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Entertainment Weekly unveiled the cover for Liane Moriarty’s upcoming release, TRULY MADLY GUILTY. Moriarty is the author of the bestseller BIG LITTLE LIES which is now in production as a limited series for HBO. TRULY MADLY GUILTY releases on July 26 and this is the tiny snippet we have been given for the plot:

“Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One small dog. It’s just a normal weekend. What could possibly go wrong?”

Can’t wait to see how the story unfolds…

Last year at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, we had a great turnout and discussion during our book buzz event. If you’ll be at ALA, join us again this year to keep the conversation going:

Lately, everyone’s been talking about diversity in children’s books. We know where we are and where we need to be. But how do we get past “Diversity 101” and find ways to create lasting change? Join us for a special “Diversity 102” discussion on:

• New books from LEE & LOW’s imprints

• How to turn talk into change (e.g. the amazingly successful #weneeddiversebooks campaign)

• How to create truly inclusive book collections

• How to encourage more diversity at every level of the publishing chain

Details:
Sunday, June 29, 2014
3:30–4:00 PM
Las Vegas Convention Center
Exhibit Hall, Book Buzz Theater (located on the Exhibit Floor with the entrance located in Hall N3 next to Booth #2245)

Bring your friends, questions, and ideas. We look forward to seeing you there!

A debut novel by Seattle writer and former lawyer Tara Conklin is the #1 Indie Next Pick for February The House Girl (HarperCollins/ Morrow). Bookseller Beverly Bauer of Redbery Books, Cable, WI, describes it,

“Lina, a young, ambitious New York attorney in 2004, never knew her mother. Josephine, a young house slave in 1852, never knew her child. More than a century apart, their lives connect in unexpected ways. Corporate law offices, art museums, antebellum homes, and the Underground Railroad provide the setting for a story filled with secrets, betrayals, and love. Does the House Girl title apply to both women? The paths of these strong women will have the reader marveling at the layers Conklin has created to tell their intertwined stories.”

New Book Pick for Good Housekeeping.

Marie Claire calls The House Girl the “book-club book of 2013″.

You can also read more musings from Tara at her blog, Popcorn the Blog.

SUMMARY:

Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit—if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her?

Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.

David Sedaris

I am officially obsessed with the New York Times new column, BY THE BOOK. It appears in the Sunday Book Review as well as a longer version that runs on the paper’s online site. By the Book interviews literary celebrities about their reading habits, what they are currently reading, what books remain favorites and my personal favorite, whether or not they take notes in their books.

Here is David Sedaris’ answer to the question, do you take notes when you read?

What are your reading habits? Paper or electronic? Do you take notes? Do you snack while you read?

I sometimes read books on my iPad. It’s great for traveling, but paper versions are easier to mark up, and I like the feeling of accomplishment I get when measuring the number of pages I’ve just finished — “Three-quarters of an inch!” I like listening to books as well, as that way you can iron at the same time. Notewise, whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.

I find myself now eagerly anticipating who the next By the Book profile will be. Can’t wait until next Sunday to find out!

Oprah Magazine calls Charlotte Rogan’s debut novel THE LIFEBOAT “The One Dazzling Novel You Need to Read This Month.”

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

From Oprah:

We’re reading this one now. Bookfinds review to come. Has anyone read THE LIFEBOAT? What are your thoughts on this critically acclaimed novel?

What does one do after starring in an Oscar winning film, winning the Palm Dog Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, attending the White House Correspondents Dinner and occupying your own special booth at the Weinsteins’ Oscar Party at the Mondrian?

Write a tell-all, of course! Uggie, the breakout star of The Artist will be releasing Uggie: My Story. He’s getting a little help from author Wendy Holden and readers can pick up this gem from Gallery Books in October.

Uggie officially retired from the business earlier this year so the timing is just perfect.

Will you read a dog’s memoir? Will it be a tongue-in-cheek story? How many memoirs have there been from an animal’s point of view?

Bethenny Frankel, of Skinny Girl and Bravo TV fame, is releasing her debut novel, SKINNYDIPPING, today. Frankel calls it her most favorite creative project of her life. “It’s a guilty pleasure that you don’t even have to feel guilty about!” says Frankel.

Here’s a description of SKINNYDIPPING:

“Who do I have to sleep with to get a drink on this plane?”

Beloved by countless fans for being devilishly dishy, outrageously funny, and always giving it to us straight, three-time New York Times bestselling author Bethenny Frankel now makes her fiction debut with the story of Faith Brightstone. Faith is an aspiring actress just out of college, who moves to L.A. determined to have it all—a job on the most popular TV show, a beach house in Malibu, and a gorgeous producer boyfriend. But when reality hits, she finds herself with a gig as a glorified servant, a role that has more to do with T&A than acting, and a dead-end relationship. Finally, Faith decides she’s had enough of La La Land and moves back to New York with just a suitcase and her dog, Muffin.

Five years later, Faith has finally found her groove as an entrepreneur and manages to land a spot on a new reality TV show hosted by her idol—the legendary businesswoman and domestic goddess Sybil Hunter. Diving into the bizarre world of reality TV, Faith’s loud mouth and tell-it-like-it-is style immediately get her in trouble with her fellow contestants—the delusional socialite; the boozy lifestyle coach; the moody headband designer; and her closest friend, the ambitious housewife who eventually betrays her. Even Sybil is not what she appears.

As the show comes to a dramatic close, Faith discovers that the man of her dreams may have just walked into her life. Will she choose fame or love? Or can she have it all?

skinnydipping by Betheny Frankel

So, will you be picking up Bethenny Frankel’s debut novel? What are your thoughts on Bethenny Frankel and her meteoric rise to fame?

Girl Reading by Katie Ward

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding GIRL READING by Katie Ward and I can understand why. The plot sounds both mesmerizing and intriguing.

Seven portraits. Seven artists. Seven girls and women reading.A young orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena. An artist’s servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles. An eighteenth century female painter completes a portrait of a deceased poetess for her lover.  A Victorian medium poses with a book in one of the first photographic studios. A girl suffering her first heartbreak witnesses intellectual and sexual awakening during the Great War. A young woman reading in a bar catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture.  And in the not-so-distant future a woman navigates the rapidly developing cyber-reality that has radically altered the way people experience art and the way they live.

Each chapter of Katie Ward’s kaleidoscopic novel takes us into a perfectly imagined tale of how each portrait came to be, and as the connections accumulate, the narrative leads us into the present and beyond. In gorgeous prose Ward explores our points of connection, our relationship to art, the history of women, and the importance of reading.  This dazzlingly inventive novel that surprises and satisfies announces the career of a brilliant new writer.

Oprah.com listed it as their Book-of-the-Week, saying:

The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words gets trotted out pretty regularly, but we so infrequently stop to think what it means. In this luminously vulnerable debut novel, Katie Ward takes seven real images of women reading and imagines a story for each one. From a young girl struggling with an unintended pregnancy in 1333 to a performer photographed by her less flamboyant but much more talented sister in the Victorian era to an adolescent who’s fixated on a much older man during World War I, Ward’s characters are so utterly relatable that you’ll feel you know them after a few sentences. Yet none of them appears for more than a chapter, transforming each tale into snapshot of a woman’s life. At first, the brevity of interaction is disappointing, because getting to know the characters is such a pleasure. But as you go (and the pages in this book do turn quickly), Ward’s reason for creating these short portraits becomes clearer. The sketches she composes are an invitation to the “girl reading” (that’s you!) to go further on your own, to imagine the characters’ next chapters, or even their whole lives, to enjoy the infinite imaginative possibilities offered by a finite portrait. If you dig into the stories, you’ll get far more than a mere thousand words. In fact, you’ll discover, as one of Ward’s characters says, that “there is a world under” each and every one.

Other industry reviews are glowing, as well:

“A real wow of a first novel…incredibly clever.” –The Times (London)

Book of the Week: “Katie Ward’s assured debut is inspired by that mysterious and provocative subject of a thousand visual images: a woman reading . . . In each chapter Ward twists a story around real works of art. Her seven unpredictable tales serve up a lively, irreverent and even feminist journey through history.�

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Because I've been so busy I have forgotten to blog about a few books I've read lately. So this is a little snippet of each and a shout out to the authors.....