identity

Author On the Bookcase
Ann Joslin Williams

I'm excited to welcome Ann Joslin Williams, author of Down from Cascom Mountain, to On the Bookcase. Set in rugged New Hampshire in the aftermath of a fatal accident, Down From Cascom Mountain explores grief, desire and identity. Mary Hall overcomes her grief from the death of her husband.

AUTHOR SQUARED
Caroline Leavitt
Heidi Durrow

Two Authors chat about writing, books, and everything in between

I'm so thrilled to announce this new feature for On the Bookcase! The first AUTHOR SQUARED combines two New York Times bestselling authors, Caroline Leavitt (Pictures of You) and Heidi Durrow (The Girl Who Fell from the Sky). Both excellent book club picks!

Go girls!

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson has won the Man Booker Prize beating out the favorite, C by Tom McCarthy.

Sir Andrew Motion, Chair of the judges, made the announcement. Motion comments, "The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize."

From everthing I've read, The Finkler Question is a great reading group choice. Identity, ethnicity, justice, relationships are great conversation topics.

Publisher summary: Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends.

Man Booker Prize Part Six
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

'He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one…’ Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they’ve never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czech always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.

Man Booker Prize Part Five
In A Strange Room by Damon Galgut

A novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange Room is a hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man’s search for love and for a place to call home.

A young man makes three journeys that take him through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way – including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge – he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man’s best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his life.

Praise

"I doubt if any book in 2010 will contain more memorable evocations of place than In a Strange Room...

Author On the Bookcase
Cathy Lamb

I'm excited to welcome Cathy Lamb, author of Such A Pretty Face. Her book tells the story of Stevie, who two years and 170 pounds ago, was wheeled into an operating room for surgery that most likely saved her life. At thirty-five, Stevie is the one thing she never thought she'd be: thin.

Stevie realizes the most important part of her transformation may not be what she's lost, but the courage and confidence she's gathering, day by day. What fascinating reading-group topics -- identity, family, friendships.

Today, Cathy chats about her writing process. What do toilets, electricity, carpet and a chimmey have to do with her writing?

Teaser Tuesday and Room by Emma Donoghue Giveaway.

Room is one of the 13 books selected for the longlist of the 2010 Man Booker Award. I will featured all 13 in upcoming posts.

Here are the beginning lines of Room.

"Today I'm five. I was four last night going to sleep in Wardrobe, but when I wake up in Bed in the dark I'm changed to five, abracadabra. Before that I was three, then two, then one, then zero.