Guess the Guest Author, Part 2

Hints will be put up each day about the author until the day of the author post. Please share your guess(es) in the comment box and you might win a copy of the author's new book. The winner will be announced the day of the guest post. Good Luck!

Hint #2 ½. Guest author has a BA in Psychology and MA in Sociology, and in the past, has been published under two noms de plume. Along with the name currently writing under, these pen names have the same initials.

Hint #1. With over 80 novels, guest author has been writing since 1980.

Hazard a guess!! (love that expression) and share the giveaway on your blog, facebook, and twitter.

Next week, a bestselling author has agreed to write the first ever guest post for ON THE BOOKCASE! Very Excited. I'll give you some hints every day to see if you can guess the author. The first person who guessing correctly will win a copy of the author's upcoming  book. Please share your guess in comments and feel free to share in your blog, FB, and Twitter. I'll announce the winner next week.

Author is a favorite reading-group author who creates real and challenging issues for a lively book discussion. Come back tomorrow for detailed hints! 

Monday, What are you reading?  J. Kaye's Book Blog  is hosting this weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week as well as books completed the previous week. Feel free to pile on a little extra.

I'm coming back from a nice relaxing Florida Christmas.

Completed Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler -- perfect-pitch characters.

Finishing up Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian. can't wait to read the ending but don't want the book to end!

Now, reading the guest author's upcoming release.

What are you reading?

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
  Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I"m on vacation (not) and so I'm reading a little something not work-related.

Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved by Elgen M. Long and Marie K. Long

"The sun would soon be high enough in the sky for him to take an accurate observation. A 26-day-old moon was visible as a white crescent in the southern sky, about 45 degrees to the west of the moon."

What are your two scents! of the day?

Music by the Book!
A pairing of music and words just for book groups!

In Music by the Book!, Tom Moon, author of 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, pairs words and music just for book groups.

For your next gathering, why not pair a book selection from Reading Group Choices with a music choice from Music by the Book!

This month, Tom suggests some music pairings for your discussion of The Soloist by Steve Lopez.

Nathaniel Ayers, the gifted homeless musician who is the subject of Steve Lopez’ The Soloist, struggles with mental illness. Once a student at Juilliard, Ayers fits the profile of one who fell through society’s safety net: He’s mistrustful, and prone to outbursts, and he doesn’t always make sense. Except, that is, when the subject is music. Then, he becomes not simply lucid but animated with passion. And deeply knowledgable.

As he follows Ayers around, Lopez – a metro columnist for the LA Times – gets an education in music, particularly in the classical music that is Ayers’ specialty.

One great way to get immersed in the world of The Soloist is to explore a few of the pieces that Ayers discusses so eloquently. Below are a few choice recordings.

Ernest Bloch: Howard Hanson Conducts Bloch. (Mercury). These performances of Bloch’s key works were recorded live at Rochester New York’s Eastman Theater in the late 1950s. In The Soloist, Ayers expresses affinity for Bloch’s “Schelomo, Rhapsody for Cello & Orchestra,” which on this recording is played with gusto by cellist Georges Miquelle.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.” New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor. (Columbia) This is the piece the LA Philharmonic is rehearsing on the day Nathaniel Ayers first visits Disney Concert Hall. The Bernstein version, recorded in 1966, captures the heaving intensity of the score, with its melodies crashing into melodies in what Bernstein describes (in the accompanying audio lecture) as “whiplashes of sound.”

Dvorak: The Dvorak Album, Yo-Yo Ma. (Sony). Released in 2004 to mark the 100th anniversary of Antonin Dvorak’s death, this compilation contains the Czech composer’s legendary Cello Concerto in b minor, another of Ayers’ favorites. It’s performed by the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Mazur; the solo passages are handled with great bubbling passion by the megastar Yo-Yo Ma, who makes an appearance late in The Soloist.

About Tom:

For the last three and a half years, award-winning music journalist Tom Moon has been searching out peak musical experiences from all genres and every corner of the earth. 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, published by Workman Publishing in August 2008, is the result of his journey. Covering both acknowledged world-culture masterworks (J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations) and recordings that have been unfairly overlooked (Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left), the book is designed to encourage listeners to become explorers.

Moon lives with his wife, daughter, two dogs and an attic full of music outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.