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Mailbox Monday #229

July 29, 2013 by

Mailbox Monday (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch.  July’s host is Book Obsessed.

The meme allows bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I snagged at Hooray for Books in Alexandria, Va.:

1.  Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir by Beth Kephart

Writing memoir is a deeply personal, and consequential, undertaking. As the acclaimed author of five memoirs spanning significant turning points in her life, Beth Kephart has been both blessed and bruised by the genre. In Handling the Truth, she thinks out loud about the form—on how it gets made, on what it means to make it, on the searing language of truth, on the thin line between remembering and imagining, and, finally, on the rights of memoirists. Drawing on proven writing lessons and classic examples, on the work of her students and on her own memories of weather, landscape, color, and love, Kephart probes the wrenching and essential questions that lie at the heart of memoir.

2.  Imperfect Circle by Debbie Levy

Danielle Snyder’s summer job as a babysitter takes a tragic turn when Humphrey, the five-year-old boy she’s watching, runs in front of oncoming traffic to chase down his football. Immediately Danielle is caught up in the machinery of tragedy: police investigations, neighborhood squabbling, and, when the driver of the car that struck Humphrey turns out to be an undocumented alien, outsiders use the accident to further a politically charged immigration debate. Wanting only to mourn Humphrey, the sweet kid she had a surprisingly strong friendship with, Danielle tries to avoid the world around her. Through a new relationship with Justin, a boy she meets at the park, she begins to work through her grief, but as details of the accident emerge, much is not as it seems. It’s time for Danielle to face reality, but when the truth brings so much pain, can she find a way to do right by Humphrey’s memory and forgive herself for his death?

3.  Love the Beastie by Henrik Drescher for Wiggles, which she picked over a monkey puppet — completely amazing both her parents.

Be kind to your pets! That’s the message of Love the Beastie.  Gross, outrageous, but pure fun in a book, Love the Beastie is a pull and poke, spin and play, and cuddle and kiss Valentine for kids and especially kids with pets. Meet Paul and Judy. And meet their pet, Beastie. Paul and Judy used to be so mean to Beastie. They pulled Beastie’s hair, tickled Beastie’s feet. So, Beastie feastied! Good thing Paul and Judy learned their lesson (stuck inside the belly of the Beastie).

Also, the kind Beth Kephart brought me a book from her collection:

4.  Undercover, which she signed.

Like a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac, Elisa ghostwrites love notes for the boys in her school. But when Elisa falls for Theo Moses, things change fast. Theo asks for verses to court the lovely Lila—a girl known for her beauty, her popularity, and a cutting ability to remind Elisa that she has none of these. At home, Elisa’s father, the one person she feels understands her, has left on an extended business trip. As the days grow shorter, Elisa worries that the increasingly urgent letters she sends her father won’t bring him home. Like the undercover agent she feels she has become, Elisa retreats to a pond in the woods, where her talent for ice-skating gives her the confidence to come out from under cover and take center stage. But when Lila becomes jealous of Theo’s friendship with Elisa, her revenge nearly destroys Elisa’s ice-skating dreams and her plan to reunite her family.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , ,

Hooray! An Event of Successful Fiction and Memoir

July 28, 2013 by

IMG_2731Yesterday, we headed down to Alexandria, Va., to attend an event at Hooray for Books with Beth Kephart, whose writing cannot be praised enough, and Debbie Levy, who is as charming in person as I expected.  It has been many years since I’ve been there, but I’ve always loved the waterfront, the Torpedo Factory, and many other things about the shops and restaurants there.  While I did notice some changes, including the movement of Hannelore’s where I got my wedding dress to a side street off of King Street, much of the atmosphere remains the same.  What did we do after the event? We went to our favorite pub, Murphy’s, though after the nauseated morning I had, I did not dare have the Guinness I would have love to have.  And then we took Wiggles around to check out the sights she has never seen.  (pictured here is my favorite tree down by the water).

Due to construction on the lovely George Washington Parkway, I was late to the event and I hate being late!  I abhor it.  My husband kindly dropped me off as he sought parking.  I walked in and was told there were still seats, which was good, though I would have stood for this one.  And stupidly, I became too absorbed in the conversation to take too many photos.  There was talk about memoir and its differences from fiction and autobiography, and how there is still a need for imagination in memoir, but not in making up facts.  We all know those memoirists that have been caught bending or blatantly making up facts — they are not Beth Kephart or Debbie Levy (below Beth on the left and Debbie on the far right).

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There were books galore to be had at the bookstore, and when my husband finally arrived with Wiggles, they sat for a few minutes while the audience — and myself — were engaged in a writing exercise about what friends from our school days would remember about us and what we’d like them to remember — thanks to Debbie Levy.  Earlier we had engaged in a different writing exercise about a first person account of an object, which Beth Kephart dreamt up.  I did share the poem, I will share here at the behest of Beth and Debbie, though I feel it is unfinished.

Ghost in a Book

She was a bean pole
awkward
books hanging from her nose,
from her hands,
in her bag.
Looking down, but
always -- inwardly -- out
to a horizon
beyond four walls,
small town, gossip.
Ready to spring --
jump forward, move
and leave us
wondering if she was here.

I’ve honestly written more poetry than fiction and essay and have never written memoir or nonfiction. It was good to stretch my writing in these exercises, and it was fun to see what others came up with. Some of them were funny and sarcastic, while others were serious. This was a great event for more than one reason — writing exercises, readings, questions and answers — but most of all the genuine awe and support the writers showed for one another, culminating in each buying books from the other’s stacks and signing books to their friends and loved ones. I loved how they bounced questions off of one another and how they interacted. It was like watching two colleagues who have known one another longer than I suspect Beth and Debbie have.

I’ll leave you with my favorite photo from yesterday — thanks to my husband who took the photo — of three lovely ladies.

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Filed Under: announcements, Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #194

September 17, 2012 by

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch. This month’s host is BookNAround.

The meme allows bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received from the library sale a couple weekends ago:

1.  Chosen by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

2.  Haunted by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, which I already had and didn’t realize, so I’ll be re-donating it to the library for them to sell again!

3.  Untamed by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

4.  Burned by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

5.  Tempted by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast; I still need the second book, Betrayed.

6.  Undercover by Beth Kephart, which is my favorite of her books and one I had borrowed from the library but did not own; Thanks, Anna for finding it.

7.  Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

8.  A Working Girl Can’t Win by Deborah Garrison

9.  The Poems of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Eugene M. Kayden

Review books that have arrived:

10.  Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, which came unsolicited from Penguin.

11.  Things Your Dog Doesn’t Want You to Know by Hy Conrad and Jeff Johnson for a TLC Book Tour in October.

12. The Boys of ’67 by Dr. Andrew Wiest for review.

13. One Last Strike by Tony La Russa, which came unexpectedly and will likely be passed onto someone who would love to read it.

14. The Demoness of Waking Dreams by Stephanie Chong, which came unexpectedly from WunderkindPR and will likely also find a new home.

15. With Apologies to Mick Jagger, Other Gods, and All Women by Jane Rosenberg LaForge for review.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Undercover by Beth Kephart

August 5, 2010 by

Elisa, a adolescent Cyrano de Bergerac, uses her love of words, nature and skating to navigate not only school and peer pressure, but also her family’s problems.  As a spy in Undercover by Beth Kephart, Elisa creates lines of verse to help her fellow male students make their girlfriends and soon-to-be girlfriends swoon.  She does so with stealth and folded scraps of paper without much thought, until Theo comes along.

“Dad likes to say, about both of us, that we’re undercover operatives who see the world better than the world sees us, and this, I swear, has its benefits.”  (page 8 )

Elisa takes much of her dad’s advice to heart, and much of that is probably because he’s away on business a lot of the time.  She spends quite a lot of time observing and creating verse until in Honors English she comes upon the tragedy of Cyrano, which effectively turns her philosophy upside down.  Beyond spending her days writing poems, she’s discovered a pond to provide her inspiration.  When it freezes over, she decides to skate . . . something she has never done before.

Undercover is a story about a girl who digs deep for courage, a courage she needs to write, to deal with fellow classmates, and to hold her family together.  Readers will connect with Elisa as they would reconnect with themselves, particularly if they were the student with few friends, felt that they were on the outside in many situations, or who wrote in their dark room at night alone.  Elisa is that girl in all of us.  She’s the young woman unsure of herself, her surroundings, and her abilities, but who is pushed beyond her self-imposed limits to reach higher, strive for more and dream big.  She does not want to be Cyrano.

Undercover will resonate with readers, push them to feel lonely when Elisa is alone, cheer up when she triumphs, and cry with happiness when all is right with the world.  The only drawback is that readers will not want to leave; they’ll want to know what happens with Theo, her rivals, and her family.  Kephart deftly uses language to paint each scene and elicit emotion, connecting the reader to Elisa through her casual narrative.  In many ways, readers will love this as much or more than Kephart’s Nothing But Ghosts.

I borrowed my copy of Undercover by Beth Kephart from the public library.

***Also, I forgot to mention that I took this book out upon Jill at Rhapsody in Books‘ recommendation.***

Filed Under: borrowed copy, Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2010, reviews, young adult fiction Tagged With: ,