HAPPY THREE YEAR BLOGIVERSARY!

 
It's been three years of bookish ramblings or would rumblings be more accurate? Thankyou everyone who has shared their ideas, written a review, made a book suggestion (Many of you), left a comment (Not many of you), and taken the time to read this blog (or at least say you do...) But what counts is you believe what I write and take me seriously (Uh...maybe..).

Ok, enough rambling for now....Happy BLOGIVERSARY to Joyce's Choices...Hope we can all keep turning the pages together for many more years! And check out the kind words below from one of my many fans...

Yup, really love Joyce's Choices!

         
             

THE PAYING GUESTS (NOVEMBER 2015)

Frances has it bad, and that's not good. Normally she's intelligent, reliable, 
and resourceful, a companion to her widowed mother, keeper of a large house on 
Champion Hill. But then Frances falls in love, and the carefully wrought edifice of
 her life collapses in a heap of passion and catastrophe.

Yes, I am reading The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters and I can't put it down.

It's not a great book but it's fascinating, bewildering, intriguing, and sensual.

I'm halfway into its 500 pages. I  have a constant sense of foreboding....

NPR said....

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters' superb, bewitching new novel, is set 

in 1922 London. World War I has recently ended, but not before consuming 

hundreds of thousands of British lives and leaving the nation economically 

devastated.

Families like Frances' — once wealthy — now find the cupboard bare and

Frances and her mother decide to take in lodgers, the "paying guests"...

Waters is a master of the slow build, of the gradual assemblage of 

tiny random moments that result in a life-altering love. 

(WARNING) This novel is one of the most sensual you will ever read, and all 

without sacrificing either good taste or a "G" rating....

Buy now directly from this blog. Click on the Amazon 

Searchbox in the Sidebar.

FINALLY

Over the past 50 years Anne Tyler has published 19 novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, An Accidental Tourist and Digging to America. She's won a Pulitzer and many other prizes. 

Anne Tyler is that rare writer who has literary stature and a wide public following, and has earned that position without self-promotion. For many years she has declined all face-to-face interviews. She has avoided book tours and public appearances, and still continues to do so.

The 71-year-old author has revealed the title of her latest work, A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD after announcing that she would not write another novel.

I can't wait for it's February release!

Random House Review...

From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--now in the fiftieth year of her remarkable career--a brilliantly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny and true new novel that reveals, as only she can, the very nature of a family's life. 

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog--is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions must be made about how best to look after them, and the fate of the house so lovingly built by Red's father.

 Brimming with the luminous insight, humor, and compassion that are Anne Tyler's hallmarks, this capacious novel takes us across three generations of the Whitshanks, their shared stories and long-held secrets, all the unguarded and richly lived moments that combine to define who and what they are as a family.

Pre-order now directly from this blog. Use the Amazon Searchbox in the Sidebar.

HE'S BACK.....(OCTOBER 2014)

Yes, a new Grisham is in the house!  Yes, I'll read it and yes, it's typical John Grisham doing his thing! Welcome to GRAY MOUNTAIN, on book stands now!

GRAY MOUNTAIN BY JOHN GRISHAM

"In classic Grisham style, the reader is brought into the world of a naive yet resourceful young lawyer who begins to uncover the generations of secrets which want to remain buried. Gray Mountain follows Samantha, a third year associate at New York's largest law firm, who loses her job two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Within a week, Samantha is out of New York and has become an unpaid intern in a legal aid clinic in small town Appalachia, where for the first time she deals with real clients with real problems; those real problems start uncovering a sinister world of big coal, with its impacts on the environment, the health of its miners, but, as the only real industry in town, with an overbearing influence on a community and its people. Her character's intelligence and resourcefulness leads her deeper into this world, and, in the vein of many Grisham novels, leads her into deeper and deeper peril.

That a "big law" lawyer could end up in such a situation is spot on. Right during the big crash the economy could not even come close to bearing the quantity of lawyers who flooded the market during that time. I know quite a few young lawyers who were left utterly disappointed with the "big law" world and, post crash, ended up in public service. In fact, numerous big law firms actually helped place their underutilized associates in non-profit and legal aid positions to give them the "real world" experience with the hope that hey might be able to rehire them. That a highly intelligent, resourceful, and driven young woman could end up in deep Appalachia is not as far-fetched as one would think.

Gray Mountain has all of the characteristics of a Grisham classic with its pacing, twists, and turns. The novel does not disappoint. It is a genre that has worked well for Grisham, and is shows true here."

Amazon Review

Order now from AMAZON. Click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar.

GET CRACKING (OCTOBER 2014)

       

 Recently Barbara A. posted comments on Goodreads about An Unnecessary Woman by Rabin Alameddine ( No relation to George Clooney) which debuted about a year ago. Some critics had called it "slow and rambling" while others labeled it "spellbinding." The author is Lebanese/American and gives a clear view of the obstacles women face in Beirut, in this case focusing on an older woman.

The comment below enthusiastically says it all....

     

   

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddin

I absolutely adored this book, but it's going to be difficult to explain why. If I said that it was about a lonely elderly woman in Beirut who translates books and never shows the products to anyone, would you run out and buy a copy? See? I didn't think so! But I trusted my friend Richard, who recommended it to me, and he was spot-on. I would have devoured this in one reading, so delicious was it, but for reasons of an orthopedic nature, I kept falling asleep. I will assume that this is not an issue for you, so unless you dislike world literature ( not likely, since you're on Goodreads); have a tin ear for classical music; can't stand family feuds; have an aversion to humor, irony,or sacrilege, you need to get this book, in any language or version you prefer, and get cracking.

ORDER RIGHT NOW FROM AMAZON. CLICK ON THE AMAZON SEARCH BOX IN THE BLOG SIDEBAR.

A SUDDEN LIGHT (OCTOBER 2014)

JUST RELEASED.......

Garth Stein, the author of The Art of Racing in the Rain presents a long-awaited new novel in which a boy trying to save his parents’ marriage uncovers a vast legacy of family secrets.

Bookish.com shared this review of A Sudden LIght.....

In the summer of 1990, fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell gets his first glimpse of Riddell House. Built from the spoils of a massive timber fortune, the legendary family mansion is constructed of giant whole trees and is set on a huge estate overlooking Seattle’s Puget Sound. Trevor’s bankrupt parents have begun a trial separation, and his father, Jones Riddell, has brought Trevor to Riddell House with a goal: to join forces with his sister, Serena, dispatch the ailing and elderly Grandpa Samuel to a nursing home, sell off the house and property for development, divide up the profits, and........so it goes....

Secrets, hidden rooms, a dark past and unconventional characters contribute to this spellbinding novel.  Garth Stein has another best seller on his hands.

Order today on Amazon directly from this blog. Use the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar.

SOME LUCK (OCTOBER 2014)

I've been a fan of Jane Smiley for many years. She won the Pulitzer for A THOUSAND ACRES in 1992, probably her most famous book, which was also adapted to film. I've been waiting for something new and now she's come up with a trilogy.  Volume one combines history, births, deaths, betrayals...you name it!  Sounds like a never-ending story ...which is a good thing if you're into it.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author (A Thousand Acres) launches an inventive and appealing new project with the first volume of a trilogy that will follow a single extended family through an entire century. Devoting one chapter to each year, Some Luck introduces readers to the Langdon family, with young Walter Langdon trying to scratch out a living on an Iowa farm when the story begins in 1920. Smiley writes about farm life with particular acuity, and her blend of historical detail and relatable characters will leave readers eager to see the story REMINDER To order directly from this blog, click on the Amazon Search Box in the Sidebar.

NOW IN STORES (OCTOBER 2014)

It's October and in one month it will be the anniversary of Joyce's Choices..What was I thinking?  For almost three years I've been blabbing about books...some people are listening and some are not...Who cares? I have over 40,000 viewers and lots of friends...the best kind of friends too, mostly silent! (Meaning, I don't get a lot of comments...)

And so the blabbing continues. Here's a few choices for October reads......

Now in Stores: THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER by Hilary Mantel

THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER: Stories by Hilary Mantel (Fiction/Short Stories) The latest work from the celebrated author of the historical novels WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES is a collection of 10 stories, Hilary Mantel’s first collection since 2003’s LEARNING TO TALK. Many of these contemporary tales play with the conventions of genre; there’s even a vampire tale. But the title story, about an imagined attempt on the former Prime Minister’s life, will, not surprisingly, get the most attention.  THE NEWS SORORITY by Sheila Weller THE NEWS SORORITY: Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour -- and the (Ongoing, Imperfect, Complicated) Triumph of Women in TV News by Sheila Weller (Biography) For decades, women battered the walls of the male fortress of television journalism. After fierce struggles, three women --- Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric and Christiane Amanpour --- broke into the newsroom’s once impenetrable “boys’ club.” Drawing on exclusive interviews with their colleagues and intimates from childhood on, THE NEWS SORORITY reveals the hard struggles and inner strengths that shaped these women and powered their success. Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth, founder of HeadButler.com. BURN: A Detective Michael Bennett Thriller by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Thriller) Back in the city that never sleeps, Detective Michael Bennett takes over a chaotic Outreach Squad in Harlem, where he receives an unusual call: a man claims to have seen a group of well-dressed men holding a bizarre party in a condemned building. With no clear crime or evidence, Bennett dismisses the report. But when a charred body is found in the same building, he is forced to take the caller seriously --- and is drawn into an underground criminal world of terrifying depravity. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.