A sunny day in my town

The sunshine here in Chattanooga today made it hot and humid.  I had lunch with my friend Carla to celebrate her recent move to my town.  I saw her new condo, showed her where to find the town's best BBQ about a mile from where she lives, and took her to Signal Point (pictured above) so she could act like a tourist. Later I finished cleaning out one of my storage units (the hot and humid part of my day) before having homemade burgers with my friend Donna, who moved to my town eight years ago and now lives in the same senior complex I do.  Walking back up the block to my home after burgers, I was visiting with my next-door neighbor when another neighbor who was walking her dog stopped to chat with us. So it's been a great day for talking with friends. Once I was finally home for the day, I turned on the computer to check email and discovered another "visitor."  This one came, not in person, but to my blog.

My new book blogger friend Helen had left a message, saying, "I have an award for you."  Ha!  My sunny day continues, right up until dark.  Helen presented me with the Sunshine Award.  Thanks, Helen!  I'm tired in a good kind of way this evening, but totally ready to climb into bed and read before sleep.  All of you dear readers who have gotten this far should consider yourselves recipients of this award -- from me to you, and you, and you.  Good night, sun.  Good night, moon.  Good night, friends.

Newest books at my house

Divas, Dames and Dolls: A Celebration of the Female Spirit ~ by Kathleen Fitzgerald, 2005

I like the subtitle, that we can celebrate the female spirit.  Even more, I like that this book is about the spirit of older women.  I'm one, ya know!  I counted about 57 women in this book, most of which has a bold black-and-white photo on the right-hand page and a write-up about the woman on the left.  I bought the book because I loved the photos and the attitude pictured in each one.

The Road Taken ~ by Rona Jaffe, 2000

This novel covers a woman's family in the twentieth century, from Rose's birth on January 1, 1900, through the loss of her mother when she was ten, life with her stepmother, and raising her own three strong-willed daughters.  The dust jacket blurb says this is "a chronicle of a woman and a family and a century like no other."

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother: Tales of Transformation in Women's Lives ~ by Kim Chernin, 1998

This classic focuses on "the point at which a woman lets go of her past and is able to live vibrantly in the present."  The back cover mentions three women in the book:  "one woman, adopted as a child, embarks on a journey to locate her birth mother; another finds the source of a voice that haunts her -- the voice of her daughter, given up at birth; a third unlocks her own creative process and paints her way out of her painful history."

Evvy's Civil War ~ by Miriam Brenaman, 2002

It's 1860 in Virginia, and Evvy Chamberlyn is expected to behave in a certain way.  She, however, has no intentions of living up to those expectations about how to "dress, speak, and act the part of the proper Southern belle."  I'm not sure what I expect from this small paperback book, but it called to me when I saw it at my library and I checked it out.  I was curious about 14-year-old Evvy.

Return of the Great Goddess ~ by Burleigh Muten, 1994

"From Sappho to Judy Chicago, from the late Egyptian era to Audrey Flack, this anthology of fine art reproductions and literary excerpts proclaims the strength and majesty of the feminine experience. The images and messages remind women of their spiritual heritage, their innate wisdom, the integrity of the female body and its rites of passage, and the growing global community of women who celebrate the return of a female deity." -- product description

Every Last One ~ by Anna Quindlen, 2010

I should probably be leery of reading this book, since the dust jacket says it's "a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear the most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, and about living a life we never dreamed we'd have to live, but find ourselves brave enough to try."  My friend Mary Grace told me, "I identified so strongly with the mother.  I felt like what happened to her happened to me.......and it was awful.  It will take a while to recover from reading this book."

Shanghai Girls ~ by Lisa See, 2009

This is the book chosen for discussion in June by both my face-to-face book club and my online book club.  I had the book on hold at the library, but June is upon us!  So I bought it the other day and will start reading it tonight.  In the mid-1930s, two sisters leave Shanghai when their father, facing bankruptcy, arranges for them to marry men who have come from Los Angeles looking for wives.  They face detention at Angel Island (the Ellis Island of the west) and make a pact no one can ever know.

Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest (2nd ed.) ~ by Carol P. Christ, 1980

"Based on the writings of Kate Chopin, Margaret Atwood, Doris Lessing, Adrienne Rich, and Ntozake Shange, Diving Deep and Surfacing reveals how the classic works of these five writers can take the place of traditional religious texts in women's search for spiritual renewal."  (This shows the cover of the third edition, because I couldn't find an image of the second edition.)

What books have "walked into your house" this week?

Book sale!

I'll be selling books tomorrow at our annual neighborhood yard sale. This sign was the small one beside the back entrance to our bookstore, and I've already put it out in front of my house because BOOKS are the big deal in my yard.  Oops!  It just started raining here (at 11:00 on Friday morning), and it's supposed to rain again tomorrow.  Luckily, I have a covered front porch for the books -- if anyone goes out shopping.  Here's what I'm sending out on our neighborhood listserv:

Multi-family yard sale at 4603 St. Elmo Ave.
 Large selection of Books (hardbacks and paperbacks),
CHRISTMAS decorations, HOUSEHOLD items,
hand-crafted FABRIC purses, afghans and KNIT items,
Nikkormat SLR camera, COMFORTER SET with dust ruffle, etc.

Look for the Book Buddies sign in front of the house.

~~~ Y'all come!  Meet the Book Buddies
~~~ between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 29th.
~~~ Bonnie, Donna, Emily, and Halle

Book power

BOOKS FEED AND CURE AND
CHORTLE AND COLLIDE

In all this willful world
of thud and thump and thunder
man's relevance to books
continues to declare.

Books are meat and medicine
and flame and flight and flower,
steel, stitch, and cloud and clout,
and drumbeats on the air.

-- Gwendolyn Brooks, 1969

Armchair BEA: Book Signings and Author Sightings

It isn't true that all book bloggers have left the blogosphere to attend the BEA (Book Expo America) in New York this week.  There is, for example, me!  I'm still here at home, and I have discovered that other book bloggers (like Sarah of Puss Reboots, who designed the logo pictured here) have decided we could have our own BEA on our blogs.  Here are some examples:

• Yesterday Chris of Book-A-Rama posted I See Dead People and populated her "dream panel" with dead authors -- Jane Austen, Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), and Charlotte Bronte -- adding, "though I doubt Charlotte would be comfortable being stared at by so many people."
• Today Nancy, the Bookfool, posted Blast from the Past, showing us a dozen books she fell in love with as a child and as a young mother.
• Yesterday Florinda of the 3 R's Blog posted If I were there, and NOT in my chair. She imagined herself THERE in New York City and wandered through the New Title Showcase.

I knew I needed an idea, so I searched Armchair BEA Central's suggestions and came up with this BEA-related one.

BOOK SIGNINGS and AUTHOR SIGHTINGS

Here I am with Fannie Flagg, who is signing my copy of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. (Photographing a small snapshot with my cell phone caused that reflection across the top.)  My favorite of all her books is Red Bird Christmas, because of quotes like this one from page 35:

Mildred looked at her, highly incensed. “And just how am I supposed to know what I want until I get there? That’s why it’s called shopping, Frances!” And with that she marched out the door.

Laurie Halse Anderson signed Fever 1793 for me when she was in Chattanooga a couple of years ago.  I have reviewed her YA novel Speak, which has been challenged, on this blog and on my Banned Books blog.

John Dominic Crossan signs books as "Dominic," as you can see.  This is what he wrote for me in his memoir A Long Way from Tipperary.  I've met him a couple of times, once when he led a seminar about his book God and Empire and another time on The First Paul, which he wrote with Marcus Borg.

Dom's friend and occasional co-author, Marcus Borg, led a day-long seminar that I attended on his book The Heart of Christianity.  I got my email moniker from that book:  Emerging Paradigm.

After driving three hours to a conference in the northeast corner of Tennessee, I lucked out and actually had lunch at Masha Hamilton's table before taking part in her workshop about her novel The Camel Bookmobile.

Theda Perdue wrote a history of Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835, probably the best history book I've ever read.  Aong with the other women of my face-to-face book club, I met her when she spoke at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on the same night we sat around a table to discuss her book.

Years ago, I drove an hour north of here to hear Madeleine L'Engle, who wrote A Wrinkle in Time and dozens of other books.  She was younger then than this picture of her.  She is one of my favorite authors of all time, and I was surprised at how sad I was when I heard she had died in 2007.

Robert Hicks signed his novel, A Separate Country, for me.  I've been to two of his book signings.

I'm trying to remember other authors I have met, but this may have to do for now.

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Addendum (5-27-2010):  Yep, I knew I'd start remembering other authors I've met.  Here are two more I have remembered this morning.

Just this past August I met Susan Gregg Gilmore at a local bookstore where she was promoting her 2008 book Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. Here's a teaser from page 236:

"My mama and daddy had certainly left me a mess to sort out, and I couldn't think of a single verse of scripture that was going to comfort me as I came to terms with an adulterating daddy, a resurrected mama, and an expectant mistress with an imaginary fiance."

And another author I met was Paul Von Ward, who wrote Soul Genome.  I've run into him a time or two since I first met him two years ago, and he has signed three of his books for me:  Our Solarian Legacy, The Soul Genome, and Gods, Genes, and Consciousness.
__________

UPDATE on Sept 8, 2010:  I met Janisse Ray about a decade ago, but I had forgotten until I read about her on another blog. I've written about her on my blog today.  Click here to read about her and her books.
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UPDATE on Dec 12, 2010:  Helen listed books she read during 2010 that got her highest rating, and among them is Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis.  That reminded me that I met him at a reception held in the home of another member of the committee that brought him to Chattanooga.  I even chatted with him over hors d'oeuvres.  I highly recommend Bud, Not Buddy.

And it just crossed my mind that I met Avi at a conference in Kentucky.  My favorite book by Avi is Nothing But the Truth.

The list keeps getting longer.  So far I've remembered Fannie Flagg, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Masha Hamilton, Theda Perdue, Madeleine L'Engle, Robert Hicks, Susan Gregg Gilmore, Paul Von Ward, Janisse Ray, Christopher Paul Curtis, and Avi.  That's a baker's dozen (thirteen, in other words).

The Cougar Club ~ by Susan McBride, 2010

I won it during Dewey's 24-hour Read-A-Thon, I read it, and I'm not sure why. Three "aging" women in their forties find life again after hooking up with younger (20-something) men.  That's the "cougar" definition, a term that's new to me.  I have no desire to fall into bed with a 20-something boy.  I turned 70 last month and dating a 20-ish boy would be like dating my grandson.  Whatever would we find to talk about?  Or is talking beside the point in books like this?

I did like one part of the book, which is mentioned in the very last sentence on the back of the book:

"True friendship never dies, the only way to live is real, and you're never too old to follow your heart."

And in the last nine pages of the book, one of three women friends -- following her heart -- was ready to open an art gallery and live above it.  Oops, did I just give away a plot element?  Nah, the book is all about the young guys, sex, and getting back together with old friends.  Do I recommend the book?  Nah.

Newest book arrivals

The Secret Supper ~ by Javier Sierra  (2004):

"Milan, 1497:  Leonardo da Vinci is completing his masterpiece, The Last Supper.  Pope Alexander VI is determined to execute him after realizing that the painting contains clues to a baffling — and blasphemous — message, which he is determined to decode.  The Holy Grail and the Eucharistic Bread are missing, there is no meat on the table and, shockingly, the apostles are portraits of well-known heretics — none of them depicted with halos.  And why has the artist painted himself into the scene with his back turned toward Jesus?  The clues to Leonardo's greatest puzzle are right before your eyes."

The Smoke Jumper ~ by Nicholas Evans (2001):

"The fire that was to change so many lives so utterly started with a single shaft of lightning. ... The woman, camped nearby with her group of troubled teenagers, slept on and heard nothing.  She has brought them here by court order on a youth program to help them find themselves.  But one among them will be lost forever.  For soon the cocoon of fire will hatch to engulf the entire mountain and exact its deadly toll.  And into this inferno will come the smoke jumper.  His name is Connor Ford and he falls like an angel of mercy from the sky, braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot have.  For Julia Bishop is the partner of his closest friend, Ed Tully, an ambitious young musician.  Julia loves them both but the tragedy on Snake Mountain forces her to choose between them..."

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman ~ by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) is one of the earliest books on feminist philosophy. Wollstonecraft argues that women must be educated according to their class, since they had the major responsibility for educating the nation's children. Women are not ornaments or property to be traded in marriage, but human beings who deserve the same fundamental rights as men.
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Remember when you were a kid and getting new crayons was a big deal?  Getting new books holds the same kind of magic for some of us big kids.  Susan at Color Online came up with the idea of New Crayons to represent new books that arrived during the week.
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