Okay, seriously, Chapters? ... We need to talk...

Tonight while browsing.  And then shortly thereafter buying... THIS:

Sigh. 

HACHETTE GIVEAWAY WINNERS!!!!

Here are the winners for the Hachette Book Group giveaway of George Pelecanos "The Way Home"

(drumroll please!)

MARJORIE

WANDA

JENNIFER

KAYE

AMARYLLIS

The winners were chosen using RANDOM.ORG and have also been notified via email.  Please contact me with your mailing address as soon as possible so I can forward them to Hachette and you can get your book! 

CONGRATS again, and a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who participated!!! 

TEASER TUESDAY

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Should Be Reading

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.
• Please avoid spoilers!

My teaser this Tuesday is from  "Son of a Witch" by Gregory Maguire. 

"Oh, Toto!"  Shrieked Dorothy suddenly.  "Where's Toto?"

"He's wandered off to do his business," said the Lion. "Just between you and me, it's about time he learned to be private about it.  I know you dote on him, but there is a limit." 

Now THAT'S funny. 

MAILBOX MONDAY

A big thank you to The Printed Page for hosting Mailbox Monday.  "Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists."  ~ The Printed Page

I actually have books that came in the mail last week!!  WOOOOT!!!  I would like to thank Hachette Books for sending me my own review copy of my giveaway "The Way Home" by George Pelecanos (deadline for entering to win one of 5 copies is tomorrow!!!)  It looks like a good one! 

Also, thanks to Little Brown and Company for a review copy of "The Murder of King Tut" by James Patterson! 

And last but by no means least a huge thank you to the publishers of Susan Higginbotham's book Hugh and Bess!  I can't wait to read this one! 



Have a great day!!!

SUNDAY SALON

Today my eldest is having a playdate, so I'm not sure how much reading time I will get in when my youngest has her nap.  For some weird reason I was just not that into reading this week.  I'm not sure what that was, I just couldn't concentrate.  I DID read, but not as much as I normally did.  Instead during my designated reading time everyday I knitted and watched DVD's of Everybody Loves Raymond.  This is one of my favourite things to do, and it just puts me in the loveliest state of domestic bliss!

Since our family reading club started we've all discovered that the reading schedule is much to slow.   We were only reading 60 pages every two weeks, but I found that I could read that in a flippin' day, EASILY.  And my other family members were saying that they were not wanting to go too far ahead because they would forget the book by the time the dinner meeting came.  I was so relieved to hear this, and I'm now going to set it so that we read double that if not more.  The book is "Three Day Road" by Joseph Boyden and it is only 394 pages long, so it really should only take an average reader a couple of weeks, maybe three.  The book is great, and it is written beautifully and ties in flashback with present day very very well.  I'll review it when I'm done!

Son of a Witch I am still loving, although I have not been reading that one as much.  I am focusing my reading efforts on "A Breath of Snow And Ashes" by Diana Gabaldon as her new book comes out in 9 days and I am trying to finish my re-read before then because as IF I am not going to be standing at the check out with Echo in my hot little hands as soon as Chapters opens on the 22nd!!! 

Have a WONDERFUL Sunday, and here's to a terrifac week!!!

You can read more Sunday Salons here.

The ABC's of me...

I was tagged by my good friend Alyssa at Teens Read and Write: 

Available or in-a-relationship? Married

Best Friend? Carole

Cake or Pie? Cake... TOTALLY.

Drink of choice? Alcoholic?  white wine  non?  rootbeer

Essential item for every day use?  My wall calendar

Favorite color? don't have one

Google?  Love.

Hometown?  Calgary, Alberta  YEE HAW!

Indulgences? Chips, ripple, usually Lay's.

January or February? February, my anniversary and hubby's birthday!

Kids and their names? Two girls:  Ellie and Ayana

Life is incomplete without…? Family, books, knitting, holidays.

Marriage date? Feb. 12, 1997

Number of siblings? Two.

Oranges or apples? Apples

Phobias and fears? Something happening to my kids.   Claustrophobia.

Quote for the day? Carpe Diem.  Like it's your last diem.

Reason to smile? My girls, and my hilarious albiet sometime irritatingly funny husband.

Season? FALL!!

Tag 3 people and anyone else who would like to play.!

Mel

Nikola

Alyce
Unknown fact about me? I work in the film business.  And the most famous person I had the good fortune to get to know was Brad Pitt on Assassination of Jesse James.  And yes I got to know him and his family very well.  True story.

Vegetable you hate? Turnips or parsnips.  Anything with an "ip" on the end.  Yuck.

Worst habit? procrastinating.

X-rays you’ve had? are you kidding me?  tons.

Your fave food? any kind of comfort food.

Zodiac sign? Taurus

REVIEW: THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2006 Vintage Books

As I think I have mentioned before there are only a very small hand full of books that has made me cry, and The Road is one of them.  And we're not talking just "cry", we are talking THE UGLY CRY, I mean a real boo-hoo fest.  Even just thinking about this book makes my eyes well up!  I will not see the movie as this is my number two favourite book of all time (Anna Karenina being #1), and I do not want my memory of it diluted or tainted in any way.  I don't care how great the movie was. 

"The Road"  follows a man and his 7 year old son in a post apocolyptic world somewhere in North America.  This premise is enough to grab the reader right there.  But this story is so much more than that.  This is a Love Story between a father and son, and when I read it my own daughter was 6 years old and it just hit me hard right in the heart.  Took my breath away.  Kept me up at night.  It was devestatingly beautiful, heartbreaking, and I am so profoundly glad I read it. 

Another reason I loved it is because of McCarthy's writing style.  I believe it is a common theme in many of his books, but this was the first book I have read of his and so it struck me even more vividly.  The dialogue is, most of the time, not prefaced by "he said" "she said", instead it is just THERE on the page, and so brilliantly written that although you are not handheld into who is saying what, it is not necessary as each characters voice and vision is so strong you will have no trouble following along.  Here's what I mean, this is the very first bit of dialogue in the book, it is between the father and his much beloved son:

He was a long time going to sleep.  After a while he turned and looked at the man.  His face in the small light streaked with black from the rain like some old world thespian.  Can I ask you something? he said.
     Yes. Of course
     Are we going to die?
     Sometime.  Not now.
     And we're still going south.
     Yes.
     So we'll be warm.
     Yes.
     Okay.
     Okay, what?
     Nothing. Just okay.
     Go to sleep.
     Okay.
     I'm going to blow out the lamp.  Is that okay?
     Yes. That's okay.
     And then later in the darkness:  Can I ask you something ?
     Yes.  Of course you can.
     What would you do if I died?
     If you died I would want to die too.
     So you could be with me?
     Yes.  So I could be with you.
     Okay.

Even as I typed the above scene I find I am moved to tears.  There are scenes in this novel that are beautiful and some that are so disturbing  I will never get those images out of my head.  But what McCarthy does do is paints a very realistic picture of what the world would look like after a massive catastrophy like a nuclear war.  It is at once a chilling account, and a moving powerful story of the love of between a parent and their child.  I am not summarizing the story here, (I often do not do that in my reviews) because I think a person should go into this book fresh with just the basic premise, that way you will enjoy it so much more.  But that is just my opinion!   I am like that when I read other reviews as well, I usually skip over the summary as I want to read a book with only knowing the bare minimum.  But here is the link to the book on Amazon.ca so you can read for yourself more detail if you like. 

RATING:  5/5