Literature and Poetry Reviews, Home of the Virtual Poetry Circle
Congrats to Kristin of Kritters' Ramblings
Congrats to Kristin; I hope you enjoy the book. It looks to be a good summer read.
If you’re looking for some good reads, check out the giveaways for Guardians of the Gate and The Last Romanov. Plus there is the steller 5 year blogiversary giveaway.
Stay tuned for the 3rd part of the Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long dicussion.
For the WWI Reading Challenge, we’re doing a group read of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
For the second week, participants of the challenge and non-participants read chapters 11-20. Each Friday, we’ll be posting discussion questions and answers on the War Through the Generations blog.
Head on over today to check out what we’re discussing, but be aware that there could be spoilers.
Since staring this blog five years ago, its been a fun ride with crazy blogging events, book talk, giveaways, and more. I thought in honor of five years, I’d talk about my favorite parts of this blog.
1. Virtual Poetry Circle: Even though I don’t get many responses week to week, I still get a kick out of sharing new poems that I find to post and share with others. These poems can be from poets.org or from collections I’ve read the previous week or even long ago. I try to vary the content from classic to contemporary, narrative to rhyming, and more. This is always the fun part for me, “which poem will it be this week?” My index finger drumming my chin. If there’s ever a poet you want to see featured, don’t hesitate to send a poem along or just recommend the poem by name.
2. Interviews: As a little girl, I longed to interview some of my favorite authors, and now I get to do that for real. Most recently, I had the chance to interview a long-admired poet, Molly Peacock, who gave me the idea for the virtual poetry circle, and some local advocates for books and literacy like the Chair of the Gaithersburg Book Festival Jud Ashman. It’s great to see what connects those who write books and those who promote them — love of the written world.
3. National Poetry Month Blog Tour: This project takes a lot of planning and a lot of work to line up poets and authors, publishers, and bloggers. Most people worry that they don’t have the “qualifications” to read and review poetry, but the only qualification you need in my book is the “joy of reading.” If you love to read and you love to see how authors of novels create a scene or character, poetry should be a breeze. Think of the poem as an unfolding blossom, opening up to the light with each word and each line opening to the sun. Once you’ve reached the end, there is a full picture to behold.
4. Community: I started blogging around the same time as Anna, but soon fell into a wider group, led at that time by Dewey. Even though she’s no longer with us, I know that her spirit lives on in the community — a community she loved and loved to see grow . . . and grow it has, exponentially. I’ve got some old friends from that time, and I’ve made some new ones. I love meeting these people in person at book festivals and conventions; it has been such a joy to share the love of books with people online and off, especially since my husband is not a big reader.
For this year’s blogiversary giveaway, You must tell me how you learned about Savvy Verse & Wit AND whether you have a favorite feature/post or read a book I recommended.
Prize pack will include:
a. free access to 2012’s Best of List
b. 1 book of poetry from those I reviewed this year (your choice)
c. 1 book up to $25 from my local bookstore, Novel Places.
Deadline to enter will be June 30, 2012. Open Internationally.
For the WWI Reading Challenge, we’re doing a group read of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
For this first week, participants of the challenge and non-participants read chapters one through 10. Each Friday, we’ll be posting discussion questions and answers on the War Through the Generations blog.
Head on over today to check out what we’re discussing, but be aware that there could be spoilers.
Even if you aren’t participating in the War Through the Generations WWI Reading Challenge this year, you’re still welcome to participate in the annual read-a-long.
This year, Anna and I selected Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms for the read-a-long book.
If you’re interested, we’ll be posting discussion questions and answers each week on the Friday. Here’s the schedule:
Week 1 — June 1-8 Chapters 1-10
Week 2 — June 9-15 Chapters 11-20
Week 3 — June 16-22 Chapters 21-30
Week 4 — June 23-29 Chapters 31-41
We hope you’ll join us for some great reading and discussion.
Those of you expecting my review of Molly Peacock’s The Paper Garden, please forgive me. I’m hoping to have the review up on Friday.
Sometimes life just gets in the way, and I want to extend an apology to TLC Book Tours and Molly Peacock for the delay.
However, I did want to let everyone know that I would be over at Alyce’s At Home With Books today with a guest post for her Best & Worst series.
Check out my post, here.
Wendy Wax‘s Ten Beach Road (my review) is out in mass-market paperback, so for those of you who have missed out on reading this book and have a book-buying budget, now is the time to grab a copy.
I absolutely adored this book and its characters, strong women –Madeline, Nicole, and Avery — who face a financial crisis and rub one another the wrong way but manage to pull it together to restore their only remaining, shared asset, a house. I loved this book so much for its summer feel, humor, and strong characters that I just had to share it with my mother, who normally reads action thrillers. She loved it.
I even loved this book so much that it was one of my picks when asked by Women’s World Magazine which summer, feel good books I’d recommend for mother’s day. (My recommendation made it into their May 14th issue on page 45, if you’re curious).
Here’s an excerpt from Ten Beach Road:
An eternity later, they hobbled out to the backyard just as the sky was beginning to pinken. Bedraggled, they dropped into the beach chairs with a scrape of aluminum against concrete.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this dirty in my entire life.” Madeline plopped a family-sized container of hummus and triangles of pita bread on the upside down packing box that their Sam’s purchases had been carried in.
“Me, neither.” Avery dropped a bag of Cheez Doodles beside it and swiped the back of her forearm across her forehead, managing to add another streak of dirt to her face.
Nicole set an unopened bottle of Chardonnay on the pool deck next to her bare feet and handed a plastic cup to each of them. “If there was an inch of water in this pool, I’d be in it.” Nicole slumped in her chair. “I think we should make it a top priority.”
“We barely have a working bathroom,” Avery pointed out. “It took me forever to clean the shower and tub up in the hall. There’s pretty much no water pressure. I’d rather have a shower than a swim in a pool.”
“I want both,” Nicole said, lifting the cup to her lips. “It’s not an either/or sort of thing.”
“Well, it is here.” Avery took a long sip of wine as the sun slipped farther toward the Gulf. “Everything’s not going to get done at once, but I will talk to Chase about the schedule and how things should be prioritized.”
Madeline looked ruefully down at herself. Together they could have posed for the illustration of “something the cat dragged in” – even Nicole in her high-end running clothes and her hair pulled back in a glittery clasp. This was only day one; she could hardly imagine what they’d look like after the long, hot summer that lay ahead.
Her arms were so tired that it took real effort to lift even the small plastic cup, but she nonetheless touched it to the others. “Cheers!” she said, and they nodded and repeated the toast. “Will you be able to run your business from here?” she asked Nicole as they contemplated the sinking sun.
Nicole’s cup stopped midway to her lips. In the pass, a boat planed off and gathered speed as it entered the Gulf. “Sure,” she finally said. “Have laptop and cell phone, will match make.” She turned her gaze from the boat that was now disappearing from view to focus on Madeline. “How about you?” Nicole asked. “Can you really leave home for the whole summer?”
Madeline finished the last drops of wine and set her glass on the makeshift cocktail table. “You make it sound like going to camp,” she said in what could only be described as a wistful tone. “I was hoping my husband, Steve, would come down and help for a while.”
“Oh, is he retired?” Avery asked.
Madeline felt her cheeks flush. Nicole raised an eyebrow and poured them all another glassful.
“Not exactly,” Madeline admitted. “He was a financial planner who made the mistake of putting all his clients’ money in Malcolm Dyer’s fund. Along with his family’s.”
Her teeth worried at her bottom lip. She hadn’t meant to say so much. Or sound quite so pathetic.
“He stole my father’s entire estate,” Avery said. “Everything he’d built over a lifetime of hard work went into that thief’s pocket.” She grimaced and shoved her sunglasses back up on top of her head. “I still can’t believe it. Anything short of being drawn and quartered would be far too good for him.”
Madeline saw Nicole shiver slightly. “Are you cold?” The sun had not yet set, but its warmth had diminished.
“No.” Nicole turned her attention to the boat traffic in the pass. A Jet Ski swooped close to the seawall, its plume of seawater peacocking behind it. The rider was big shouldered and solid with jet black hair and heavily muscled arms. Nicole watched idly at first, presumably because he was male and attractive, but straightened in surprise as the rider locked gazes and offered a mock salute before revving his engine and zooming away.
“Do you know that guy?” Madeline asked Nicole, surprised. “He waved at you.”
“No,” Nicole said. “I don’t think he was actually waving at me. He …”
“Yes, he was,” Madeline insisted. “He acted like he knew you.”
“That guy was definitely hunky,” Avery said. “And he was definitely eyeing Nicole.”
“He must have thought I was someone else,” Nicole took a sliver of pita and chewed it intently before changing the topic. “So, how many kids do you have?” she asked Madeline.
“Two,” Madeline said, unsure how much information to share. “My son’s struggling a bit at school; he’s in his freshman year at Vanderbilt,” she said. “And my daughter, well, right before I left she lost her job-she’s a filmmaker- and she came home unexpectedly to live.” She cleared her throat as if that might somehow stop this bad news dump. “That was right after my mother-in-law moved in.”
“Good Lord,” Nicole said. She lifted the bottle, eyed the little that was left, and poured the remaining drops into Madeline’s glass. “No wonder you want to go away to camp.” She smiled with what looked like real sympathy. “Drink up. Girl; I’d run away from home, too, if I had to deal with all that.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their wine, as the sun grew larger and brighter. A warm breeze blew gently off the Gulf, stirring the palms and riffling their hair.
“Maybe you should get your daughter to come down and shoot some ‘before’ video for us,” Avery suggested. “That’s actually what led to Hammer and Nail.” She furrowed her brow. “I had no idea what was coming down the pike when I shot that first ten minutes.”
Madeline considered the small blonde. “My mother-in-law seemed to think it was your husband’s show, that he got you on it.”
“A lot of people came to believe that,” Avery said, her tone wry. “Including my ex-husband. But the idea was mine. I’m the one who sold it, and us, to the network.”
They fell silent as the sun burned with a new intensity, shimmering almost white, then turning golden red that tinged the Gulf as it sank smoothly beneath it.
“God, that was beautiful,” Madeline breathed as they all continued to stare out over the Gulf, unable to tear their gazes from the sky and the last painted remnants of daylight. “It makes me feel like anything is possible.”
No one responded, and she supposed she should be grateful that no one trampled on her flight of fancy. The show was over, but Madeline could still feel its power. It moved her in a way her fear and even her resolution and Little Red Henness had not. She raised her now-empty glass to Avery and Nicole. “I propose that we all make a sunset toast. That we each name one good thing that happened today.”
“Good grief,” Nicole said. “Look around you.” She motioned with her empty plastic glass at the neglected house that hunkered behind them, the cracked and empty pool, the detached garage with its broken windows and listing door. “Is your middle name Pollyanna?”
Madeline flushed at the comment, but she didn’t retract her suggestion. “I’m not saying we should pretend everything’s perfect,” she said. “I’m just saying that no matter how bad it is it would be better to dwell on the even slightly positive than the overwhelming negative.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Avery asked. They all still held their empty glasses aloft. “How good a thing does it have to be?”
“That’s up to you.” Madeline said. “I’m not interested in judging; there will be no ‘good enough’ police.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” Nicole snorted.
“All right, hold on a sec,” Madeline said. She went into the kitchen and retrieved a second bottle of wine from the fridge, grateful that John Franklin had had the power turned on. As she refilled their glasses, she searched for a positive. Nicole was right, it wasn’t an easy task.
“Okay.” She raised her now-full glass and waited for the others to do the same. “I think it’s good that three complete strangers were able to reach an agreement and commit to a course of action.”
They touched glasses and took a sip. Madeline nodded at Avery. “Your turn.”
“Hmmmm, let me think.” She looked out over the seawall at the gathering darkness as the three of them sat in a spill of light from the loggia. A few moments later she raised her glass. “I think it’s good that this house is not going to be torn down. It deserves a facelift and a new life.”
They clinked and drank and turned their gazes to Nicole. Madeline could hardly wait to hear what she would say.
Nicole looked back at the house, then at them. A small smile played around her lips, and Madeline wondered if she was going to tell them to stuff the happy crap or simply refuse to participate. But she raised her glass in their directions and with only a small sigh of resignation said, “It’s a good thing no one saw me in that minivan. I can’t imagine how I’d ever live it down.”
The mass-market paperback release of Ten Beach Road is in advance of the June 26 release of the sequel, Ocean Beach, in which the three lead women — Madeline, Nicole, and Avery — from the previous book are back. I just knew Wendy Wax was not finished with these characters!
About Ocean Beach:
Unlikely friends Madeline, Avery and Nicole have hit some speed bumps in their lives, but when they arrive in Miami’s South Beach neighborhood, they are all hoping for a do-over. Literally. They’ve been hired to bring a once-grand historic house back to its former glory on a new television show called Do-Over. If they can just get this show off the ground, Nikki would get back on her feet financially, Avery could restart her ruined career, and Maddie would have a shot at keeping her family together.
At least, that’s the plan – until the women realize that having their work broadcast is one thing, having their personal lives play out on TV is another thing entirely. Soon they are struggling to hold themselves, and the project, together. With a decades-old mystery—and the hurricane season—looming, the women are forced to figure out just how they’ll weather life’s storms…
Yes, you’ll want both books. Don’t forget to follow Wendy on Twitter and Facebook.
To enter to win 1 copy of Ten Beach Road by Wendy Wax you must be a U.S. or Canadian resident. Leave a comment below by June 1, 2012, at 11:59PM EST to be entered.
If you’ve already read Ten Beach Road, leave a comment telling me why you want to read Ocean Beach to be entered by June 1, 2012 at 11:59PM EST.
Curiosity Quills is a press that strives to create a community of writers, editors, illustrators, and others to create, develop, publish and promote each other’s work to the reading public. Through collective action they seek to get books noticed by more readers and provide services to the writers that need them.
I first learned of the press when I was asked to join their blog tour as a host site and as a contributor where I talked about poetry and marketing.
In a surprising turn of events, I was recently interviewed for their new feature spotlighting book bloggers. Naturally, as it is National Poetry Month, I got the chance to talk a little bit about reviewing poetry versus reviewing fiction.
Please stop by and check out the interview.
Stop by and see what blogs inspire me, which book caught me off guard as a 2011 “best of,” what my physical TBR looks like, and other tidbits you may not know.
***For today’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour post, visit Things Mean A Lot.***
Also, Vote now through April 23 for Savvy Verse & Wit on GoodReads in The Independent Book Blogger Awards, sponsored by Association of American Publishers and GoodReads. Savvy Verse & Wit is nominated in the Adult Fiction category.
There will be one winner per category and each will win a trip to Book Expo America. The first round of voting is open today and will stay open through April 23rd. Anyone who is a Goodreads member can vote.
The top fifteen blogs in each category will go on to a second round which will be judged by industry professionals.
As part of the 2012 Ireland Reading Challenge, we’re reading The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey. For the first week, we read pages 1-90, and the second week was for part 2, pages 91-164.
Today, we’re discussing part three, which is for pages 165-238. This week, we’re asked to talk about the section and ask our own questions.
Please be aware that this discussion could contain spoilers.
These are some questions I had about this section:
Do you think Owen has a right to ask Eileen for something in return for his kindness and do you think he goes too far asking her to give up her role in the Troubles and commit to volunteer work?
I think its about time Owen sought some reciprocation for all of his generosity and given that all he asks is for her to stop engaging in the violence of the civil disobedience and to help out at the hospital, it’s not a lot to ask. I think the volunteer work will go a long way to assuaging her guilt and anger, and maybe even begin to open her eyes to the troubles before her people and country. It also is likely to open her eyes to the suffering of others and that she hasn’t cornered the market on that suffering.
What do you think Owen’s frankness with Eileen about her behavior say about their relationship?
I think that Owen’s ability to be frank with Eileen demonstrates his great regard for her, and dare I say, love. She’s equally frank, if not harsh, with him, which illustrates the deeper emotional connection that they have, even though neither seems to want to admit it.
Do you think Owen is right that confronting the past can help us heal? Do you think it will help Eileen? Her family?
I do agree to an extent that revisiting the past and making sense out of it and what it has brought to your life can be cathartic, and in this case, visiting the hospital where her sister is extricated from the family and quarantined is more helpful than Eileen or Owen could have imagined. I’m still not sure that what transpires in this section will ultimately achieve Eileen’s original dream of reuniting her family at the Yellow House, but it may heal them a bit.
Anna wants to know:
Do you think Frank is justified in abandoning his family and in the treatment of his sister?
No. I don’t think Frank is justified in abandoning his family and in the treatment of his sister, although I understand that he was disillusioned because he learned that the father he has known all is his life is not his biological father. On the other hand, he was a very angry man to begin with, which fueled his disappointment and drive to show everyone he could be successful. I’m particularly angry with Frank in how he tells his sister what to do with regard to Owen and basically forbids her to see him again because it is not good for his business (working both sides of the Cause). He has absolutely no right to do that; he is not her father and has never been there for her, so how can he expect to have a say in her life — Och, because he’s arrogant, even more so now that he is the owner of the grandfather’s estate.
Do you think finding Lizzie will help Eileen’s mom to heal?
I’m not sure that finding Lizzie will help Eileen’s mom, but anything is possible. Will finding Lizzie help Eileen? I think so. I think Eileen has been looking for some closure and learning that her sister is alive is one way to do that, and she’s even getting some kind of closure with Frank with him talking to her — though he’s still an a**.
What do you think about Owen buying the Yellow House?
I think Owen did it for reasons that he was even unaware of. Although I think he’s know he’s liked Eileen, I’m not sure he initially bought it for her but for what he says to bring his wife home. He seems dedicated to his family and keeping them close and the war has changed him in that way, making every moment precious. I think he now has a better sense of what family should be and wants to capture that. And I think at the heart of that is Eileen and her family before all the bad things began happening to her — when they were happy in the yellow house and making music.
That’s all for this week. We’ll be finishing up the book for next week. Stay tuned.
Gone Reading recently contacted me and offered a coupon code for my readers who are looking for just the right gift for their reader friends and family.
The organization, which is based near Washington, D.C., seeks to spread the love of reading to countries across the globe where libraries are few or even non-existent. Even in the United States, libraries are struggling to stay afloat as state budgets are reduced and some states find themselves running a deficit and in dire need of balancing, which means spending on libraries and other public services are reduced. As part of their effort to spread the love of reading and literary discussion, Gone Reading offers a number of products for book lovers, and the group “donates 100% of our after-tax profits to provide new funding for libraries and reading-centered non-profits.”
For those interested in helping libraries in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, Gone Reading has an excellent, pilot fundraising program in the works. If you work with libraries or are a librarian, please feel to contact the group about the effort.
I’ve checked out the products they offer, and there are some great Jane Austen items available for my fellow Janeites, like Anna and those at Austen Blog and Austenprose. There are games centered on reading, book journals, gorgeous bookplates, posters, and more. They even sent me my own sample T-shirt:
I hope you’ll all take advantage of an exclusive coupon code for Gone Reading this month for 25% off any item in the Gone Reading store, except for book ends:
SAVVYVERSE25
The code expires on April 21, so get your orders in, and feel free to spread the love to other readers you know.
As many of you already know, I’ve been working with the Indie Lit Awards for 2011 on as director of the Poetry panel. This was the first year for an award in the poetry category, and I think the team picked the right two collections for the winner and runner-up slots.
This year’s winner is:
Laurie Soriano for Catalina (also available for Kindle), which was published by Lummox Press. Please check out these videos of her reading from the collection. Stay tuned to the Indie Lit Awards for our interview with Laurie.
The runner up in the poetry category was Edward Nudelman‘s collection, What Looks Like an Elephant, also from Lummox Press.
For the list of Fiction, Bio/Memoir, GLBTQ, Mystery, Nonfiction, and Speculative Fiction, please click on the Indie Lit Awards button in this post.
Congrats to all the winners, including Aine Greaney for Dance Lessons, which I reviewed here and who offered a look at her writing process after the novel is published, in the fiction category.
