Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

From Tinkers by Paul Harding, page 23:

He imagined that his memoirs might now sound like those of an admirable stranger, a person he did not know but whom he immediately recognized and loved dearly. Instead, the voice he heard sounded nasally and pinched and worse, not very well educated, as if her were a bumpkin who had been called, perhaps even in mockery, to testify about holy things, as if not the testimony but the fumbling through it were the reason for his presence in front of some dire, heavenly senate. He listened to six seconds of the tape before he ejected it and threw it into the fire burning in the woodstove.

The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
Available June 29, 2010
224 Pages
Published by Other Press
Category: Literary Fiction
Official site: Michelle Hoover

The Quickening is a story told by two women – Enidina, strong and driven to work along side her husband on their farm; and Mary, a delicate woman who takes care of her family and home as best she can. As they raise families in close proximity to one another, their lives intersect through tragedies endured during the Great Depression.

Enidina tells her story through letters written to her grandson. She writes about the farm – the hard work of taking care of crops and animals while also trying to conceive a child. After a miscarriage, Enidina questions whether she will be able to carry a baby to full term. Enidina isn’t a deeply religious person, she likes to hear the singing of the hymns, but not the sermons. With a bit of skepticism, she decides to get baptized by the local minister, Borden, and knows he cannot relate to her arduous life.

Borden’s hands were clean and white. Not a hardworking man. Religious. How would never understand what it meant to pray to a field. To feed and watch over the animals that ruled the fat of our stomachs. We looked in hope to the ground and the roots growing there more often than we looked for grace from the sky.

In Mary’s chapters, we get a more reflective side of life on a farm. She takes care of her growing boys, keeps the house in pristine condition, and plays the church piano whenever possible. But she also knows something of the perils of life.

What a strange sort of skin we grow as we age, one that never forgets a single gash or pinch or season out in the sun. My Mother’s hands were worn along the knuckles, a nervous habit she had of rubbing them. My own had already grown swollen from scrubbing, my fingertips dull from playing my imagined piano along any stretch of wood. Every misstep, it makes its mark.

The book is beautifully and heartbreakingly written; a story told from two very different points of view. There were times I wanted to shriek as Mary made excuses for her abusive husband and lied to keep her family’s name clean – to the detriment of others. Because she is so manipulative, it’s difficult for me to feel compassion for her (even when I should). The strength of Hoover’s writing is in Enidina, a fully developed character I could sympathize with while never coming across as a victim during her many hardships. Enidina is an imposing figure who knows nothing but farm life, yet Hoover keeps me rooting for Enidina to the very end.

Please note: this review is based on an advanced reader’s copy, which was sent to me by Other Press at my request.

Check out other blog reviews of The Quickening:

• Candid Culture
• Books on the Nightstand – Podcast #83
• Caribousmom
• The Reader’s Book Blog
• Magic Lasso
• For the Love of Books
• She Writes – Five Questions for Michelle Hoover

There’s been quite a backlash of reaction to The New Yorker‘s “20 Under 40” issue, which selected 20 authors to watch for who are under 40 years of age. But instead of focusing on the unfavorable press, I decided to do a roundup of responses from blogs and other publications that made their own author hot lists.

The Millions – 20 More Under 40

The New York Observer – 20 Not in the ’20 Under 40′

Telegraph – Are these Britain’s best 20 novelists under 40?

Ward Six – Ten Over Eighty (found via Vol. 1 Brooklyn)

Dzanc Book – 20 Writers to Watch – An Alternate List (found via Largehearted Boy)

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

From This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, page 1:

I have to smile, even as I chafe, as always, at our family’s patented inability to express emotion during watershed events. There is no occasion calling for sincerity that the Foxman family won’t quickly diminish or pervert through our own genetically engineered brand of irony and evasion.

Yes, I have a problem. I purchase more books than I could possibly read, so this week’s Weekly Geeks challenge is an easy one for me: share your habits, tendencies or obsessions when it comes to this book hoarding behavior.

To give you an example, I have a separate “to be read” pile that I unrealistically expect to get through this summer.

That’s 13 books to read in three months. Plus any books I receive from my library (two others are currently waiting for me at the Tompkins Square NYPL branch).

Then there’s all my other “to be read” books that I own. Those are ones I want to read at some point, but aren’t high enough on my list to make it to my Summer reading pile. Maybe high isn’t the best way of putting it. They are books that have been recommended to me, ones that I just had to get my hands on at some point in my past, but just never got around to reading. Still, I’m not willing to let them go.

Due to a current lack of bookcases, I have my books stacked in front of one another. Not the best way for me to “play” with my books, but keeps them from scattering all over the apartment. I also keep a few books on my nightstand – just in case the urge to read hits me in the middle of the night. Oh, and one in my handbag at all times.

But I don’t stop at hoarding books. I also collect magazines. More specifically, The Believer. I have every volume since they came out in March 2003. This is a great literary magazine that I just can’t help but love. As I mentioned in my last post, Nick Hornby is back with his “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column. Just thinking about this mag perks me up.

As my friends will tell you, I use to have a much larger hoarding problem with books. But living in a NYC apartment really cuts that to a minimum. Now I pass books along to friends or donate them to Housing Works Bookstore. I might as well let someone else experience the wonderfulness of a book I love instead of it collecting dust on my shelf.

Yes! Nick Hornby’s “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column is back in The Believer magazine as of May 2010. I just finished reading his article within June’s volume and it’s absolutely fantastic. Here’s a sample:

Surely we all occasionally buy books because of a daydream we’re having – a little fantasy about the people we might turn into one day, when our lives are different, quieter, more introspective, and when all the urgent reading, whatever that might be, has been done. We never arrive at that point, needless to say, but Fishing in Utopia – quirky, obviously smart, quiet, and contemplative – is exactly the sort of thing I was going to pick up when I became someone else. By reading it now, I have got ahead of myself.

I love writing lists, so this week’s Weekly Geeks challenge is perfect for me. Is your wish list as big as your TBR pile? Are there any new releases that you are counting down the days for? Share a handful of titles and be sure to share why you want to get your hands on these books!

I keep a database of books that I’d like to read on my laptop. I also have more than a few Amazon wish lists (I know, I need to move them over to IndieBound) and of course a NYPL wish list. So I think for this week’s challenge, I’ll stick with June’s upcoming releases that I plan to read this Summer.

June 8: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I’m a fan of Egan’s other works and saw her speak at BookExpo about this upcoming title.

June 15: The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst. Books on the Nightstand recommended this one in podcast #80 in an interview with Alison Callahan.

June 22: Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross. I can’t remember where I first heard about this book. Stephen King calls it “The most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?…It induced nightmares, at least in this reader. No mean feat.”

June 29: The Quickening by Michelle Hoover. Other Press was kind enough to send me an advance reader’s copy of this title. I overheard some BookExpo attendees chatting it up and just had to get myself a copy.

June 29: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. This is the book I am most looking forward to reading this Summer. Yes, the author of Cloud Atlas is back, people!

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

From Waiting for Columbus by Tomas Trofimuk, opening lines of chapter one:

The passage from freedom to incarceration is never an easy one. The passage from an unacknowledged, untested sanity to a diagnosed insanity is equally problematic.

This past week has been filled with wonderful events and people at BookExpo America and the Book Blogger Convention. To start off the week, I toured Penguin’s headquarters in NYC. Everyone there was lovely and answered all of our questions about the publishing house. Even more exciting, I met a few fellow book bloggers including Presenting Lenore, Books, Movies, and Chinese Food, and Pop Culture Junkie.

Wednesday was my first day at Jacob Javits Center for BookExpo America. I was most anxious to meet Justin Cronin (pictured), author of the forthcoming book, The Passage. Then it was off to the exhibit hall, which was a bit overwhelming – swarms of people moving in every direction. But I did have the opportunity to chat with a rep from the McSweeney’s booth to discover what’s coming out this Summer and Autumn. Most notably I Found This Funny (edited by Judd Apatow) coming in October and Darin Strauss’ memoir, Half a Life, which will be published in September.

On Thursday, my big “to do” was to meet Tim Gunn. He was amazingly kind and patient, as the Gunn’s Golden Rules book signing line was quite long. I was also able to see my favorite librarian – Nancy Pearl. Her new book, Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers, will be out in October. Sadly, my pictures of her came out blurry.

The Book Blogger Convention took place on Friday. With the Javits Center Starbucks closed, many of us went without our caffeine fix (missed my chai tea). But we were offered a nice breakfast spread before the sessions started. I met some great book bloggers including Stiletto Storytime, Age 30+…A Lifetime of Books, and Ann Kingman of Books on the Nightstand.

Want more details? Check out the BEA/BBC blog posts by:
Everyday I Write the Book
Stiletto Storytime
The Book Smugglers
Leafing Through Life
Books, Movies, and Chinese Food
The Zen Leaf

With Summer just around the corner, I’ve been thinking about what to read this season. Here are some links that highlight what’s hot this Summer.

The Summer Book Preview at The Wall Street Journal includes recommendations for some of the big reads coming out. There’s also a section called “What are you reading?” and I love George Pelecanos response, “I’m not going to play that game. Everyone says something that sounds smart and ends up taking Michael Connelly to the beach.”

The Chicago Sun-Times gives us a Summer Reading Preview in fiction that includes my most anticipated book of the season – The Passage by Justin Cronin.

NPR has an article on Sizzling Summer Picks From Indie Booksellers, which includes a couple of books on my wish list: The Big Machine and The Lonely Polygamist.