The Sunday Salon and Books with Buzz

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the time of the week we talk about all things bookish. So, grab a cup of Java, pull up a chair and relax!

It's been a crazy week as I try to plan for our vacation- a road trip down South that will end up in Savannah, Ga! I have always wanted to visit Savannah ever since reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, who described it as a "hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks", and whose book was absolutely wonderful. Because of our "road trip', I was thinking of making this Sunday Salon all about "road trip" books - friends hopping in a car and heading out to parts unknown, or books about travel. But then as I started to try and figure out what books I'm going to bring with me ( and we always bring something to read, don't we?!) I thought "let's just talk about some great books that have poked their spines up for me to find in my week of travels." So no themes this week, just books that sound great and are going in my wish list...

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer...

“They say there are many worlds,” she explains. “All around our own, packed tight as the cells of your heart. Each with its own logic, its own physics, moons, and stars. … And in those other worlds, the places you love are there, the people you love are there. . . . So what if you found the door? And what if you had the key? Because everyone knows this: That the impossible happens once to each of us.”   

From the publisher... 1985. After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the break up with her long-time lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in a different era.

Have you ever thought to yourself, "what if I was born 100 years ago, what would my life be?"What if I could go back just a little bit and meet my true love in a different era?" I LOVE time travel novels! I loved The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's always fascinating to see the "what if's". The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells has gotten a lot of great reviews, "Magically atmospheric, achingly romantic", and it looks to have the potential to sweep you off your feet in that romantic time travel kind of way. In the book, Greta is transported back in time, but with her same family and surrounding people. She's aware of the shift, but can she really enjoy herself? Just published this week by Ecco, an imprint of Harper Collins, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is available right now from your local bookstore (and it's on my wish list!)!

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Readl Magic by Emily Croy Barker... Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman.  During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she’s transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty.  Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true.

Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school.

This book sounds like a fun romp! I like the elements of magic and the fairy tale gone wrong scenario. I also would like to see how the author merges the modern day with the fantasy world. This is coming to your local bookstore August 1st and is published by Penguin.

 We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler... Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact: that I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she tells us. “It’s never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion, I’d scarcely known a moment alone. She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister.”

Just reading the description tugged at my heart. Don't you just want to know what happened to Fern?! Reading just a small sample of this book, the story slowly draws you in and I enjoyed the writing. Of course Karen Joy Fowler is the author of the wildly popular The Jane Austen Book Club, which swept through book clubs and put Jane Austen on the map with new readers.

What do you think of the title? I passed this by the first time I saw the title, because I thought it was a bit wordy and it didn't really compel me to open the book. I think that would be a great post one of these days - good books, not so good titles. Of course, I'm sure the title has to do with the loss of Fern, but on first sight... Anyway, We are Completely Besides Ourselves is available from your local bookstore and is published by Marian Wood Books/Putnam a division of Penguin.

So, now I'm going to stop looking at the books I am putting on my wish list and am going to start packing away the books I'm taking. I'm also packing away my Nook HD, which has a lot of books already loaded in my TBR pile. We'll have to talk about eReaders again too. It's been a while and there are even more choices including the advent of Tablets, which were not part of the discussion last time we talked digital reading. For Christmas, my hubby gave me a Nook HD, which I was pining for. I debated a long time on the Kindle Fire and the Nook HD. Finally deciding on the Nook HD because of it's size (it's definitely lighter and way thinner) and resolution. Although with Barnes & Noble hooking up with Google, there is an App that allows me to read my zillions of Kindle books now too! Best of both worlds... BUT if you are thinking of getting the Kindle Fire HD, it is on SALE on Amazon for $169 with adds for "a limited time'!

Now that I've shared what new books I found, what are you reading? What are you waiting for to be released?! I'd love to hear all about it! You can share it right here in your comment!!!

Have a great week... Suzanne