Working full time
12/2023 New Books on my
To read Shelf:
'SUPRISE ME' by SOPHIE KINSELLA
When they learn they will live another sixty-eight years together, Sylvie and Dan plan to create little surprises for each other to keep their relationship fresh, but a scandal from the past reveals how little they truly know about one ...
ISBN:9780399592881, 0399592881
'LOTS OF CANDLES' by ANNA QUINDLEN
Presents a candid and personal account that explores what matters to middle-aged women and how they regard life stages.
ISBN:9781400069347, 1400069343
In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead--and celebrating it all--as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.
As she did in her beloved New York Times columns, and in A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen says for us here what we may wish we could have said ourselves. Using her past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages, Quindlen talks about
Marriage: "A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn't believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation."
Girlfriends: "Ask any woman how she makes it through the day, and she may mention her calendar, her to-do lists, her babysitter. But if you push her on how she really makes it through her day, she will mention her girlfriends. Sometimes I will see a photo of an actress in an unflattering dress or a blouse too young for her or with a heavy-handed makeup job, and I mutter, 'She must not have any girlfriends.' "
Stuff: "Here's what it comes down to, really: there is now so much stuff in my head, so many years, so many memories, that it's taken the place of primacy away from the things in the bedrooms, on the porch. My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn't believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it is in the drawers of our minds. Between the stuff at work and the stuff at home, the appointments and the news and the gossip and the rest, the past and the present and the plans for the future, the filing cabinets in our heads are not only full, they're overflowing."
Our bodies: "I've finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in the years to come. It's like a car, and while I like a red convertible or even a Bentley as well as the next person, what I really need are four tires and an engine."
Parenting: "Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us."
From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen uses the events of her own life to illuminate our own. Along with the downsides of age, she says, can come wisdom, a perspective on life that makes it satisfying and even joyful. Candid, funny, moving, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen's status as America's laureate of real life.
Source: Publisher
Originally published: April 24, 2012
Genres: Biography, Autobiography
Subject: Authors, American -- Biography -- 20th century, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Parenting -- Motherhood, Parenting -- United States, Women -- Biography -- United States, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography / Women, Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood
:::::::::::::::
'April in Paris' by Michael Wallner
A suspenseful and dramatic story of impossible love between a German soldier and a French Resistance fighter in World War Two Paris. Michael Wallner's thrilling first novel, set in occupied France during World War II, movingly recounts the impossible love affair between a German soldier and a French resistance fighter.Roth, a young soldier in the SS and a fluent French ...
ISBN:9780385662789, 0385662785
A suspenseful and dramatic story of impossible love between a German soldier and a French Resistance fighter in World War Two Paris. In 1943, Michel Roth is a young soldier working in the German army’s back offices in occupied Paris. But his fluency in French gets Roth a new task when the Gestapo find themselves in need of a translator for the confessions of interrogated French resisters. After work Roth chooses another path – he slips out of his hotel carrying a bag of civilian clothes and steals into an alley where he changes personas, becoming Monsieur Antoine, a young Frenchman. He strolls the streets of Paris, where one day he meets Chantal, daughter of an antiquarian bookseller. They fall in love, and when Chantal warns him away from the notorious café Turachevsky, favoured nightspot for German officers and the French women who entertain them, Michel believes it is out of jealousy. Too late he discovers that she is a member of the Resistance, and his naiveté leaves Michel on the other side of the SS interrogation machine. What follows is a tale of desperate cat and mouse through Paris, and into the devastated French countryside at the end of the war, when neighbours are quick to betray neighbours, and even to take revenge into their own hands.
Source: Publisher
Originally published: 2006
Genres: Historical Fiction, War story
Subject: Paris (France) -- Fiction -- History -- 1940-1944, World War, 1939-1945 -- Fiction -- France -- Paris -- Underground movements
::::::::::::::::::
'All the Beautiful Girls' by ELIZABETH J. CHURCH
A spirited young woman fights the demons of her past by becoming a dancer in 1960s Las Vegas, where her sensual beauty leads to her work in glamorous productions and a consuming affair with a fiery photographer
ISBN:9781432850098, 1432850091
A powerful novel about a gutsy showgirl who tries to conquer her past amongst the glamour of 1960s Las Vegas--and finds unexpected fortune, friendship, and love.
It was unimaginable. When she was eight years old, Lily Decker somehow survived the auto accident that killed her parents and sister, but neither her emotionally distant aunt nor her all-too-attentive uncle could ease her grief. Dancing proves to be Lily's only solace, and eventually she receives a "scholarship" to a local dance academy--courtesy of a mysterious benefactor.
Grown and ready to leave home for good, Lily changes her name to Ruby Wilde and heads to Las Vegas to be a troupe dancer, but her sensual beauty and voluptuous figure land her work instead as a showgirl performing everywhere from Les Folies Bergere at the Tropicana to the Stardust's Lido de Paris. Wearing costumes dripping with feathers and rhinestones, five-inch heels, and sky-high headdresses, Ruby may have all the looks of a Sin City success story, but she still must learn to navigate the world of men--and figure out what real love looks like.
With her uncanny knack for understanding the hidden lives of women, Elizabeth J. Church captures both the iconic extravagance of an era and the bravery of a young woman who dances through her sadness to find connection, freedom, and, most important, herself.
Advance praise for All the Beautiful Girls
"A riveting novel, at once raw and tender, of a woman's struggle to heal the wounds of a devastating childhood. Elizabeth J. Church makes us feel Ruby Wilde's pain and root for her to survive. This is a heartbreaking story, passionately told."--Ellen Feldman, author of Next to Love
"A gorgeously written novel with the bite of a gin martini, All the Beautiful Girls goes beyond the splashy, gaudy dazzle of Las Vegas in the sixties to reveal the beating heart beneath the glamorous facade of a showgirl with big ambitions."--Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of At the Water's Edge
"Church has given us a true heroine, both flawed and beautiful, who rises even as she falls."--Juliette Fay, USA Today bestselling author of The Tumbling Turner Sisters
"All the Beautiful Girls is a brave and powerful novel that captures the very soul of a young woman coming of age in tragic circumstances and struggling to find both independence and love."--Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of And After the Fire
Source: Publisher
Originally published: March 6, 2018
Genres: Historical Fiction, Bildungsroman
Subject: Fiction / Historical / General, Fiction / Women, Bildungsromans, Dancers -- Fiction, Fiction / Literary, Historical fiction, Interpersonal relations -- Fiction, Large type books, Las Vegas (Nev.) -- Fiction, Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
'FLEE THE NIGHT' by Susan May Warren
Too bad his heart won't stay out of the way. With a little girl's life and national secrets hanging in the balance, Jim and Lacey must trust God to help them flee the secrets of the night.
ISBN:9781414332666, 1414332661
Published:September 9, 2011
Ex-CIA operative Lacey Montgomery is a liar, a murderer, and a fugitive—or is she? Former Green Beret Jim Micah must either prove her innocence or bring her to justice. Too bad his heart won't stay out of the way. With a little girl's life and national secrets hanging in the balance, Jim and Lacey must trust God to help them flee the secrets of the night.
Source: Publisher
Originally published: 2005
Genres: Romance novel, Suspense, Thriller, Christian Fiction
Followed by: Escape to morning
Subject: Fiction / Christian / Romance / General, Fiction / Romance / Clean & Wholesome, Fiction / Romance / Suspense, Fiction / Christian / Suspense, Electronic books, High technology -- Fiction, Missing children -- Fiction, Murder -- Fiction -- Investigation, Religious fiction
:::::::::::::::::::::
'OUR LADY OF THE PRAIRIE THISBE NISSEN. - Fiction / Contemporary Women
ISBN:9781328662071, 1328662071
A sharp and bitingly funny novel about a professor whose calm-ish midwestern life gives way to a vortex of crises--and her attempts to salvage the pieces without going to pieces herself
In the space of a few torrid months on the Iowa prairie, Phillipa Maakestad--long-married theater professor and mother of an unstable daughter--grapples with a life turned upside down. After falling headlong into a passionate affair during a semester spent teaching in Ohio, Phillipa returns home to Iowa for her daughter Ginny's wedding. There, Phillipa must endure (among other things) a wedding-day tornado, a menace of a mother-in-law who may or may not have been a Nazi collaborator, and the tragicomic revenge fantasies of her heretofore docile husband.
Naturally, she does what any newly liberated woman would do: she takes a match to her life on the prairie and then steps back to survey the wreckage.
Set in the seething political climate of a contentious election, Thisbe Nissen's new novel is sexy, smart, and razor-sharp--a freight train barreling through the heart of the land and the land of the heart.
Source: Publisher
Originally published: January 23, 2018
Genres: Humor, Domestic Fiction
Subject: Adultery -- Fiction, College teachers -- Fiction, FICTION / Literary, Families -- Fiction, Humorous stories, Iowa -- Fiction, Middle West -- Fiction, Weddings -- Fiction, Women -- Fiction, Women college teachers -- Fiction
No comments:
Post a Comment