Monday's Bookishly Beautiful #4

Who couldn't use a book lift-me-up on Monday mornings? This meme will consist of anything related to books that could also be considered beautiful, art, or uplifting. It could include pictures, quotes, book covers that caught your eye, products that celebrate books, beautiful locations that promote books, or anything else pertaining to books that brightens your day. We all see something different as beautiful which will make this meme a real joy to peruse through as you and others in the blogging community join in. Please link back to A Library of our Own and leave a comment with the link to your post. Thank you and I can't wait to see all of your Monday's Bookishly Beautiful posts!

I LOVE a trip to the bookstore! I could wander, browse, and sit in a corner or on the floor looking at a book for hours. Getting lost in a bookstore is magical. Today I thought I would share my favorites from Flavorwire's The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World and Readers' Choice 20 More Beautiful Bookstores from Around the World. Please check out the links for a full list of all 40.

Bart’s Books, Ojai, California [photo via]

Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid, Buenos Aires, Argentina [images via and via]

  Poplar Kid’s Republic, Beijing, China

  Cafebreria El Pendulo, Mexico City, Mexico [photos via]

 Shakespeare & Company, Paris, France [photo via]

 Ler Devagar, Lisbon, Portugal

 Livraria Cultura, São Paulo, Brazil [via and via]

 Massolit Books, Kraków, Poland [via and via]

 Chapters Runnymede, Toronto [via]

 The Honesty Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye, UK [via]

Underground bookstore in Coober Pedy, Australia [via]

 Tattered Cover, Denver, CO [via]

Which is your favorite?

Mailbox Monday #4

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Cindy's Love of Books this month. This meme allows bloggers to showcase the new books they have received over the last week. Warning: this meme can definitely lead to book envy! 

Won

Another Piece Of My Heart by Jane Green - Thank you to Colleen at Books in the City! 

Received from publisher

The Homecoming Of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield - Thank you Random House!

Gilded Age by Claire McMillan - Thank you Simon and Schuster!

The Underside Of Joy by Sere Prince Alverson - Thank you Dutton! - Look for a giveaway soon!

I am really looking forward to reading all of these! 

What did you get in your mailbox this week?

Review: Secret Daughter

Title: Secret Daughter
Author: Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Fiction
Source: Purchased
My Rating:
Synopsis (from Goodreads): On the eve of the monsoons, in a remote Indian village, Kavita gives birth to a baby girl. But in a culture that favors sons, the only way for Kavita to save her newborn daughter's life is to give her away. It is a decision that will haunt her and her husband for the rest of their lives, even after the arrival of their cherished son.

Halfway around the globe, Somer, an American doctor, decides to adopt a child after making the wrenching discovery that she will never have one of her own. When she and her husband, Krishnan, see a photo of the baby with the gold-flecked eyes from a Mumbai orphanage, they are overwhelmed with emotion. Somer knows life will change with the adoption but is convinced that the love they already feel will overcome all obstacles.

Interweaving the stories of Kavita, Somer, and the child that binds both of their destinies, Secret Daughter poignantly explores the emotional terrain of motherhood, loss, identity, and love, as witnessed through the lives of two families—one Indian, one American—and the child that indelibly connects them.

My Thoughts: Gowda provides one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a while. The story is not only a page turner but one that will have you thinking about the characters, locales, and issues long after you've stopped turning the pages. She takes us on a journey into a world that many of us have never even really considered, let alone been part of. 

Gowda brings very compelling issues into mainstream thought through an engrossing story. Issues that, but for this story, would remain unknown for a large portion of it's readers. We are presented with the reality of arranged marriage, gender preference leading to infanticide, the brutal truths of life lived in a shanty town in India, infertility, the challenge of raising a child of inter-cultural adoption, the identity issues which arise for an adoptee, and the meaning of family. The beauty of Gowda's writing is that even with all this it is still an incredibly accessible book.

The writing in this book is incredibly descriptive and engrossing. Gowda made India come alive for me. I became so immersed in Gowda's India that I had ended up with such a craving to go out one night and experience some of the wonderful food I was reading about.  I have now tasted Bengan bhartha, which is delicious! 

This is an amazing debut book by Shilpi Somaya Gowda and I highly recommend it!

Review: The Folded Earth

Title: The Folded Earth
Author: Anuradha Roy
Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Free Press
Genre:Literary Fiction
Source: Free Press
My rating:
Synopsis (from Goodreads): An evocative and deeply moving tale of a young woman making a new life for herself amid the foothills of the Himalaya. Desperate to leave a private tragedy behind, Maya abandons herself to the rhythms of the little village, where people coexist peacefully with nature. But all is not as it seems, and she soon learns that no refuge is remote enough to keep out the modern world. When power-hungry politicians threaten her beloved mountain community, Maya finds herself caught between the life she left behind and the new home she is determined to protect.
Elegiac, witty, and profound by turns, and with a tender love story at its core, The Folded Earth brims with the same genius and love of language that made An Atlas of Impossible Longing an international success and confirms Anuradha Roy as a major new literary talent.

My Review:  I'd first like to direct you to the beautiful cover! Doesn't that cover just draw you in? Make you feel as if something beautiful is waiting within? An awesome cover has me from the word go.

I found this book to be both beautiful, engaging, and frustrating all at the same time. The book is broken up into two parts. Part One just seemed to lay the groundwork for Part Two. Part One was very hard for me to get involved in. Part Two was very engaging. I fell in love with many of the local village characters. I was anxiously waiting to see how Charu's story turned out and whether Veer was really the jerk I thought him to be. The writing made you feel as if you were there with the characters. I came to feel as if I knew Ranikhet, the village where this story was set. I actually found myself wanting more from many of the main characters. This story ended too abruptly, it left me with unanswered questions even though the story lines were all completed.


If you enjoy a well written story, read this for the feeling of village life in India, the quirky characters, the beauty of the mountains. Anuradna Roy showed me a place I'd never been before.

Monday's Bookishly Beautiful #3

Who couldn't use a book lift-me-up on Monday mornings? This meme will consist of anything related to books that could also be considered beautiful, art, or uplifting. It could include pictures, quotes, book covers that caught your eye, products that celebrate books, beautiful locations that promote books, or anything else pertaining to books that brightens your day. We all see something different as beautiful which will make this meme a real joy to peruse through as you and others in the blogging community join in. Please link back to A Library of our Own and leave a comment with the link to your post. Thank you and I can't wait to see all of your Monday's Bookishly Beautiful posts!

Today I would like to show you three videos which I love.  They are all completely different but showcase books in a wonderful way. The second one is a little long but if you are a book lover I think you'll find it worth your time. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

In My Mailbox/Mailbox Monday #3

In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren and Mailbox Monday is hosted by Cindy's Love of Books this month. These two memes allow bloggers to showcase the new books they have received over the last week. 

 Survey Promo from Random House - The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith

Purchased:

Let's Pretend This Never Happened - A Mostly True Memoir By Jennie Lawson

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Secretariat by William Nack

I hope you had some wonderful finds in your mailbox this week!

Review: The Bungalow

Title: The Bungalow
Author: Sarah Jio
Length: 290 pages
Publisher: Plume
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction
Source: Purchased
My Rating:
Synopsis (from Goodreads): A sweeping World War II saga of thwarted love, murder, and a long-lost painting.
In the summer of 1942, twenty-one-year-old Anne Calloway, newly engaged, sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora. More exhilarated by the adventure of a lifetime than she ever was by her predictable fiancé, she is drawn to a mysterious soldier named Westry, and their friendship soon blossoms into hues as deep as the hibiscus flowers native to the island. Under the thatched roof of an abandoned beach bungalow, the two share a private world-until they witness a gruesome crime, Westry is suddenly redeployed, and the idyll vanishes into the winds of war.
A timeless story of enduring passion, The Bungalow chronicles Anne's determination to discover the truth about the twin losses-of life, and of love-that have haunted her for seventy years.

My Review: I was very hesitant to pick this book up. Sarah Jio's first book had come very highly recommended and I hate to say it but I really didn't like it. The secondary story held me enthralled for most of it but it ended up falling flat for me. I won't go into why, as this is not a review of The Violets of March. Now a new Sarah Jio book was being talked up, The Bungalow. Well if you knew me you would know that I would not be able to automatically pass by a book with a cover as beautiful as The Bungalow's. That cover is where I want to be! This book was literally "love at first sight". I think that it could have been about anything and I would not have been able to resist! Luckily the storyline also sounded very interesting.


I started reading this book while I was also reading two other books. I switched back and forth for about the first half of the book. I found myself always waiting anxiously until it was time to return to The Bungalow. Anne, Westry, and the beauty of Bora Bora, which you couldn't help but feel transported to, had captured me. I wanted to be in the bungalow and part of the mystery and romance. Once I got to the halfway point I just couldn't put it down anymore! I finished it in one sitting! The beauty, romance, loss, tension, and yearning that was The Bungalow stayed with me long after I closed the book and put it down.


This book is what Sarah Jio started to show me she could do in The Violets of March. I highly recommend The Bungalow! If you've read it I'd love to hear your opinions!

Review: A Night to Remember

Title: A Night to Remember
Author: Walter Lord
Length: 208 pages
Publisher: Open Road Media
Genre: Non-fiction, History
Source: Purchased
My Rating:
Synopsis (from Goodreads): James Cameron's 1997 Titanic movie is a smash hit, but Walter Lord's 1955 classic remains in some ways unsurpassed. Lord interviewed scores of Titanic passengers, fashioning a gripping you-are-there account of the ship's sinking that you can read in half the time it takes to see the film. The book boasts many perfect movie moments not found in Cameron's film. When the ship hits the berg, passengers see "tiny splinters of ice in the air, fine as dust, that give off myriads of bright colors whenever caught in the glow of the deck lights." Survivors saw dawn reflected off other icebergs in a rainbow of shades, depending on their angle toward the sun: pink, mauve, white, deep blue--a landscape so eerie, a little boy tells his mom, "Oh, Muddie, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it." A Titanic funnel falls, almost hitting a lifeboat--and consequently washing it 30 yards away from the wreck, saving all lives aboard. One man calmly rides the vertical boat down as it sinks, steps into the sea, and doesn't even get his head wet while waiting to be successfully rescued. On one side of the boat, almost no males are permitted in the lifeboats; on the other, even a male Pekingese dog gets a seat. Lord includes a crucial, tragically ironic drama Cameron couldn't fit into the film: the failure of the nearby ship Californian to save all those aboard the sinking vessel because distress lights were misread as random flickering and the telegraph was an early wind-up model that no one wound.

Lord's account is also smarter about the horrifying class structure of the disaster, which Cameron reduces to hollow Hollywood formula. No children died in the First and Second Class decks; 53 out of 76 children in steerage died. According to the press, which regarded the lower-class passengers as a small loss to society, "The night was a magnificent confirmation of women and children first, yet somehow the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than First Class men." As the ship sank, writes Lord, "the poop deck, normally Third Class space ... was suddenly becoming attractive to all kinds of people." Lord's logic is as cold as the Atlantic, and his bitter wit is quite dry.

My Review: I picked this book up for the Kindle on 4/13/12 during the Kindle Daily Deal. I had never read a book about the Titanic before and as this had gotten great reviews and it was the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking I thought that it was a good time to change that.

I found this book engaging, engrossing, gripping and simply fascinating! It was a well written and, from what I could tell, thorough account of that night. I felt connected to the passengers and crew that were on the Titanic during this horrific time. One of the things I liked best about this book is that there weren't liberties taken, drama wasn't added to make the book more exciting. This was simply the story of the Titanic's last night. I felt that Lord also did a good job of discussing the social expectations at play when the Titanic sunk and how they were changed as a result of that tragedy.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone interested in the story of the Titanic.

Monday's Bookishly Beautiful #2

Who couldn't use a book lift-me-up on Monday mornings? This meme will consist of anything related to books that could also be considered beautiful, art, or uplifting. It could include pictures, quotes, book covers that caught your eye, products that celebrate books, beautiful locations that promote books, or anything else pertaining to books that brightens your day. We all see something different as beautiful which will make this meme a real joy to peruse through as you and others in the blogging community join in. Please link back to A Library of our Own and leave a comment with the link to your post. Thank you and I can't wait to see all of your Monday's Bookishly Beautiful posts!

This week I have some photos that were found on Karan Arora's Posterous. My husband sent these to me after they caught his eye. I'm not sure exactly what I think of them. I need to spend a little more time thinking about them. I know that I seem to have a mental block when it comes to books being altered. However one way or another these are definitely fascinating. Brian Dettmer creates art by carving books,one page at a time, with knives, tweezers, and surgical instruments. Let me know what you think!

G is in love with these! He thinks that they are amazing!  What do you think?  Do you have a favorite one?