May 22, 2009 / favorite books / 1 Comment »

I can’t believe I am sharing this link with you. It decreases my chances of winning this contest and I really want to win!

But I absolutely loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – loved it – and I am so excited that Random House is sponsoring this drawing for a trip to the island of Guernsey, the setting for this amazing tale. It’s a book club’s dream trip.

If you haven’t read TGLAPPPS – please don’t let the tongue-twisting title dissuade you – you simply must. It is the most delightful adventure into the human heart. I have read a couple books recently on World War II, including Those Who Save Us (beautiful prose -achingly hard to read) and The Zookeeper’s Wife (amazing premise but failed to draw me in ) and I have to say, Guernsey is so tenderly and cleverly written you forget it’s a war story.

I love a book that takes risks. The authors of Guernsey turned convention on its head and told this story through correspondence – and only correspondence. It’s masterfully done and incredibly personal – aren’t most letters that way? It’s like a story told only with conversation, so you can imagine how every sentence needs to matter. Every sentence has to convey plot and conflict. Every sentence has to reveal character. Every sentence has to woo you like heart-tugging narrative should.

The story in a nutshell is this: In January of 1946, British columnist Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. An unlikely and amazingly deep friendship begins between Juliet and the members of this “book club” and the reader is transported to the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and into the hearts of people who risk much for love.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with one of the authors, Annie Burrows: “I have received many, many letters from readers all over the world bemoaning the fact that the book comes to an end. ‘I wanted it to go on forever,’ they say. ‘I want to go to Guernsey and join a book club.’ ‘I want to be a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.’ And the answer is Yes. As long as we don’t get too caught up in the space-time continuum, the book does still go on, every time a reader talks about it with another reader. The membership of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society increases each time the book is read and enjoyed. The wonderful thing about books–and the thing that made them such a refuge for the islanders during the Occupation–is that they take you out of your time and place and transport you, not just into the world of the story, but into the world of your fellow-readers, who have stories of their own.’

I love that concept. That just sharing this book with you makes me a card-carrying member of the Society. And I don’t have to eat any Potato Peel Pie to join (I hear it’s not that great!)

Want to read an excerpt? Sure you do. Here you go.

I don’t usually win contests, but this book left me so full of hope, I am optimistically packing my bags. Anyone want to come with me?

March 9, 2009 / favorite books / 1 Comment »

Mary’s Daisy Chain

The moment I saw the cover for my dear friend Mary DeMuth’s new book, Daisy Chain, I was drawn. Mary’s keen talent for the art of story, her authentic voice, her passion for relevant prose – these were already known to me. The haunting cover clinched it. I knew I wanted to get my hands on that book. I was thrilled to get an advance review copy and I was, not suprisingly, carried away by her melodic flair for dramatic Southern fiction.

Mary doesn’t waste anything when she writes, and she takes in the world – in all its beauty and ugliness – to tell a story. She doesn’t back away from the hard truths, and I admire that. Most stories that touch your heart have to wound it a little first.

The story in nutshell is this: The abrupt disappearance of young Daisy Chance from a small Texas town in 1973 spins three lives out of control-Jed, whose guilt over not protecting his friend Daisy strangles him; Emory Chance, who blames her own choices for her daughter’s demise; and Ouisie Pepper, who is plagued by headaches while pierced by the shattered pieces of a family in crisis.In this first book in the Defiance, Texas Trilogy, fourteen-year-old Jed Pepper has a sickening secret: He’s convinced it’s his fault his best friend Daisy went missing. Jed’s pain sends him on a quest for answers to mysteries woven through the fabric of his own life and the lives of the families of Defiance, Texas. When he finally confronts the terrible truths he’s been denying all his life, Jed must choose between rebellion and love, anger and freedom. Here’s Mary in her own words:

Susan: Mary, Where did you get the idea for the book?
Mary: I had a friend who shared a difficult story with me. He grew up in a Christian home. His father was in leadership in the Christian community. From the outside, all looked perfect. But behind closed doors, life was very, very hard. I wanted to expose that kind of abuse. That’s why the idea of family secrets plays heavily into all three books of the Defiance, Texas trilogy.

Susan : What themes have you woven into the fabric of the story?
Mary: The importance (and elusiveness) of authenticity.The devastation of maintaining and keeping family secrets.Redemption comes from surprising people.Feeling guilty doesn’t always equal reality. True friendship involves sacrifice.

Susan: So, how do you research a book like this?

Mary: Having lived in East Texas for two years, I absorbed a lot of the geography and colloquialisms of the area. A lot of my research happened as I wrote. I also researched battered wives and police procedure (Thanks, Officer Woodruff).

Susan: Is there a character in Daisy Chain that you relate to the most?

Mary: In high school, I was a lot like Hixon, living on the margins of life in some ways because I was so flat-out in love with Jesus. I wanted to share Him everywhere, and my speech was peppered with Jesusisms. But like Hixon, I also had another side to me, one I hid. Learning to be honest with myself and others about my own shortcomings—and, oh, they are aplenty—has made me a better Christ-follower in the long run. It’s not about appearing holy. It’s about being holy from the inside out. The only route to that kind of abundance is honest, excruciating disclosure with trusted friends and the God who sees it all.

Susan: What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

Mary: I liken this book to an Oprah book, but with hope. Yes, there is darkness and meanness abounding in this world, but God’s light has a way of fully penetrating that darkness. I hope Daisy Chain cradles the reader through its deep, scary journey clear through to the end because redemption will shine brighter in the midst of darkness. That’s my own personal testimony, so it can’t help but leak out on the page. My hope is that folks will see the need to share their family secrets in order to be set free. I also want people to see that the Body of Christ is probably much different looking than they first thought. Some appear holy. Others, in distressing disguises, actually are.

Susan: Thanks, Mary!

You can view a wonderfully composed booktrailer for Daisy Chain right here. And Mary has crafted a Family Secrets blog that dovetails with the themes in Daisy Chain. Sometimes people just need an anonymous place to release ugliness from the past that fell upon them in the place that should have been a haven; home. Check it out here.

February 20, 2009 / favorite books / 2 Comments »

A deep lake

I don’t know how I managed to get through high school without reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I blush even to write such a thing. I read other classics: Brave New World, A Farewell to Arms, The Grapes of Wrath, The Bell Jar, A Separate Peace, but not the Mockingbird.

I’ve had many opportunities since high school to read it, of course. No good reason for not having done so, and it’s funny because I’ve always wanted to read it. Watching Gregory Peck become Atticus Finch’s flesh and bone on screen is not the same thing.

I am proud to say the deed is done. I finished it last night, sated, intrigued and wondering. It was different than I expected. I had always thought this was a book about a white lawyer who defends an innocent black man in the pre-civil-rights South. It’s actually about a young girl watching her father practice law in the pre-civil-rights South. It’s a story about a girl who watches, wonders, interprets. And that is the persona of every writer I know, including me.

I told the members of my book club that this book is driven by its characters not its plot and that the story thread is subtle. It is more like a deep lake than a moving river. Both are wet, both can be big and imposing. One is quiet and still, though, while the other is all about its destination.

Most people know To Kill a Mockingbird, which took the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the year I was born, is Harper Lee’s only published novel. Here are a few other things I learned in recent days about her. Lee’s first name is Nelle. Her grade school playmate was Truman Capote. She spent a year at Oxford University. She worked briefly as an airline reservations clerk.

And while she granted few interviews, she had some amazing things to say about writing. Here are some gems attributed to this remarkable author:

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” Love that.

“I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing, and especially in the American theatre, is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this-the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem of an idea. It takes time and patience and effort to turn out a work of art, and few people seem willing to go all the way.”

“There’s no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There’s no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be.”

And this one is my favorite because I totally get this. I close with it and wish you all a safe and peaceful weekend:

“I never wrote with an idea of publishing anything, of course, until I began working on Mockingbird. I think that what went before may have been a rather subconscious form of learning how to write, of training myself. You see, more than a simple matter of putting down words, writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they’re quite different from people who must write.”

January 2, 2009 / favorite books / 4 Comments »

Sitting on the bedside table

Another year has begun, another 365 days at my disposal in which to read good books. My To Be Read stack is dangerously high – there are still books there from 2006 and 2007 begging to be elevated to the top after months of forced captivity with the dust bunnies.

But I list here just the handful that I am most looking forward to diving into in 2009, starting with the top three. Can’t wait. . .

When I told someone recently that I had Same Kind of Different as Me sandwiched in the middle of my towering TBR stack, this person enthusiastically insisted I move it right to the top, it’s that good, he said. The subtitle sheds some light on the concept behind this book: Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together. The story is told in two alternating viewpoints, that of a wealthy international art dealer who travels the world and the other, a homeless man who grew up in Louisiana, living a life that wasn’t altogether different from the lives of slave ancestors. One reader-reviewer said: “Each man teaches the other about life and faith. . . [They] offer a glimpse into two worlds that are nearly opposite and shows what happens when these worlds come into contact with each other.” It’s gotten oodles of five-star reviews on Amazon.

Just under Same Kind of Different as Me is The ZooKeeper’s Wife. Research for my Fall 09 book took me mentally to the Warsaw Ghetto and tales of courage I had not heard before, so when I saw this book at Borders it literally called out to me.

In this book, Diane Ackerman presents “the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using Antonina’s diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles’ revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944.” (Publishers Weekly) Stories of the Nazi nightmare in WWII are without fail unspeakably hard to read, but the depth of honor and courage evidenced by those who stood against that kind of evil has always amazed me and probably always will.

My friend Tosca Lee’s Havah has garnered wonderful reviews and everyone I know who has read it has been wowed by this fictionalized tale of Eve. You know, the Garden of Eden Eve. Says Publishers Weekly: “From having known only blissful innocence, [Havah] must struggle through every post-Garden moment. Frustration compounds her plight as she repeatedly attempts to regain her former idyllic existence and repeatedly fails. Havah’s life becomes a fight for survival once she and Adam are cast from the Garden, and Lee’s poetic prose beautifully depicts the couple’s slow surrender to a world tending to destruction. Havah gives birth, raises a brood of children, watches one son kill another, observes disease and death. Yet all the while, she waits for the fulfillment of “the One” (God) who will bring reconciliation and redemption through her seed. Lee’s superior storytelling will have readers weeping for all that Havah forfeited by a single damning choice.”

Also at the near tippy top of my TBR stack: The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society, The Heretic’s Daughter, The Lace Reader, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Pillars of the Earth and Anna Karenina.

So many books, so little time! What’s on your TBR stack??

December 30, 2008 / favorite books / 3 Comments »

My own Book of the Year

When I think back to all the wonderful books I read in ’08, it’s not an easy job to pick the one I loved most. Even now, as I paste in the link for The Art of Racing in The Rain , I ache a little that there is only room at the top for one Book of the Year.

Other books this year moved me, challenged me, entertained me, inspired me, but this was the one that still lingers, months after I’ve read it. I believe this is true for a couple of reasons.

1. The author had an amazingly fresh approach – this book is told from a dog’s point of view – not a yellow Lab actually, but that’s what you see on the cover. That’s what you see when the book is resting closed on your nightstand, waiting for you to return to it. And this particular dog is all that you’d expect from a breed as wise and loyal as Labradors. Enzo is genteel and smart – he’s intuitive, he’s loyal, he’s fallable. And he’s the one narrating the story of the humans who give his life meaning and definition. It’s an amazing concept.

2. I have a yellow Lab.

3. I love yellow Labs.

I know dogs can’t talk, they can’t narrate stories, and they can’t tell Dad that Timmy has fallen into the well. And I also don’t believe in reincarnation, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love this book. It was masterfully written.

And when I mentally list the books that I read in 2008, this is the one that comes to mind first. That tells you something.

There were many others titles vying for second place on my list of most intriguing reads for 2008. Broken Angel by my good friend Sigmund Brouwer was powerfully written. Publishers Weekly called this work of speculative fiction “addictively readable” and I agree, even though a book set in a dystopic future is not a light read. Likewise, Those Who Save Us made me weep and writhe. Any book set in Nazi Germany usually does that to me. It’s hard for me to recommend it because of the subject matter, but it was a moving book that left an indelible impression on me.

I also enjoyed A Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell and Whispers of the Bayou by Mindy Starns Clark – expertly-researched books by two wonderful friends. Lastly, My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay, her debut novel by the way, was a terrific read.

I should also mention that in 2008 I read Twilight and The Shack. The first kept me spellbound – it was a veritable page-turner. Anytime you take a old, scary legend like that of the vampire and twist it into something new and untried and romantic, there is delicious tension. I’m not saying it’s Pulitzer material, it’s simply a good page turner. Gotta admire that about it. If you look at Twilight too closely you will see that The Safe Girl loves the Dangerous Boy for one, sole over-arching reason: he’s beautiful. Not the deepest of reasons for loving someone.

The second, The Shack, wasn’t a page-turner for me. It was interesting read, an intriguing read, but with all the hype surrounding it, my expectations were arguably very high. Too high. I was underwhelmed. There were some tasty nuggets there but its notoriety primed me for a theological feast and I left the table rather unsatisfied.

What were your top reads for 2008? I’d love to hear what kept you turning pages this year.
On Friday, I will share what tops my To Be Read stack for 2009

December 29, 2007 / favorite books / No Comments »

So many books. . .

Just a few more reading days remain in 2007 and as I had suspected, I didn’t read nearly as many titles as I wanted to this year. The miserable maxim “So many books, so little time,” is a nasty six-word nugget of truth.

There are, indeed, many books left on my TBR stack.

But enough moaning and groaning about the poverty of reading hours left to us after a busy day. I read some great books in 2007. I will list my faves for the Edglings and for posterity, with a special (drum roll) spotlight on my favorite book of 2007 on Monday. Off we go, in no particular order (I am not even entirely sure in which order I read them . . .)

1. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Piccoult: Trim away the bits of reality-defying details (and they are just bits) this was a great book about the bonds of familial love and how far we will let it take us.
2. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen: The best part about this tale is its very satisfying ending.
3. When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton: I’d waited years for Jane to write another book, ever since I read A Map of the World. I bought Madeline the day it was released in hardback, something I hardly ever do. It didn’t thrill me like Map did, but it was still artistry in words.
4. Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards: I bought it based on cover appeal alone. Even before I read the back cover copy I was ready to buy it. The little white infant dress on the cover, the icon of innocence, was the lure for me. It wasn’t my favorite book, just among my favorites. The ending was not near as satisfying at Water for Elephants, but the beginning was stellar.
5. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See: Not an easy read but expertly told. I felt pain in my toes as I read, that’s how real the depiction of foot-binding was. The interesting thing for me is, I didn’t like Lily the protag. She infuriated me big time. And yet I emotionally connected with her. I think it’s because with the first person narrative, it’s Lily who is telling the story and she is painfully transparent. She made horrible choices. And yet she told us about them anyway. Gotta have respect for that.
6. Feeling for Bones by Bethany Pierce: I didn’t read a ton of CBA literature this year (SMBSLT) but I found time to read this debut novel by Pierce. Beautiful writing, richly developed characters, no formulaic writing here. I will read more by this new writer.
7. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: The bar was set pretty high for this second book by Hosseini. The Kite Runner was my favorite read of 2006. I liked this second book very much, but it doesn’t outfly the Kite. It’s good, maybe as good. Just not better. Still, one of my faves for 2007.
8. Peony in Love by Lisa See: Sad, sad, sad book. But completely original. Not another one in 2007 like it. Just don’t read it while sharp objects are nearby.
9. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: Another very sad read. But somehow Walls made me smile. I don’t know how she did it. It wasn’t a humorous book, not by a long shot. But you won’t be driven to find sharp objects either. It was a riveting read.

So. There you have it. My top 9 for 2007. Come back on Monday and I’ll share with you my top read for 2007 and what awaits on my To Be Read stack for 2008.

See you then . . .

June 29, 2007 / A Thousand Splendid Suns, favorite books / No Comments »

A thousand reasons to read Splendid Suns

There was a period of many months when my standard answer to, “What good books have you read lately?” was a simple three-word response: The Kite Runner. Even after I had long since read it, making it not a “lately” book at all, I’d still come back with the same answer.

I’ve tried to distinguish what moved me so much as a reader that I’d be so enamored of a book set in war-torn Afghanistan, told from the point of view of a man, and that was so desperately sad in places. I can only say Khaled Hosseini paints humanity in such simple, eloquent strokes, if you’re human, you can’t escape being drawn in: hook, line and sinker.

So I was fairly anxious to get my hands on A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini’s newest title, released just last month. My mom, an avid reader like me, got a copy the day it released and had it with her on the plane as we traveled together to my son’s graduation. Airline attendants would walk by, see the cover in her hands, and say something like, “Oooh! You’ve got it! When did you get it? Have you started it?” And for several minutes there was no talk of cabin service or $1 earphones or locating the exit nearest you, just chatter about The Kite Runner and the new book, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Mom finished the book a few days later and handed it over to me, beaming. I tried to finish the book I’d started while waiting for this one. I couldn’t do it. I set it aside after only a day and packed my bags for Afghanistan.

It was a trip I won’t soon forget.

As in The Kite Runner, Hosseini holds nothing back just because it’s ugly. War, civil unrest, terrorism, misogyny, hatred, fear, despondency — these aren’t pretty. But the world in which Hosseini’s characters are placed is the real world, not some made-up land where nothing ever seems to go right. I think that’s what grabs me in the tales Hosseini weaves: their realism. It’s easy to care about people who seem real. And that’s the hallmark of a great fiction writer: the ability to develop characters the reader cares about deeply. Passionately. Because they become real to you.

Splendid Suns chronicles the lives of two women, beginning with their separate childhood years and ending when their lives have been entwined with the unforgettable bonds of suffering and sacrifice. The setting, Afghanistan, is a character unto itself, as it was in The Kite Runner. It is like this impassive entity that refuses to intervene when it seems it should. “Make it stop!” I found myself saying to this faceless character, often. I could almost hear it saying back to me, “You make it stop,” which was of course impossible. This powerlessness was frustrating to me as the reader, but expertly used to the story’s advantage. I felt the powerlessness of the characters to change their circumstances. Even when they tried, they could not change them. I tasted this powerlessness on every page.

This doesn’t mean there weren’t moments of tender beauty and grace in Splendid Suns. There were. That’s what kept me reading. And the ending is particularly satisfying. But like its older brother, A Thousand Splendid Suns is the kind of book that clings. Haunts. Permeates. Indwells. I long to write a book that would do the same.

I have a new answer to the question, “What good books have you read lately?” It is now a four-word answer.

1 23