Jul 23, 2016

Sunday Salon: Novels and Oral Storytelling

An Amish mystery novel, In the Land of Milk and Honey by Jane Jensen arrived this week, and I began reading it right away, interested in the setting in an Amish farming  community in Pennsylvania. The book is fiction but is written by an author who grew up in and lives in Lancaster County in Pa.
In The Land of Milk and Honey is the second in the Elizabeth Harris mystery series to be released August 2, 2016. Elizabeth Harris is a homicide detective who used to work in the NYPD, but who now works in Pa., living with her boyfriend, a former member of the Amish community.

Elizabeth is called in to help solve the mystery of the overnight death of an Amish family who seemed to have succumbed to the flu, but whose milk cows are also found to be sick and dying. I am in the middle of the novel and can't wait to find out what  and who is causing the deaths and sickness that is spreading in the Amish community.


A new galley on my desk, PhDeath, is a thriller by an author who has recommendations from writers and critics such as Pico Iyer and the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig. This is making me very anxious to read the book, the first of the Puzzler Murders by James P. Carse. It will be released September 15, 2016 by Opus Books.

The Kingdom: a Novel  by Fuminori Nakamura was published July 12, 2016 by Soho Press. I posted a review on July 16. I enjoyed this noir thriller, set in the Tokyo underground, that had me rooting for its unconventional main character.

It has been so hot these past few weeks! We spend four days in Kansas City where it was just as hot as here at home, if not more. The highlight of the trip for me was not only the perfect air conditioned room with its brand new furniture and decor in the renovated hotel, but attending a pre-conference "concert" of the National Storytelling Conference held at the hotel by the National Storytelling Network. We listened to five experienced storytellers, at least two of whom brought us to tears with their stories and dramatic performances. Storytelling certainly is a very creative artform.

Are any of you oral storytellers as well as readers and writers?

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date.

11 comments:

  1. I always love new thrillers....thanks for sharing, and enjoy!

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  2. I'd read anything Robert Pirsig recommended.

    http://readerbuzz.blogspot.com/2016/07/mo-willems-goes-to-paris.html

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  3. Listening to oral storytelling can be such a moving and rewarding experience.

    This was the way that humans first invented storytelling and fictions. It remains an important part of our cultures.

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  4. In the Land of Milk and Honey looks like a book I need to read. Adding that to my TBR. The history of oral story telling sounds interesting. We had a storytelling festival here for years and I always loved it. Have a great week!

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  5. When I try to tell stories aloud, I either give too much information or ruin the whole thing by giving the punchline first. Or stutter terribly. Or laugh at some joke that only I recall. Does that answer your question? (tee hee...)

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  6. Land of Milk and Honey sounds wonderful!

    I wish I could tell a good story... but tend to give just the facts and skip over a lot of the intriguing details that draw the listener in.

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  7. Oral storytelling would be interesting... would love to see something like that. Even parents telling stories to their kids- my grandfather used to tell us stories about his time in the Belgian Congo (fictional) as a kid, and we loved it, inspired our imaginations... wha a neat thing.

    That Amish mystery sounds interesting, we have an Amish community not far from us here.

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  8. The Kingdom looks very suspenseful. I'm intrigued by the concept of the cover. I hope you enjoy reading this week.


    My It's Monday! What Are You Reading? post.

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  9. In the Land of Milk and Honey sounds great. I'm adding it to my wishlist. Come see what my week was like here. Happy reading!

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  10. Thank goodness for air conditioning. I'm in the Pacific Northwest and we've escaped the heat wave...until now. It is supposed to heat up and I am very, very glad that we have AC!

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    1. Temps were so high in Kansas City I wanted to stay indoors all day though I was on vacation! We all have air conditioning, I think, but it was really appreciated in Kansas when it was like an oven outside!

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I appreciate your comments and thoughts...

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