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May 2013 Movers & Shakers

Here are the noteworthy titles that have been racing up our most popular charts this month.

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Goodreads voice | Popular this month

Giveaways

I Will Have Vengeance
by Maurizio de Giovanni

Release date: Jan 07, 2013

Europa Editions World Noir Launch starts now! Win a copy of one of the most original and fascinating noir thrillers out today!

Naples, March 1931: a bi…more

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Giveaway dates: May 01 - May 31, 2013

5 copies available, 373 people requesting

Countries available: US and CA

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Top Reviews This Week

karen's review of Bough Down by Karen Green

"
i was afraid to read this book. i was afraid it was going to knock something loose in me, emotionally, and that it would be the book to cut the "i-don't-cry-at-books-karen" to her knees.

this is a book written by dfw's widow, after his suicide, and i...more
i was afraid to read this book. i was afraid it was going to knock something loose in me, emotionally, and that it would be the book to cut the "i-don't-cry-at-books-karen" to her knees.

this is a book written by dfw's widow, after his suicide, and is a collection of free-verse musings about the end of their lives together, and the period following his death, interspersed with her artwork.

and quickly, so as not to dwell or invite sympathy: i have been there. i have found a body. i have spent nineteen years wondering what i could have done differently, how i could have been better, given more, how i could have interpreted the signs better, to have been the kind of person who doesn't have this memory following them.

i bought the book yesterday, and i knew if i didn't read it right away, it would be just one more book in the stacks, sandwiched between cookbooks and frothy YA dystopias and it would stare at me, accusingly, every day, as one more reminder of my failure of character, of my reprehensible fear-stasis, and it would lose all potential impact from having become a just another familiar prop in my house. so i sucked it up, and read it all alone in my house on a rainy friday evening, during the worst of all possible weekends. and it hit me again and again, but it did not make me cry. so there's that.

i was not prepared for the loveliness of it. for how much it would be a better-expressed manifestation of my own voiceless rage, despair, self-recrimination, and nostalgia. theirs was a different relationship than the one i lost, but it's got the same infrastructure, and nearly the same emotional aftermath.

there are so many passages i wanted to type out here, but it almost feels too revealing, too personal, to do so, if that makes any sense. and it's the kind of work that is difficult to excise a portion of to hold up to the light - it works better as a progression, even though it doesn't read chronologically. but there is a raw emotional-logic to its narrative.

and it plays rough. it is like being exposed to all the stages of grieving at once, and while there are glimpses of humor, it seems inappropriate to respond to the humor, pressed up against the wall of so much confusion and despair as it is. every single time she mentioned the dogs, my heart ached.

the news of dfw's death floored me.i remember the phone conversation that broke the news to me. i just whispered "no," and thought "not again," like it was a mistake, or a prank. and i didn't even know the man. a couple of exchanged letters, a single late-night phone conversation, some broken plans; but it still felt like a betrayal. infinite jest, from the first time i read it, was and is one of the most impressive books i have ever read, and i felt that anyone who could have written something like that must surely have been above the kinds of self-doubt and disappointments as the rest of us, with our comparatively shabby intellects.

but obviously not. and this book adds a dimension to the man and his legacy that was lacking in many of the self-serving memorial-speeches and articles that came out after his death. and she sort of addresses this, with such casually-sharp insight. this is a genuine love letter; a true expression of grief and the fucking howling anguish that follows you around like some kind of horrible shadow forever.

but it is never manipulative or pity/attention-seeking. (except that on the copyright page, there is an offer to obtain "a special signed and numbered edition" of the book, which seems inappropriate and a little ghoulish)

but apart from that, it is a jewel of a book, and while i still abhor the act that gave this book life, it does help, in some small way, to understand.(less)"
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Author Interviews

Michael Pollan

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

From BBQ to fermenting cheese to brewing beer, the influential food journalist attempts to master a wide range of recipes in his new nonfiction experiment, Cooked.

32 likes · 11 comments

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Debut Author Snapshot

Suzanne Rindell

Short skirts, short hair, and even shorter love affairs—channel the deliciously scandalous lives of 1920s flappers in the Manhattan-based historical mystery The Other Typist.

58 likes · 17 comments

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Recent Award Winners

Wild Nights
by Mary Ellen Courtney
Winner in the New Fiction category of the 2013 National Indie Excellence Awards (2013)

Sara's Promise
by Deanna Lynn Sletten
Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Book Awards for Romance (2013)

Timebound
by Rysa Walker
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Winner for Young Adult Fiction (2013) (edit) (2013)

Shadowfell
by Juliet Marillier
Sir Julius Vogel Award Nominee for Best Youth Novel (2013)

The Prince of Soul and The Lighthouse
by Fredrik Brouneus
Sir Julius Vogel Award Nominee for Best Youth Novel (2013)

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