HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY!! (11/02/2013)

This November marks the second year of JOYCE'S CHOICES, indeed a milestone....for me, anyway.

Thankyou everyone for your ideas, suggestions, reviews, musings and comments.  I value your opinions, sometimes disagree with your opinions but overall want your opinions.

To celebrate, let's keep reading, support new authors, and open our minds to all the genres in "book review land."

I appreciate all my blog readers and thankyou for your support
No you don't have to send a gift, (or see below..)..... just keep coming back for more!



GIFT SUGGESTIONS: (I'm not shy!)

1. You can 'like" me on Facebook at Joyce's Choices/Book Blog
2. "Follow" Joyce's Choices Book Blog located in the Sidebar
3. Support first time authors
4. Leave a comment, please...
5. Read!

LIKE ELTON JOHN....JUST CAN'T STOP (11/30/2013)

John Grisham is back once again (so what else is new?). This time he's accompanied by some characters from his 90's blockbuster novel, A TIME TO KILL.

Is SYCAMORE ROW a sequel? Not quite, but for fans and followers it's a keeper. Take it on vacation, take it to bed, just take it....Grisham fans are insatiable...

To Order Click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar

Here's a brief synopsis of SYCAMORE ROW:

The characters from “A Time to Kill” and the courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi are back in John Grisham’s latest legal thriller. Controversial trails are becoming Jake Brigance’s specialty as he finds himself caught in the middle of a case that will rip apart the community of Ford County and its very tragic and raciest history.

This particular trial revolves around a one Seth Hubbard, a very well to-do man who decides to hang himself from a sycamore tree rather than die the slow painful death caused by lung cancer. There’s only one hitch – before he commits suicide, he quickly writes a new will naming his black maid the new recipient of nearly all of his considerable assets. (Goodreads.com)


MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.jgrisham.com/sycamore-row/

www.goodreads.com

NEW YORK TIMES ALERT! (10/29/2013)

In the Open Book and The Shortlist sections of the NYTimes today JFK books were highlighted. Yes, it's the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy Assasination and maybe the Times reviewers checked out my blog...(in my dreams...)

Two days ago I featured a review of THE INTERLOPER: LEE HARVEY OSWALD INSIDE THE SOVIET UNION by Peter Savodnik.
The fact that his mother is a friend and a member of my summer book group may have had something to do with it, but I knew it was well worth reading.
(And Moms don't lie and obviously neither does the Times...)

To Order Click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar

Scroll down the blog for the review of THE INTERLOPER; LEE HARVEY OSWALD INSIDE THE SOVIET UNION by Peter Savodnik

Here's what the NYTimes had to say:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/books/review/the-interloper-by-peter-savodnik-and-more.html?ref=books&_r=0

FINALLY! (10/24/2013)

I've been anxiously awaiting the release of two books by two elusive and exciting authors, Wally Lamb and Donna Tartt.

Finally the day has arrived and both are available right now directly from this blog. Click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar for instant gratification. You won't be sorry...






The author of the classic bestsellers The Secret History and The Little Friend returns with a brilliant, highly anticipated new novel.
It's only taken Donna Tartt ten years but it's worth the wait!

Here's a brief summary from Booklist:

The Goldfinch By Donna Tartt

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Bewildered by his strange new home, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

The Goldfinch is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night-and-tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

We Are Water by Wally Lamb

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Hour I First Believed and I Know This Much is True, WE ARE WATER by Wally Lamb is a disquieting and uplifting novel about marriage,  a

family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy.

Goodreads.com said the following:

In middle age, Anna Oh-wife, mother, outsider artist-has shaken her family to its core. After twenty-seven years of marriage and three children, Anna has fallen in love with Vivica, the wealthy, cultured, confident Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her professional success.

Anna and Viveca plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut, where gay marriage has recently been legalized. But the impending wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's Box of toxic secrets-dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.

WE ARE WATER is an intricate and layered portrait of marriage and family...a timely topic....

Reviews have been excellent...

ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY

REMEMBER PEARL BUCK? (10/24/2013)

Pearl S. Buck was one of my favorite authors oh so many years ago. THE GOOD EARTH was a novel I reread many times. I loved the characters, the Chinese family and the magical writing style.

A Nobel Prize winner, Pearl Buck was the daughter of missionaries and China became the inspiration for her books. Her work experienced a resurgence (Thankyou Oprah..) in 2004 when The Good Earth was an Oprah Book Club choice. 

A few years ago Buck's son, Edgar Walsh, who manages Buck's estate received an email with unexpected news; a 44th novel by his mother had been found in a storage bin located in Texas. She was 79 when she wrote it and was dying, but had completed over 300 pages.

The family made the decision to publish the novel and THE ETERNAL WONDER has just been released.

I look forward to reading it....






THE ETERNAL WONDER
By Pearl S. Buck

A recently discovered novel written by Pearl S. Buck at the end of her life in 1973, The Eternal Wonder tells the coming-of-age story of Randolph Colfax (Rann for short), an extraordinarily gifted young man whose search for meaning and purpose leads him to New York, England, Paris, on a mission patrolling the DMZ in Korea that will change his life forever—and, ultimately, to love.  (Amazon.com)

PEARL S. BUCK

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

To order THE ETERNAL WONDER click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar

For Those NOT of a Certain Age:
http://www.biography.com/people/pearl-s-buck-9230389

THE INTERLOPER (11/22/2013)

I recently received an email from Marlene Savodnik, a friend from California concerning her son Peter, an author and journalist. His new book titled, THE INTERLOPER:LEE HARVEY OSWALD INSIDE THE SOVIET UNION was just released to excellent reviews. 

So far the book has been serialized in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Salon and several other venues along with author interviews on major news networks. Obviously for many, the fascination and curiosity about Oswald still remains relevant.

Journalist, Peter Savodnik delivers some well researched answers in this revealing biography. THE INTERLOPER would make a great holiday gift for the history buff in your life.

Here what reviewer David Pitt of BOOKLIST had to say:

A lot of people, Savodnik points out, have spent a lot of time speculating about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed President John F. Kennedy. Very little time, on the other hand, has been spent in examining Oswald as a man.

Savodnik begins with the assumption, for which he later offers plenty of evidence, that Oswald acted alone, and he devotes his time to exploring the reasons why this 24-year-old assassinated an American president. His focus is on Oswald’s years in the Soviet Union—his reasons for going there, his disillusionment (Russia, it turned out, wasn’t a workers’ paradise), and his state of mind when he returned to the U.S. in 1962.

Savodnik busts a few myths along the way; for example, pointing out that the notion that the Russians would use Oswald as a Manchurian Candidate–style programmed assassin is absurd. But his real interest lies in presenting a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald the man, not merely the murderer. A very welcome addition to the voluminous
literature about the Kennedy assassination. --David Pitt

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
www.petersavodnik.com

TO ORDER:
Click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar

IT'S NO MYTH-STAKE (10/16/2013)

You can usually count on Sott Turow to provide a good read, and from what critics are saying IDENTICAL is no exception. It's typical Turow, great twists, and well plotted.

IDENTICAL is filled with Greek mythological references focusing on identical twins whose intertwined lives leads to disastorous  results. It's a complex web of murder, sex, and betrayal as only Scott Turow can weave.

Guaranteed this is best seller bound and will no doubt be the "must read thriller" of the year..although there's more to IDENTICAL than just thrills.... like a movie and endless promotionals.

It's decidedly a fun and exciting read. Take it on your next vacation...or not.


GET IDENTITY BY SCOTT TUROW TODAY ON AMAZON...Click on the Amazon Search Box in the SIdebar



CASTOR AND POLLUX MYTHOLOGICAL TWINS



WAKE UP CALL FOR HISTORY BUFFS! (10/14/2013)

Over breakfast today, a friend mentioned he was reading a book that "belonged on my blog." Titled LAWRENCE IN ARABIA, I thought, not another overbearing Hollywood extravaganza...but no, just the opposite.

LAWRENCE IN ARABIA by Scott Anderson, according to my friend is thought provoking and revealing. While it's a history book, it helps understand all that prevails in the Middle East today and what occured during the First World War.

The book follows the life of T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and the surrounding history as it related to him.  It also follows other relevant characters that were players some 100 years ago and in which today's Middle East still reflects their decisions

Author Scott Anderson is a veteran war correspondent and in his inimitable style is able to erase the myths from this time period.
This is a true depiction and well researched account of T. E. Lawrence and also a parallel account of other "adventurers" who influenced his life and history.

My friend had only one critique and it had nothing to do with the content, which he found fascinating. "The print was too small," he said, even though critics have labeled this book a "definitive eye opener."




MORE INFORMATION:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Anderson_(novelist)

TO ORDER:
Click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar