my blog by May 15, 2013. The winner will also receive a confirmation email.
• To enter: Click here to take survey

This week only one book showed up at my house:

A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron (Tor Forge paperback, May 2013) is the follow up book by the author who wrote A Dog’s Purpose (which I gave away back in 2011 – check out the photos I took of Raven showing off the special promo beach towel!). This novel asks the question: Do we really take care of our pets, or do they take care of us? This is the moving story of loyalty and love that crosses all barriers – especially during the more difficult times in our lives. Buddy, who is a good dog, takes notice of a curious baby named Clarity who tends to get into dangerous mischief. When he is later reborn, Buddy is adopted by the now teenage Clarity and he is there to protect, cheer, rescue, and love her unconditionally. But when the two are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs and will stop at nothing to be reunited with the girl he loves the most. The book is described as “a little book with the big bark.”

W. Bruce Cameron is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Journey, Emory’s Gift, and 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter, which was turned into a hit ABC series. His book The Dogs of Christmas is highly anticipated. Learn more about Cameron and his work by visiting the author’s website.

Did any great books arrive at YOUR home this week?

May 5, 2013

Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Salon. Visit the Facebook Page for links to other bloggers’ posts.

This weekend, my husband and I are celebrating ten years of marriage. We are having a wonderful, relaxing couple of days together doing only what we want to do. Yesterday we spent a bit of time in the afternoon shopping for bicycles. I am really excited about my new bike which is a Cannondale hybrid. We’re looking forward to getting out on some of the trails this summer as well as just being able to ride around the neighborhood.

As far as reading goes, I posted two five star reviews this week. I talked about The Round House last week, and the more I think about this book, the more I love it (read my review). I have come to expect awesomeness from Louise Erdrich, and so far I have not been disappointed.

As promised, my review of And The Mountains Echoed went up on May 1st. I hope we don’t have to wait six more years for Hosseini’s next novel. He is such an amazing story teller, and I love his characters in this latest effort. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing this book on the end of the year “bests” lists this year. I know it will be on my short list!

This week I finished reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Maara and I’ll be posting my review of that novel on May 7th as part of a TLC Book Tour. This was a beautifully written debut…and another five star book for me, making April one of the best months of reading so far this year. I hope you’ll come back Tuesday to read more of what I thought about the book and to enter the giveaway I’ll be posting.

My current read is also for a TLC Book Tour this month (May 14th). In the Garden of Stone by Susan Tekulve is set in West Virginia beginning in 1924 and is a multi-generational novel. I’m about 100 pages into the book and enjoying Tekulve’s writing. She is able to create a sense of place which is very strong, and her prose feels dreamy at times. I have a feeling this is going to be a satisfying read for me.

I have some fantastic books on my stack for the rest of this month which include:

• Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
• The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
• River of Dust by Virginia Pye
• Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone
• The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
• Above All Things by Tanis Rideout
• Tuesday’s Gone by Nicci French

Have you read any of these books? Are you planning to read any? Do you think I’ll manage to get through that whole stack by the end of the month????

Today is gorgeous here in Northern California, and I will most certainly be out pedaling my new bike at some point. But I also hope to find some time to camp out on my front porch with a glass of lemonade and a great book. How about you? What is on your agenda for today?

It has been ten wonderful years of marriage … hard to believe how fast the time has gone by. I feel so incredibly lucky to have this wonderful man in my life!

Today he arrived home with these:

I love you, Honey!!!!