Book Giveaway: A Variety Pack

Inspired by many of my fellow bloggers who are giving away individual books or books in bulk to narrow down their libraries, I have seven paperbacks to offer as a giveaway. One person will win all seven books:

Sci-fi- Vast by Linda Nagata

Mystery/Thriller -
Ding Dong the Diva's Dead by Cat Melodia
The Taba Convention by Stephen W. Ayers
Justice by Jay Lillie

Fiction -
Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed, ARC
Lamb Bright Saviors by Robert Vivian
You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner by Lilian Duval

To enter, leave a comment with an email address where I can reach you. The giveaway is for U.S. residents only, due to Media Mail restrictions. No P.O. box addresses, please. You'll have three days to respond to a winning email, after which another winner will be selected. Hope you like the books! Click on the titles for information about each one. Contest ends Nov. 10.

UPDATE: The winner was Suz! Congrats!

New ARCs

It was a great pleasure to  have these ARCs arrive - some solicited, others won or a surprise. Two of them were published in October; four will be published late 2011 or in 2012.

I was especially waiting to read:

Title: The World We Found: A Novel by Thrity Umrigar
 (A Shelf Awareness giveaway). Publication: January 3, 2012
The story of four women who grew up in Bombay and the indelible friendship they share.

Title: Nanjing Requiem: A Novel by Ha Jin
 (from Amazon Vine). Publication: October 18, 2011
An American missionary in the city of Nanjing tries, at times unsuccessfully, to save tens of thousands of homeless women and children in one of the darkest moments of the 20th century: the Rape of Nanjing in war torn China, 1937.

Title: Falling Together: A Novel by Marisa de los Santos
(from Amazon Vine). Publication: October 4, 2011
When three college friends reconnect at a college reunion after six years have gone by, a collision of past and present sends them on a journey across the world, one that will change everything.

Title: Helpless, a thriller by Daniel Palmer
(from the author). Publication: January 31, 2012
Navy Seal and high school soccer coach Tom Hawkins must clear his name when an anonymous blog post accuses him of sleeping with one of his players. He has to unravel lies about his past that someone may kill to keep a secret.

Title: Three Weeks in December by Audrey Schulman
(from Europa Editions). Publication: Jan. 31, 2012
Two stories set in East Africa in 1899 and 2000 are told in alternating perspectives of an American engineer and an ethnobotanist.

Title: A Vine in the Blood: A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation
(from the author). Publication: Dec. 27, 2011
Three weeks before the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the soccer star Tico’s mother, is kidnapped. The pressure is on Chief Inspector Mario Silva to get her back.

Happily, four of the ARCs have been printed with the same covers as their final copies. I'm looking forward to reading all six - two set in Asia, one in Africa, one in Brazil, and two in the U.S. A good trip around the world with contemporary fiction, two thrillers, and some good literary fiction.  

Teaser: The Year Everything Changed by Georgia Brokoven

The Year Everything Changed: A Novel by Georgia Bockoven
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; August 23, 2011
Genre: contemporary women's fiction

Long repressed pain and anger flared through her like flames through a summer-parched forest. He was summoning her as if she were supposed to care that he was dying?

"Well, I don't," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, old man, you died a long time ago." (ch. 5)

Book description: Four sisters who never knew the others existed will find strength, love, and answers when they come together around their father's deathbed. Georgia Bockoven is an award-winning author of The Beach House and Another Summer. She lives in Northern California.

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

Six Cozy Mystery Books

Cozy mystery series, new books out in November 2011:

Dangerous Alterations (A Southern Sewing Circle Mystery) by Elizabeth Lynn Casey
Paperback: 272 pages; Berkley

"When librarian Tori Sinclair's philandering ex turns up dead, the police chief believes Tori may have been involved. Only the girls from the sewing circle will be able to help keep her life from coming apart at the seams..."  (publisher)

Title: To Catch a Leaf: A Flower Shop Mystery by Kate Collins
Paperback, 336 pages; Signet

"Flower shop owner Abby Knight is happily engaged to her longtime beau, Marco Salvare. But when wealthy dowager Virginia Newport is killed and Abby's assistant is the prime suspect, Abby 'll have to save her friend and throw a killer and a thief in jail..." (publisher)

Title: Who Do, Voodoo? (A Mind for Murder Mystery) by Rochelle Staab
Paperback: 304 pages; Berkley
 
"Clinical psychologist Liz Cooper doesn't believe in ghosts. But when her best friend finds a tarot card tacked to her front door-and is then accused of murder-Liz will have to find a way to embrace the occult if she wants to outwit the real killer..." (publisher)

 Title: Behind the Seams: A Crochet Mystery by Betty Hechtman
Hardcover: 304 pages; Berkley Hardcover
 
"The crochet group's informal leader, actress CeeCee Collins, has a movie out, and is to appear on the Barbara Olive Overton Show. When CeeCee's niece is accused of poisoning one of the producers, the Tarzana Hookers crochet group must clear her name before someone else dies..." (publisher)

Title: Death on a Platter: Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper by Elaine Viets
Paperback: 304 pages; Signet
 
"Josie Marcus plans to sample the local St. Louis cuisine for a City Eats food tour. But at Tillie's Off the Hill Italian Restaurant, another customer is poisoned. It's up to Josie to find a killer who has no reservations about preparing a dish to die for..." (publisher)

Title: Mrs. Jeffries and the Mistletoe Mix-Up: A Victorian Mystery by Emily Brightwell
Hardcover: 272 pages; Berkley Hardcover
 
"Under a bundle of mistletoe, art collector Daniel McCourt lies with his throat slit, a bloody sword next to his body. Inspector Witherspoon is determined to solve the case before Christmas Eve, with the help of the sharp-witted housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, who has her own theories on why McCourt had to die by the sword." (publisher)

Sunday Salon: 1Q84

Welcome to the Sunday Salon. Click on the logo to join in.

Thanks to Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon, I reviewed more books in the past seven days than I normally do. It was a good feeling to get six books down, about three more than I usually do.

I posted comments on three books: Success Secrets of Sherlock Holmes by David Accord; Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows, and The Guilded Shroud  by Elizabeth Bailey. I also reviewed:
The Last Blind Date by Linda Yellin, a memoir
The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, a novel
The Economics of Ego Surplus by Paul McDonnold, a crime thriller

I  hope to get through a brand new book - Haruki Murakami's long awaited new novel, 1Q84, which I 'm reading on Kindle since the hardcover book is so thick and heavy! It's almost 1,000 pages long, but worth the read, I've heard. Here's a very concise book description from an article by the Associated Press entitled Murakami's '1Q84' offers clues to literature's future: Two story lines converge gracefully, one of them in an alternate reality. Fantasy lovers and literature lovers alike might enjoy this.

Everything's on hold while I read 1Q84, except for a Nov. 14 book tour for The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, a novel about African American homesteaders in the early 1900s.

Update: I've just signed up for a Murakami challenge to read at least one of his books in 2011, and 1Q84 is it! For more information, visit Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge

What have you been reading and what are you planning to read this week?

Book Review: The Economics of Ego Surplus, a Novel of Economic Terrorism by Paul McDonnold

Title: The Economics of Ego Surplus: A Novel of Economic Terrorism
Author: Paul McDonnold
Starving Analyst Press, September 15, 2010
Genre: crime thriller
Objective rating: 4/5

"My name is Marshall Adams. I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?"

"Okay. Call me Kyle. Am I in some kind of trouble?" (p. 17)

Kyle Linwood,  a teacher and doctoral student of economics, is approached by the FBI to help  find out about recent internet "chatter" on possible economic terrorism aimed at the U.S. and ultimately the global market. Kyle had escaped from kidnappers in Libya years before by a terrorist group. His knowledge of Africa and economics is called on when the U.S.stock market suddenly began crashing with massive sell-offs, then leveling out very soon after.

The FBI are concerned about economic warfare aimed at the stock market and the U.S. currency. Kyle goes to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to investigate a private banking corporation possibly linked to the stock market manipulation. There he gets some answers but barely escapes with his life.

My comments: I know a little bit about economics and found the book fun to read. It was like reliving Econ 101 and 102 classes, with an update on the workings of the global market. The author explains supply and demand, recession and inflation, the history of economics and Adam Smith, Keynes economic theory, the theory of contemporary neoclassical economists, and does so in a way that even high school students would understand how the global economy works. In between, he describes the opulence of Dubai, its fantastic malls and hotel complexes, and touches on the poverty of the people in its deserts. I enjoyed the mini tour and armchair travel as well as the bit of thriller action that comes at the end of the book.

The book is a comment on the possible downside of the global economy, when countries tramp around in each other's backyards and leave their footprints there - desirable or undesirable consequences. Besides being a thriller, the final aim of his book is to show "the shortage of humility and the surplus of ego" that can rule or ruin the global market.

I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.

Book Review: The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones

"I love that you got it about the food," he said, "that you understood it, that maybe - I hope I'm not projecting - you might even be on your way to loving it." (ch. 14)

Title: The Last Chinese Chef: a Novel by Nicole Mones
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 4, 2007
Genre: culinary history, fiction
Rating: 4.5/5

My comments: Maggie McElroy, a food writer in America, is on personal mission to Beijing, where her deceased husband Matt worked on and off as a lawyer. Someone has filed a suit against his estate and she must find out the truth. She is also sent by her editor to interview chef Sam Liang in Beijing for an article. Liang is translating a culinary book with his father from the old Mandarin - The Last Chinese Chef.

In Beijing, Maggie's personal problems are balanced by her new interest in the history of Chinese cuisine as she learns about food used as a way to develop community as well as a way to ease heart and mind. She learns about the combinations of texture and flavor to provide various meals categorized as extravagant, rustic, or elegant. She also discovers the difference between Chinese American food, meant to be familiar yet exotic, and true Chinese food, with each dish different and unique.

I found the book very informative and learnt to appreciate the time, skill, and thought that goes into classical Chinese cooking. The special dishes that were once created exclusively for the Imperial family are now enjoyed by all. I myself am a great fan of dim sum, the little dishes of amazing variety that once only the Imperial family were privileged to eat.

Book description: Nicole Mones takes readers inside the hidden world of elite cuisine in modern China through the story of an American food writer in Beijing. When recently widowed Maggie McElroy is called to China to settle a claim against her late husband’s estate, she is blindsided by the discovery that he may have led a double life. Since work is all that will keep her sane, her magazine editor assigns her to profile Sam, a half-Chinese American who is the last in a line of gifted chefs tracing back to the imperial palace. As she watches Sam gear up for China’s Olympic culinary competition by planning the banquet of a lifetime, she begins to see past the cuisine’s artistry to glimpse its coherent expression of Chinese civilization. It is here, amid lessons of tradition, obligation, and human connection that she finds the secret ingredient that may yet heal her heart. (Amazon)

About the author: Mones, award-winning author of Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light, and a contributor to Gourmet magazine, ran a textile business in China for 18 years at the end of the Cultural Revolution. She lives in Portland, Oregon. For more about her books, visit her at Nicole Mones.

© Harvee Lau 2011