First Lines Friday...

We came to Birchwood Manor because Edward said this it was haunted. It wasn't, not then, but it's a dull man who lets truth stand in the way of a good story, and Edward was never that. His passion, his blinding faith in whatever he professed, was one of the things I fell in love with. He had the preacher's zeal, a way of expressing opinions that minted them into gleaming currency. A habit of drawing people to him, of firing in them enthusianms they hadn't known were theirs, making all but himself and his convictions fade.
                                               ..... The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

First Lines Friday...

The beaches were empty, the stores were closed, and after sunset, all the houses on New Hampshire Avenue stood dark. For months, Effie had been telling him about this place and the many things they would do here, but she had only known it in the summer, and this was the end of September. She had not understood what "off-season" meant. They had come up from Georgia on the overnight train. They were supposed to spend two weeks here, for their honeymoon. 
                                                                 .....Cape May by Chip Cheek

Memoir Monday...

The Day That Went Missing by Richard Beard...

On a family summer holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Richard and his younger brother Nicholas are jumping in the waves. Suddenly, Nicholas is out of his depth. One moment he's there, the next he's gone. 

Richard and his other brothers don't attend the funeral, and incredibly the family returns immediately to the same cottage - to complete the holiday, to carry on, in the best British tradition. They soon stop speaking of the catastrophe. Their epic act of collective denial writes Nicky out of the family memory.

Nearly forty years later, Richard, an acclaimed novelist, is haunted by the missing piece of his childhood, the unexpressed and unacknowledged grief at his core. He doesn't even know the date of his brother's death or the name of the beach where the tragedy occurred. So he sets out on a pain-staking investigation to rebuild Nicky's life, and ultimately to recreate the precise events on the day of the accident. 

When I read about this memoir, I felt so much empathy for the author, Richard Beard, who tragically looses his brother. What piqued my curiousity was how everything surrounding the tragedy is shrouded in mystery, and the memory of a young boy, or the lack there of, pushes the grown up boy to pursue the truth. What is the truth? Why does it seem the whole family kept it all from him? On my wish list.

First Lines Friday...

Let me begin again.

Dear Ma,
I am writing to reach you- even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are. I am writing to go back to the time, at the rest stop in Virginia, when you stared, horror-stuck, at the taxidermy buck hung over the soda machine by the restrooms, its antlers shadowing your face. In the car, you kept shaking your head. “I don’t understand why they would do that. Can’t they see it’s a corpse? A corpse should go away, not get stuck forever like that.”
                                  …… On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel  by Ocean Vuong

Memoir Monday...

K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches by Tyler Kepner... "traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart.

Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history including twenty-two Hall of Famers--from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw."

 I love baseball. When I read about this book, it just sounded like baseball. Those great stories behind the games, the plays... the pitches. With Father's Day just around the corner, this would definitely make a great gift for the guy in your life that enjoys the sport... AND those ladies that love the game too!  On my nightstand and planning on reading one story at a time inbetween other reading.

The Sunday Salon and Getting Lost in a Good Book... or Finding One After Getting Lost...

Welcome to Sunday... It's cloudy and rainy here, in South Carolina. It's the last day of the weekend, but it's the day I typically hunt for those wonderful crafts fairs and artist markets. None of that is happening this weekend, but last weekend we were in Lake Lure, NC. I had read about this crafts festival in the beautiful town of Lake Lure, NC, home to Chimney Rock, a 315 ft. granite monolith with a waterfall . It was a bit of a drive for us, about 90 minutes, but so pretty as we navigated through some mountains and towns that looked interesting enough themselves. Thank goodness for good ole GPS, because without it we definitely would have gotten lost finding this town, but when we finally found our way there I also found an author and a book.

I find books in a lot of ways... I walk into a bookstore and look at what just came in or is turned facing out on a shelf, I read Kirkus Reviews or Publisher Weekly or any numerous publications about what's coming to a bookstore near me, I go to flea markets and/or tag sales and a book may catch my eye on a table, and going to the library is always a great way to find interesting books and you don't even have to spend a dime there. I also talk to other book bloggers and see what publishers have sent them and I talk to them about what great books they are reading. What I didn't expect this past Sunday was to find Rose Senehi sitting behind a table with her books on display.

I was talking to the Oregon artist who made these beautiful desk lamps in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, when out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought were a pile of books. "Yes... there are piles of books on that table...", then I noticed my husband stopping to talk to her... yes, I know he's going to be mentioning the blogger and book lover he's married to... and then I walked over. And I was hooked. Not on the books at first, but the wonderfully friendly woman behind the books, Rose Senehi. Almost as though we were already friends, we started chatting about books and writing and how she came about being an author. Yes, she was interested in selling her books, but you could see that she loved books just as much as I did. After a half hour or so, off I went with two books, one of which was a gift, and a promise to let her know (and all of you know) what I think of her books. And I will do that... in the next couple of weeks.

What struck me about finding Rose, was where I found her. I don't think I ever met a writer at a crafts fair before. Writers are definitely craftsmen, they have a skill and they design their pieces very carefully. They polish them and display them and we admire them. But usually not at a crafts fair. And why not?! Why don't we find more of these writers mingled in with the craftsmen who create their works with metal and fabric and wood? (Well there's good reason for Rose being there, her books  revolve around the Blue Ridge Mountains and the area we were visiting today...)

While I am now getting lost in a good book (Carolina Belle by Rose Senehi), after finding one after getting (almost) lost, I would love to know where are the places you find your books?! What was the most unusual place you have found a book and/or author?Leave a comment below and let me know!

Happy reading... Suzanne