The Sunday Salon and World Book Night Books with Buzz

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! This is the day during the week where we get together and talk books! So grab a cup of joe, find a comfy chair and relax! What bookish things have you been doing this week?

It's been a very bookish week here at Chick with Books. With the World Book Night books announcement, there were plenty of books to add to the need to read list! I thought this week we'd take a peek at a few of those World Book Night picks that I think stand out...

First of all, are you familiar with World Book Night? On April 23rd, World Book Night is celebrated. This is the third year that the United States have celebrated. Why April 23rd?

 "April 23 is the UNESCO International Day of the Book, as well as Shakespeare’s birthday. It was also chosen in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, who died on April 23, 1616 (the same day as Shakespeare). In the Catalan region of Spain, the day is celebrated by giving a book and a flower to a loved one."


It's also a wonderful way to spread literacy world wide, and with the help of sponsors, authors, publishers, readers and givers, World Book Night spread's the love of reading by giving away great books for free! Authors give up their royalties for the books chosen, publishers publish special editions for free, and readers like you and me, apply to give books away. When you apply to be a giver, you pick out a book from the list of books chosen for World Book Night. If you are chosen to be a giver, you get 20 books of the title you chose, or your second choice, to be given out in a public place on the night of April 23rd. It is so much fun! My reading group has done it for the past 2 years with lots of success. Last year we had 80 books to give away!

Here are a few of my top choices of the WBN Books this year...

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford... from the publisher: In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept... Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko.

I loved this book! My whole reading group loved this book! It is such a wonderful love story, set in a time that is so interesting historically. The writing is wonderful, and if you haven't read it yet, YOU SHOULD! It's available is Paperback , Kindle , and Nook.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed... At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State “and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise. But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone. Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

I have been meaning to read this for some time. Wild has gotten so much great buzz, I think it's a perfect choice to introduce readers and nonreaders to memoirs. I recently downloaded this for my Kindle and was immediately hooked on the writing and the adventure. It's available in Paperback , on Kindle and Nook.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein... from Goodreads: I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do. That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again. He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two. We are a sensational team.

Lots of great buzz about this book! It's YA, it's WWII, it's a spy novel, it's about friendship, it's got great heroines and it's got adventure. What more can you ask for? This is definitely on my TBR list! Especially since it has great female characters, which is always refreshing in an adventure story. It's available in Paperback , on Kindle and Nook.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller...  A riveting, powerful novel about a pilot living in a world filled with loss—and what he is willing to risk to rediscover, against all odds, connection, love, and grace.

Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life—something like his old life—exists beyond the airport. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return—not enough fuel to get him home—following the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio. But what he encounters and what he must face—in the people he meets, and in himself—is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped for.

This book sounds wonderful and fun! And how can you resist an adventure with a guy and his dog?! Dystopian, sci-fi, adventure. Lots of great buzz on this book too! With over 15,000 ratings at Goodreads, it came in at almost 4 stars! A great novel to add to World Book Night! It's available in Paperback , on Kindle and Nook.

The Week in Review...

Tuesday we looked at New Releases! There were some great ones included the long awaited Allegiant by Veronica Roth! Click on my LINK to read the post if you missed it! More great books coming this tuesday too!

Thursday we talked a little about World Book Night and listed all the books that are going to be distributed world wide that night! Click on my LINK to read the post and see what great choices there are! You can apply to be a giver at WorldBookNight.org.

Friday I reviewed The Last First Day by Carrie Brown. What a fabulous book! It was slow paced, but it set the tone perfectly for the story to unfurl wonderfully. Click to read my REVIEW.

Happy reading... Suzanne

Great Reads at Bargain Prices

Book Bargains!

I just happen to be lurking around Amazon and noticed that one of my favorite books, Little Bee by Chris Cleave, was marked down quite a bit. I decided to check out a few more of my "must" reads and found some other great bargains too. SO, if you're in the mood for some great reading, and you haven't yet read any of these books, go grab them at Amazon before the price goes up! Amazon prices go up and down, so as of tonight these prices were good, just click on the book title for the link to the book....

Little Bee by Chris Cleave... I loved this book! Here's my original review from way back in March 2009. What's the book about? All the publisher says is "the story of two women whose lives collide one fateful day." It is so much more than that! One woman, 16 year-old Little Bee, is a Nigerian refugee living in a UK detention center and the other woman is an affluent British yuppie on Holiday with her husband in Nigeria. Their two worlds collide and it is an amazing read! (BTW, Nicole Kidman bought the movie rights to this) Right now the paperback is at the bargain price of $5.74!

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen... I read this before I started the blog, so I never reviewed it "officially". BUT it is such a satisfying read! And another "must read" if you haven't already! It's a love story, it's a story about the circus, it's fabulous writing! 90 year old Jacob Jankowski is living in a nursing home and begins to tell his story of life in the circus. You are then swept back in a nostalgic time. There are wonderful characters, a love triangle, and a fabulous elephant! Right now the paperback is $6.99!

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford... I chose this for my reading group last year and it was a big hit! It's a story of young love, and forbidden love, as Henry Lee 12-year-old Henry Lee, a Chinese boy, falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, during WWII in Seattle. They are separated as Keiko's family is swept up in the prejudice that existed during WWII for Japanese Americans, and are relocated to an internment camp. The novel starts in 1986 and sweeps back in time to WWII and the friendship between Henry and Keiko. If you love historical fiction, and the time frame of WWII, this is a perfect read I wrote about it in a 2009 Sunday Salon ! Right now the paperback is just $6.01!

Other great reads at a Bargain Price (all under $7.00!)... The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shafer & Annie Barrows, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak!

Have you read any of these yet?! Let me know what you thought!

The Sunday Salon with "Books with Buzz"

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

My reading week started out with a bit of a panic-NO INTERNET! Actually sporadic internet. I decided to try out my local Borders HotSpot (WiFi internet connection) and see how it worked. Actually it was pretty easy, and for $6.00 I could get online for an hour, or for about $8.00 I could buy a 24 hour pass and access away! Of course I'm sure that the management may have found it a bit odd that I was dressed in my pajamas and demanding to get my money's worth at midnight while sitting in the coffee shop for the past 12 hours! I opted to test it out with a hourly pass. After arriving with my laptop, having it already turned on, the first site I tried to connect to lead me to a T-Mobile popup that gave simple instructions on how to sign up for an account and log in to access the internet. Other options were available for other internet providers, but not knowing how to access my AT & T WiFi I just opted for the T-Mobile. I was good to go! During the week we determined that it was probably a faulty modem and after my DH went to buy a new modem and spent the morning hooking it up, we are now back to normal! But, at least we know that Borders is a good option just in case. Then yesterday morning in my email, Barnes & Noble made an announcement that they had FREE WiFi available at most of their stores. My local B&N was listed, but since last being there, there were only a few chairs to be had for sitting down.... I guess a low bookshelf may work out to put my laptop on.... Anyone ever use a HotSpot? I would love to know where you found one!

So,this week there has been an interesting mix of books coming my way. First I started reading our book club read, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and was immediately drawn in. A whirl of events puts Henry Lee facing the painful memories 40 years later of his youth and the internment camps that had separated him from his boyhood crush Keiko. Keiko was an american, but of Japanese heritage and was swept up in the ugly part of WWII, that suspected any person of Japanese heritage to be a possible saboteur. Life went on and Henry grew up, married and had a family, but never forgot Keiko. When the belongings of some of the Japanese families are found hidden in the basement of a long abandoned hotel that is going to be refurbished, memories flood Henry Lee's mind and we are taken back with him to a different era... Look for my review later in the next few weeks! From what I've read so far it is a winner!

Putting that book aside for a moment I started reading a book that Caitlin of Unbridled Books sent my way - In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefeld. I want to call it a quietly beautiful book, because it is thought provoking and stirring. I started reading it and didn't stop reading it until I finished it. It begins with a daughter coming home to say goodbye to her mother dying of cancer. The mother, a famous bird artist and environmental activist, is surrounded by her best friends from college and her dear husband, Tom. In saying goodbye, we are whisked off to the beginning of Addie and Toms humble beginnings as student and college professor. We learn of a complicated life that draws everyone back to Addie in the end. And with the gentle remembrances Addie's daughter gains a better understanding of her mother and who she really was. With rich characters set in a beautiful surrounding of nature with purpose. Check out the full review this week!

Another fun book that came my way is Up For Renewal, What magazines taught me about love, sex, and starting over by Cathy Alter. Cathy is a writer whose life was out of control. She was in her 40's, with a failed marriage and a slew of poor decisions and inappropriate men behind her. She decided what she really wanted and the list looked like what every women's magazine on the rack promised- "Find the love you deserve", "Perfect meals", "Paint to the rescue"... That's when she decided that for the next year she would follow the advice she could find in these magazines without question. And this is the book about the how, why and what happened during that year! I'm looking forward to reading about how it all went! Do you think you can solve your problems with a magazine article? I also have a extra copy thanks to the publisher! That means giveaway! And since I'm going to be mailing it out myself to the lucky winner, that means I can send it as far away as I like! (Do I hear international giveaway?!)

One more book I'd like to mention with A lot of Buzz this week is When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead! A YA(young adult) novel, but being enjoyed by adults as well... 6th grader Miranda and her best friend Sal enjoy navigating the New York City neighborhoods they are familiar with. One day Sal gets into a fight and stops talking to Miranda, who is left to her own devices and begins to mysteriously get these notes delivered to her. The notes slowly begin to tell a story and a mystery, which Miranda must solve, she believes, in order to prevent a tragic death... It is now on my TBR pile!

One more thing of note this week for my Kindle friends! On Monday August 3rd between 11 am EST and Wed. Aug. 5th 10:59am EST you can download a FREE eBook copy of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann... "It's 1974, and a man is dancing on a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center—risky business, but as Colum McCann reveals in Let the Great World Spin (Random House), so is simply living day to day." And the book is suppose to really depict the New York City of old remarkable well- all happening down below while the man is on the tightrope. You must belong to the Oprah bookclub to participate, but it's very easy to join and it's FREE. Here's the link for the download and to join : Oprah Book Club . Now it does not specifically say Kindle only eBook, but Oprah is a big fan of the Kindle, so I am assuming that the eBook will be able to be downloaded on the Kindle... **UPDATE: The download for this book is a PDF.

*P.S. All These Books are Kindle Ready! Click on the their titles!