Memoir Monday... What Can 64 Butterflies Teach Us About Life?

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The Butterfly Season by Lea Korsgaard: What 64 Butterflies Taught Me About Nature's Great Mysteries and the Meaning of Life...
Lea Korsgaard’s number-one international bestseller tells the story of the year she spent tracking every species of butterfly in her native Denmark. Suffused with beauty and wonder, The Butterfly Season is a love letter to the natural world and an unforgettable reflection on the precious and fleeting nature of life itself.

Combining nature writing, philosophy, myth, and science, The Butterfly Season is a luminous account of one woman’s quest to see all sixty-four species of butterflies native to Denmark in a single year. Part field diary, part mythological tapestry, part existential reflection, Lea Korsgaard’s journey unfolds across seasons and geographies, through meadows, marshes, and ancient coastal lands, as she discovers the mysteries and miracles of the natural world.

On the first day of the year, Korsgaard sat at her desk, making a list. It was a typically cold, quiet January day, and the possibility of the new year—of new discoveries and new challenges—reawakened an old dream of hers: to see every Danish butterfly species in one year. At first, the goal felt impossible—Korsgaard knew almost nothing about butterflies—but she persevered, creating a color-coded tracking system that mapped butterfly regions and flight times with meticulous care. As the project developed, what was at first a simple exercise in discovery became an intimate reckoning with transformation and rebirth, the butterfly’s fleeting existence knitting together beginnings, endings, and the life made in between.

I love memoirs about nature. Lea Korsgaard's memoir sounds so wonderful. I've spent time trying to identify the butterflies I see and I love that Lea went on a quest to see all the species of butterflies in her Country. It reminds me of birding and keeping a life list of the birds you have seen. So many reasons to read this book. I just received a copy of The Butterfly Season by Lea Korsgaard from the publisher and I am so excited to read it. This book will be published by Knopf Doubleday on Sept. 15th of this year! So add this to your TBR now! And in the meantime, I'll be turning those pages and let you know what I think of it. Keep an eye out for a review.

It's New Book Release Day! And it is Stacked!

It's an exciting day! Why? Because it's "New Book Release Day"! Here are the books on my TBR list....

Rites Of The Starling by Devney Perry...
A princess journeys across a cursed realm to find the truth about her family, only to discover her quest intertwines with the fate of a lost warrior.

Calandra’s five kingdoms are on the verge of destruction. The crux migration is coming. And in the wake of a devastating attack, I’ve been separated from the man who owns my heart. I’m lost. Terrified. Homesick. Hunted by monsters, driven to exhaustion, and kidnapped by a powerful priest, the only thing keeping me going is the little girl counting on me to keep her safe. It’s my turn to become the Guardian. Our lives change one fateful night. A night of death. A night of monsters. A night of truths. That night, I learn the real meaning of fear—and the depth of my own strength. Everyone wants me to be something I’m not—a queen, a spy, a sacrifice. But what if I embrace my crown? What if the secrets I uncover save our realm? What if my sacrifice means salvation for the man I love? For too long, I’ve feared the monsters we make. It’s time to discover the monster within.

Sequel to the Shield of Sparrows. This is a HUGE anticipated release! I've got Shield of Sparrows in my TBR pile and this one on order. I pre-ordered this during that big buy2/get1 one day sale at Target, but was notified yesterday it's on BACKORDER!!! Published by Entangled Publishing.

American Fantasy by Emma Straub...
When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous 1990s boyband, and three thousand screaming women who have worshipped them for thirty years.

Newly divorced and with an empty nest, Annie is on board as a lark to appease her sister. Once a diehard fan of the band as a teen, her tastes have matured, and she feels out of place amid the sea of bedazzled, air-brushed t-shirts bearing the singers’ faces. Yet when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing before her, something is unlocked. “Maybe that was nostalgia after all, the music a direct vein to her childhood, the least complicated part of her life. A short cut to happiness.” Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the music of her youth, and the thousands of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long-submerged part of herself. By the time she befriends one of the band members -- not just a celebrity but someone also in need of a friend -- she feels like anything is possible. But a lot can go wrong on a ship ruled by hormones and hope, frustration and fantasy.

Packed with wisdom, heart, and laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, youth, nostalgia, marriage, and middle age, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured, uplifting story about the magic of revisiting youthful feelings, and the even greater magic of starting anew.

This book has gotten so much positive buzz and sounds like a fun read for us "girls of a certain age". Sounds like a cruise I would want to go on! Definitely on my wishlist. Published by Riverhead Books.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke... A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

There has been so much anticipation for the release date for Yesteryear! OMG, I read this back at the end of January and was totally enthralled! I just couldn't stop reading! Read my review and add this to your TBR list! Published by Knopf.

Just Announce this morning... Reese's Book Club pick for April is Into The Blue by Emma Brodie which was also released today. Here's the publisher's blurb: “The truth is there’s no such thing as a normal life. There’s just the time you get and how you spend it.”

In the summer of 2000, AJ Graves dreams of writing for Saturday Night Live; instead, she’s stuck working in a video rental store, with slim odds of escaping her small Massachusetts town. Then in walks Noah Drew, the enigmatic and intense scion of the Drew acting dynasty, and her life changes forever. Despite wildly different upbringings, the two forge a deep, cosmic bond, first as friends, then as acting partners—until one day, Noah disappears without a word.

Seven years later, in New York City, AJ is shocked to find herself cast in the same intergalactic TV production as Noah, by then a well-known Hollywood heartthrob. As their on-screen characters grow closer every day, the lines between reality and acting begin to blur. Unable to stay away from each other, AJ and Noah are forced to confront the truth of what happened years ago—and the devastating secret that will send their lives careening apart, even as fate continues to draw them together.

Blending unforgettable characters, explosive chemistry and yearning, and profound emotion, Into the Blue is a journey unlike any other—one that asks: What does it mean to diverge from the script to forge your own story?

I know nothing about this book, except that Reese announced it as her pick for April and that it was published today by Ballantine Books. I usually like her picks though and sounds like a good read. On my radar now and putting it on my wishlist.

What new books are you reading today?

 

Book Release Day! Three Books You NEED to Add to Your TBR Pile!

I am so excited to share these books that are available NOW from your favorite bookstore!

First a new book for all the Anna Quindlen fans!   More Than Enough ..."A woman who confronts the surprising results of an ancestry test and begins to question the meaning of family and friendship in this wise, tender novel teeming with life— 

No one knows you like your book club. High school English teacher Polly Goodman can talk about everything and anything with the women in her book club, which is why they’ve become her closest friends and, along with her veterinarian husband, the bedrock of her life. Her students, her fraught relationship with her mother, her struggles with IVF—Polly’s book club friends have heard about it all.

But when they give Polly an ancestry test kit as a joke, the results match her with a stranger. It is clear to Polly that this match is a mistake, but still she cannot help but comb through her family history for answers. Then, when it seems that the book club circle of four will become three, Polly learns how friendships can change your life in the most profound ways.

Written with Anna Quindlen’s trademark warmth, humor, and insight into the power of love and hope, More Than Enough explores how we find ourselves again and again through the relationships that define us."

I just received a copy from Random House today and started reading. Right from beginning, Anne Quindlen's writing and the story just grabbed me. If you belong to a book club, if you have ever done your genealogy or taken one of those DNA tests, you will love this. I've just started and I love these women in the book club already. Of course it's the individual characters, but also the interactions between them. Put this on you TBR list!

Next, we have Tayari Jones, who wrote An American Marriage. Her newest novel out today is Kin, and is about "Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction."

I just love stories about friendships, especially the ones that start from childhood. This book has lots of great buzz around it and I can't wait to start reading this one too! Published by Knopf, who were nice to send me an eBook to read and review. This is one of the next on my TBR list and should be on yours too!

Finally, we have Dollface by Lindy Ryan. How can you resist a book that's been described as Barbie meets Scream with a 90's nostalgia twist?!! "Horror author Jill has just moved to suburban New Jersey, hoping to fit in with the new PTA moms and maybe not weird everyone out with her Final Girl coffee mug. You know. Make some real friends.

But then a plastic face-masked serial killer begins slashing their way through town, one overly made-up mom at a time. The police are incredulous. The moms are indignant. And Jill is slowly wrapped into a killer’s murderous spree, until she might just be the last woman standing.

A delightfully murderous novel that is equal parts scathing and salacious, Dollface will win you over with its gossip and gore, one body at a time."

Lindy Ryan is a new author to me, but she has a few books under her belt already and has contributed to a few horror anthologies. I was first drawn to the book by that gorgeous cover! And then I happen to be a horror movie fan, AND a fan of those Scream movies, so this is a no brainer to read. Published by Minotaur Books, Dollface has gotten good reviews from early reviewers and I can't wait to start reading this too!!

Check these books out and stay tuned for reviews coming soon to share what I think! 

Happy Reading... Suzanne

 

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift... A Review

Can I even do justice to this book? Mothering Sunday: a Romance by Graham Swift is beautiful, quiet, passionate, sensual. Filled with heartache, longing, books and secrets. Oh yes, the secrets... Jane, the maid, the orphan, the clever girl, the lover of Paul, the boy who's won her heart, owns her body and is the son of the wealthy family in the estate next to her employers estate and has been having secret trysts for years, since she was 17 and he was 18, until the one day, Mothering Sunday, where Jane will have her last day with him, because he will be getting married to a girl of his own "station" in two weeks time.

This book is a romance, but it is so much more than that. It is a play on words, a fairy tale, a look at a wonderful character who by 1920's convention is a lowly maid,  but who after a brilliantly wonderful morning turns into the darkest day of her life, will open herself up to be the person she really is meant to be.

The book flows wonderfully from present day 1924 England to flashbacks of Jane's childhood, her beginnings as a maid, and her coming into her present situation. We also meet Jane as an old woman, reflecting back on her life and what her life has ultimately become... a life of secrets.

I don't really want to give away any spoilers here, but let me say that Graham Swift's storytelling is simple wonderful. And his prose is beautiful. He brings to life the period of time in England, where maids were the keeper of the house (and their secrets) and their station in life well defined. But Swift plays with convention here, as Jane is an equal in her relationship with the wealthy boy, and we see how she is so much more than the clothes she wears. Though she knows the part she is to play. And Swift plays with the reader too, because he hints at things and quietly tells us things so important we could miss them if we weren't hanging on every word that is painted effortlessly across the page. There is a subtleness in the way he reveals the earth shattering news that Mother Sunday brings, like being shot with a silencer. I am still recovering. But at a mere 177 pages, Mothering Sunday is a powerful, sensual read. A story so tightly woven that no more pages are needed to feel its impact. I loved this book. And have already gone back and reread passages that I wanted to hear again. 5 stars from this reader! An enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys literary fiction. A book not to rush through, but to leisurely enjoy.

I want to thank Knopf Doubleday Publishing for the opportunity to read Mothering Sunday prior to publication, and allowing me to share this with my Chick with Books readers!

P.S. Mothering Sunday refers to the Sunday in which all maids go to see their Mothers.  

Memoir Monday and… M Train by Patti Smith

When Patti Smith was making herself a legend, I was but a child. I really don't know much about her, except she is a music legend. I didn't know her relationship with Robert Mappelthorpe or how she brought punk rock to a new level, but I did know she wrote a book called Just Kids and followed that with a book called M Train. I thought, "another celebrity memoir, what does she have to write about? Drugs, sex and rock n roll? Read that already."But I found M Train on one of those Best of 2015 Book lists and it was then that I just had to pick it up and see for myself what all the fuss was about. I AM SO GLAD I DID! Her writing is amazing! And come to find out that as a struggling artist, she did some writing to help pay for some of the finer things in life, like food. I have only scratched the surface of this book, but from the first few lines I was hooked. Maybe it's because I can relate to growing up with a passion for art and trying to express myself, but I think that in reality it's Patti Smiths' writing ability and her fantastic storytelling that hooked me. A book for anyone who has had dreams and passions, friends and crazy times, memories that hold on to you...

From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”

M Train by Patti Smith was published October 2015 by Knopf. I'll be finishing up this book and posting my review soon. In the meantime, Read an Excerpt, and judge the writing for yourself!

The Sunday Salon and Anticipation...

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's that day of the week we sit back and talk about one of our favorite subjects… BOOKS! Yes, and this week there's some great books I want to share with you from some of our favorite authors!

Don't you just love it when an author you love reading is coming out with a new book?! I get excited… will it be as good as the last book? Will I love the characters? Will the writing take me away to places I can only dream of? It doesn't what genre you're favorite author write's in, it's all about the anticipation...


Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami...  From Publisher's Weekly: Living a simple, quotidian life as a train station engineer, Tsukuru is compelled to reexamine his past after a girlfriend suggests he reconnect with a group of friends from high school. A tight-knit fivesome for years, the group suddenly alienated Tsukuru under mysterious circumstances when he was in college. For months after the break, not knowing what had gone wrong, he became obsessed with death and slowly lost his sense of self: “I’ve always seen myself as an empty person, lacking color and identity. Maybe that was my role in the group. To be empty.” Feeling his life will only progress if he can tie up those emotional loose ends, Tsukuru journeys through Japan and into Europe to meet with the members of the group and unravel what really happened 16 years before. The result is a vintage Murakami struggle of coming to terms with buried emotions and missed opportunities, in which intentions and pent up desires can seemingly transcend time and space to bring both solace and desolation. 

If you are a fan of Haruki Murakami, you will be chomping at the bit for this one! It's been 2 years since we heard from this wonderful author, whose quiet, yet insightful writing makes us think and almost listen to each word he puts on the page. This is the English translation of the same book that has sold a millions the first week it came out in Japan. The book has gotten 5 star reviews all around, so I can't wait! If you are new to Murakami, you should be able to enjoy this book as well. Coming out August 12th...

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell… Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life. For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born. A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting on the war in Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder. 

David Mitchell, whose list of  popular books could fill a page plus, and who wrote Cloud Atlas, which was made into a movie (which does not make it a great book, but does show it's popularity) is coming out with what seems to be another great tale, where fantastic stories come together for an incredible wrap up.  His stories always appeal to me, but I have yet to crack the spine on any. One of those in the TBR pile that should make its way up. I'm putting this in my TBR pile and making sure I don't forget it because this sounds amazing. Coming Sept. 2, 2014

The Children Act by Ian McEwan… Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts. But Fiona's professional success belies domestic strife. Her husband, Jack, asks her to consider an open marriage and, after an argument, moves out of their house. His departure leaves her adrift, wondering whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability; whether it was not contempt and ostracism she really fears. She decides to throw herself into her work, especially a complex case involving a seventeen-year-old boy whose parents will not permit a lifesaving blood transfusion because it conflicts with their beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses. But Jack doesn't leave her thoughts, and the pressure to resolve the case—as well as her crumbling marriage—tests Fiona in ways that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page.

Ian McEwan is such a wonderful storyteller and writer. His writing is not all about furiously turning the pages, but wrapping yourself around the words and characters. I read just a small sampling of this book courtesy of the publisher and want more! He has won the famed Booker Prize and other writing awards, so it's no wonder that lovers of great fiction should make a note of his latest offering here, coming Sept. 9, 2014. Definitely on my TBR list!

What author's do you long for a new book from? I got some some of my wish list taken care of here, but there are plenty of great authors coming out with books this fall. AND next Sunday Salon, I'll be back with some more amazing new books from new authors coming our way (you won't want to miss them!)

Happy Reading… Suzanne

April is National Poetry Month, How are You Celebrating?

April is National Poetry Month

Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is held every April. Do you read poetry? I find it to be relaxing. Like having dessert without the obligation of dinner...

Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky said, "Poetry connects us with our deep roots, our evolution as an animal that evolved rhythmic language as a means of transmitting vital information across the generations. We need the comfort and stimulation that this vital part of us gets from the ancient art."

Some of the masterpieces of poetry include Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson, North of Boston by Robert Frost, Ariel by Sylvia Plath, and The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks. More contemporary poets of note include Maya Angelou, Marie Howe, Shel Silverstein, and Billy Collins, one of my favorite contemporary poets whose tongue-in cheek poetry can always make me smile and who just published a new collection of poems called Ballistics. There are so many wonderful poets I can't even attempt to list them all here! Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Langston Hughes, E.E. Cummings and Garrison Keillor... Poetry can be serious, breathtaking, lighthearted, funny... You can pick one apart line by line, or just enjoy the images the words create...

Would you like to explore a bit of poetry? This month Knopf is sponsoring Dailylit's Poem-a-Day Collection! Read poetry from distinguished poets such as John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sapphire (she wrote Push which is what the movie Precious is based on). If you sign up at Dailylit.com you will receive a poem a day in your email all through the month of April for FREE! Other places to explore for poetry are The Poetry Foundation and The Academy of Poets' site Poets.org.

Who are your favorite poets? What are your favorite poems? To celebrate National Poetry Month, here's one of my favorite poems written by Maya Angelou...

I know why the caged bird sings

by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back

Of the wind and floats downstream

Till the current ends and dips his wing

In the orange suns rays

And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage

Can seldom see through his bars of rage

His wings are clipped and his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

Of things unknown but longed for still

And his tune is heard on the distant hill for

The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

And the trade winds soft through

The sighing trees

And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright

Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams

His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

His wings are clipped and his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with

A fearful trill of things unknown

But longed for still and his

Tune is heard on the distant hill

For the caged bird sings of freedom.