Stacking the Shelves - 8.23.14

Stacking the Shelves
hosted by Tynga's Reviews (details)
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

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Bought:

Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits
by Mary Jane Hathaway
-jane austen, chick-lit
Amazon | Goodreads
-----> sassy title, eh?
picked this up for the Book Rat's Austen in August


Review:

Elly in Love
by Colleen Oakes
-chick-lit
courtesy of BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge 2014
Thanks Janay!
Amazon | Goodreads

In Bloom
by Katie Delahanty
-new adult, romance
courtesy of BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge 2014
Thanks Janay!
Amazon | Goodreads
Library:

Alienated
by Melissa Landers
-aliens, YA
Amazon | Goodreads
Two years ago, the aliens made contact. Now Cara Sweeney is going to be sharing a bathroom with one of them.

Handpicked to host the first-ever L’eihr exchange student, Cara thinks her future is set. Not only does she get a free ride to her dream college, she’ll have inside information about the mysterious L’eihrs that every journalist would kill for. Cara’s blog following is about to skyrocket.

Still, Cara isn’t sure what to think when she meets Aelyx. Humans and L’eihrs have nearly identical DNA, but cold, infuriatingly brilliant Aelyx couldn’t seem more alien. She’s certain about one thing, though: no human boy is this good-looking.

But when Cara's classmates get swept up by anti-L'eihr paranoia, Midtown High School suddenly isn't safe anymore. Threatening notes appear in Cara's locker, and a police officer has to escort her and Aelyx to class.

Cara finds support in the last person she expected. She realizes that Aelyx isn’t just her only friend; she's fallen hard for him. But Aelyx has been hiding the truth about the purpose of his exchange, and its potentially deadly consequences. Soon Cara will be in for the fight of her life—not just for herself and the boy she loves, but for the future of her planet.

-----> must admit, i was taken with the cover and premise of this one

Summer House with Swimming Pool
by Herman Koch
-mystery, thriller
Amazon | Goodreads
When a medical mistake goes horribly wrong and Ralph Meier, a famous actor, winds up dead, Dr. Marc Schlosser is forced to conceal the error from his patients and family. After all, reputation is everything in this business. But the weight of carrying such a secret lies heavily on his mind, and he can't keep hiding from the truth…or the Board of Medical Examiners.

The problem is that the real truth is a bit worse than a simple slipup. Marc played a role in Ralph's death, and he's not exactly upset that the man is gone. Still haunted by his eldest daughter's rape during their stay at Ralph's extravagant Mediterranean summerhouse-one they shared with Ralph and his enticing wife, Judith, film director Stanley Forbes and his far younger girlfriend, Emmanuelle, and Judith's mother-Marc has had it on his mind that the perpetrator of the rape could be either Ralph or Stanley. Stanley's guilt seems obvious, bearing in mind his uncomfortable fixation on the prospect of Marc's daughter's fashion career, but Marc's reasons for wanting Ralph dead become increasingly compelling as events unravel. There is damning evidence against Marc, but he isn't alone in his loathing of the star-studded director.

-----> wanted one more summer-ish book for the season

Dreaming about getting soon:

The Miniaturist
by Jessie Burton
-historical, fantasy, mystery
Amazon | Goodreads
Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam-a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion-a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the tradition of Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, and Sarah Dunant.

"There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed…"

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office-leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist-an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . .

Johannes' gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand-and fear-the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction?

Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

-----> in general, miniatures are so whimsical and irresistible to me

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* some of these may be offered as giveaways within the next two months

* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

* per usual, check out the sidebar for my current giveaways offers

Pride and Prejudice Woot Shirt

Jane Austen: FPS
by tbolt86
details and order here
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TODAY's shirt woot special is one to tickle Jane Austen fans.

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Shirt description:

Simpler times.

1st Place in Derby #369: Literary Classics as Video Games, with 169 votes!

“GENERAL BENNETT!"

"What is it, Sergeant Kitty?"

"We have spotted Private Darcy, ma'am! He’s headed west to Pemberley - we have to move in now, Elizabeth!"

"I’LL TELL YOU WHEN WE MOVE, SERGEANT KITTY."

. . .

"Okay. Now’s fine. Where did I put my parasol?"

"TAKE COVER, GENERAL BENNETT! IT’S MR. COLLINS!!"

"I need backup!! Where’s an ugly spinster-type?"

"Launch Charlotte Lucas!"

"Here goes!!"

Wedding bells

"Whew. That was too close, Sergeant Kitty."

"We must hurry, General Bennett. Private Wickham and Private Lydia are stationed near Longbourn fighting off the Bingley Battalion."

"Gah, those people."

"I know, the WORST, right?"

"General Bennett, ma’am, do you think we might be going overboard with this pursuit?"

"We are all fools in love, Sergeant Kitty. Write that down somewhere."

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* check out more Jane Austen related treats at Austen in August

Fall Reading Challenge 2014

Fall Reading Challenge 2014
sponsored by BookSparksPR
details here

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I am really liking the BookSparks reading challenges and will participate in the Fall 2014 challenge.

Below are the ones I plan on reading. (see complete list)

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Course: Guide to Women’s Studies
Required reading: Mating for Life by Marissa Stapley
Department: Women’s Fiction
Course Date: Week of September 8
my review
With honesty and heart-warming humor this course will transport you into four women’s lives. While you watch them navigate their chaotic and unconventional lifestyles, they realize the many modern roles woman play and that some love can really last a lifetime.

Course: Poetry 101
Required reading: Ghosting by Edith Pattou
Department: Young Adult
Course Date: Week of September 22
my review
Have a love for drama and poetry? Then this course is a must for you! Throughout this class you will learn about a group of teenagers’ perspectives on an end-of-the-summer prank gone wrong, written in verse. Alcohol, guns and a dare— within minutes, events collide and a group of teenager’s lives are altered forever.

Course: Theatre Studies 201
Required reading: Destined for Doon by Laurie Langdon and Carey Corp
Department: Young Adult
Course Date: Week of October 6
my review
*Suggested prerequisite for this class (available upon request): Theatre 101 (Doon by Laurie Langdon and Carey Corp)

Anyone with an active imagination should ace this course! This exciting class explores the enchanted land of Doon and what it means to live there. With Broadway, true love and an ancient curse, a group of three friends must battle a world of nightmares in order to save their beloved kingdom.

Course: 90s Music
Required reading: Rock Angel by Jeanne Bogino
Department: New Adult
Course Date: Week of October 20
my review
Calling all 90s rocker chicks (or those who wish they were)! By the end of this course you will have witnessed a young and beautiful guitar goddess rise to stardom and face the challenges inherent with being at the height of 90s rock. With love, drugs, bad boys and rock-n-roll this class will be nothing short of entertaining.

Course: Fairy Tale Remix 102
Required reading: Queen of Hearts Volume 2: The Wonder by Colleen Oakes
Department: Young Adult
Course Date: Week of October 27
my review
*Suggested prerequisite for this class (available upon request): Fairy Tale Remix 101 (Queen of Hearts Volume 1 by Colleen Oakes - my review)

Continue on the adventure of a twisted Wonderland fairytale with FTR 102! In this class you will discover that not all fairytales have a happy ending and sometimes the pretty princess becomes the vile villain. This is an important course for anyone looking forward to Fairy Tale Remix 201 (Queen of Hearts Volume 3: The Fury).

Course: Hot for Teacher
Required reading: Hit by Lorie Ann Grover
Department: Young Adult
Course Date: Week of November 3
my review
This course might be a little unconventional but why not learn how to navigate a flirtation with a teacher. In this course you will explore a student-teacher relationship that has become too flirty and too great a risk. This forbidden relationship is exhilarating and intense until a tragic accident changes everything.

Course: Family Studies
Required reading: Stillwater Rising by Steena Holmes
Department: Women’s Fiction
Course Date: Week of November 17
my review
Throughout this course you will uncover the heart-wrenching story of a town trying to put itself back together after an elementary shooting that traumatized a close-knit community.

Course: Studying Abroad! Semester in Thailand
Required reading: The Unimaginable by Dina Silver
Department: Women’s Fiction
Course Date: Week of December 1
my review
Pack your bags, grab your college sweetheart and get ready for an uber-romantic cruise to Thailand. You’ll learn the fine arts of wining, dining and pirate-invasion-evasion. Wait, what? Yes, this cruise is definitely not everything it seems.

Course: Personality Psychology
Required reading: Both of Me by Jonathan Friesen
Department: Young Adult
Course Date: Week of December 8
my review
Investigate the unexplained condition of dissociative identity disorder in this course through Elias and Cara’s story. Cara meets Elias on a plane and soon discovers that there is not just one Elias but two and Cara quickly finds herself entangled in both of Elias’s lives.

Extra reading: The Body Tourist by Dana Lise Shavin
my review
In this moving and funny memoir that spans the six years following the author's purported recovery from anorexia, Dana Lise Shavin offers a candid and ultimately optimistic window into the mindset and machinations of a mental illness whose tentacles reached deep into her life, long after she was considered "cured."

In 1981, Shavin graduated from college with a BA in Psychology. It had been a difficult venture that included an expulsion, a four-month institutionalization, and a multitude of transfers. By the time it was over, she was convinced she was cured, and that it was time to start curing others. "I’m ready," she told her parents, her therapist, and friends—all of whom shook their heads in horror at her 95-pound, 5’9” frame. Undaunted, she landed a job as a counselor in a halfway house for drug and alcohol addicts. If anyone knew what it took to become a happy, functioning adult, Shavin was convinced she was the one.

As anyone would suspect, the burden of self-contempt, faulty logic, and interpersonal turmoil that are the character traits of depressive disorders and addictions do not miraculously disappear once medication and therapy have taken effect. Where, then, do these dangerous obsessions, such as the wish for obliteration (which often co-exists with the wish for immortality), go once a person sets foot on the road to recovery?

For Shavin, they lived beneath the radar of her supposed new-found health, disguising themselves in the falling-down houses she happily moved into and the dangerous neighborhoods she somehow didn't fear. They announced themselves in the deeply flawed men she professed to adore, the food rituals she thought were normal, the ordinary sex she could not have, and, most profoundly, her inability to acknowledge her father’s illness and encroaching death.

While many writers have written candidly and eloquently about their struggles with depression, addictions, and eating disorders, those stories usually conclude once there is progress toward recovery. Beyond recovery—whether from addiction, illness, the death of a loved one, or divorce—there is another story, one that is about how we re-join the world, and, in the living years that follow the darkness, pursue a life that is creative, engaged, and deeply felt in one's body.

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It is not too late, you can join too - details here.

Jane Austen Southern Style

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MY HEAVENS...

Jane Austen with a Southern flair!

I am participating with a giveaway in the Book Rat's Austen in August event this week.

Head over yonder to WIN one of these Southern themed treats...

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DISCOVER Jane Austen love and romance with a southern flair...

Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits
by Mary Jane Hathaway
just released: June 2014
Amazon | Goodreads
This hilarious Southern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice tells the story of two hard-headed Civil war historians who find that first impressions can be deceiving.

Shelby Roswell, a Civil War historian and professor, is on the fast track to tenure—that is, until her new book is roasted by the famous historian Ransom Fielding in a national review. With her career stalled by a man she’s never met, Shelby struggles to maintain her composure when she discovers that Fielding has taken a visiting professorship at her small Southern college.

Ransom Fielding is still struggling with his role in his wife’s accidental death six years ago and is hoping that a year at Shelby’s small college near his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, will be a respite from the pressures of Ivy League academia. He never bargained for falling in love with the one woman whose career—and pride—he injured, and who would do anything to make him leave.

When these two hot-headed southerners find themselves fighting over the centuries-old history of local battles and antebellum mansions, their small college is about to become a battlefield of Civil War proportions.

With familiar and relatable characters and wit to spare, Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits shows you that love can conquer all…especially when pride, prejudice, love, and cheese grits are involved!

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Emma, Mr. Knightley and Chili-Slaw Dogs
by Mary Jane Hathaway
just released: July 2014
Amazon | Goodreads
From the bestselling author of Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits comes a new and comical contemporary take on the perennial Jane Austen classic, Emma.

Caroline Ashley is a journalist on the rise at The Washington Post until the sudden death of her father brings her back to Thorny Hollow to care for her mentally fragile mother and their aging antebellum home. The only respite from the eternal rotation of bridge club meetings and garden parties is her longtime friend, Brooks Elliott. A professor of journalism, Brooks is the voice of sanity and reason in the land of pink lemonade and triple layer coconut cakes. But when she meets a fascinating, charismatic young man on the cusp of a brand new industry, she ignores Brooks’s misgivings and throws herself into the project.

Brooks struggles to reconcile his parents’ very bitter marriage with his father’s devastating grief at the recent loss of his wife. Caroline is the only bright spot in the emotional wreckage of his family life. She’s a friend and he’s perfectly happy to keep her safely in that category. Marriage isn’t for men like Brooks and they both know it… until a handsome newcomer wins her heart. Brooks discovers Caroline is much more than a friend, and always has been, but is it too late to win her back?

Featuring a colorful cast of southern belles, Civil War re-enactors, and good Christian women with spunk to spare, Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs brings the modern American South to light in a way only a contemporary Jane Austen could have imagined.

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Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread
by Mary Jane Hathaway
to be released: November 11, 2014
Amazon | Goodreads
A lively Southern retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, featuring Lucy Crawford, who is thrown back into the path of her first love while on a quest to save her beloved family home.

Lucy Crawford is part of a wealthy, well-respected Southern family with a long local history. But since Lucy’s mother passed away, the family home, a gorgeous antebellum mansion, has fallen into disrepair and the depth of her father’s debts is only starting to be understood. Selling the family home may be the only option—until her Aunt Olympia floats the idea of using Crawford house to hold the local free medical clinic, which has just lost its space. As if turning the plantation home into a clinic isn’t bad enough, Lucy is shocked and dismayed to see that the doctor who will be manning the clinic is none other than Jeremiah Chevy—her first love.

Lucy and Jeremiah were high school sweethearts, but Jeremiah was from the wrong side of the tracks. His family was redneck and proud, and Lucy was persuaded to dump him. He eventually left town on a scholarship, and now, ten years later, he’s returned as part of the rural physician program. And suddenly, their paths cross once again. While Lucy’s family still sees Jeremiah as trash, she sees something else in him—as do several of the other eligible ladies in town. Will he be able to forgive the past? Can she be persuaded to give love a chance this time around?

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* image source: southern belle

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Contest has ended - winner is here

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Addison Stone Memorabilia

Cave of Faces
an Addison Stone
exclusive tank top
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MEMORABILIA for Addison Stone

Not long after young artist, Addison Stone's controversial Project #53 aka Film of the Theft of the Self-Portrait of Addison Stone was released, Addison's early work, Cave of Faces, was immortalized in tank top form. It sold like hot cakes and experienced another burst of sales upon her unexpected death. Unfortunately, the tank top had a limited run and no longer is available. However, a few have been found on eBay fetching auction prices in the thousands.

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A bit about the painting...

Excerpt:

SKpades: Oookay, then explain this ginormzee painting? Everyone is talking about it.

AS: Cave of Faces. I didn't know it would grow so big.

SKpades: Yeah, last week when they put it up in front of the auditorium, everyone was like, "Errrmerrgaahhd! Whoa! It must be, like twelve feet high!"

AS: Yeah, I love it. From down the hall, it looks organic right? Like something from nature. Then as you come closer, your eyes pick out those faces, which makes it more interactive. Not natural, but social.

-snippet from article interview in SKpades, The South Kingstown High School arts magazine, page 66

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WHO is Addison Stone?

Find out more about her...

The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone
by Adele Griffin
Amazon | Goodreads
Two-time National Book Award finalist Adele Griffin offers an ingenious fictional take on the "oral history" celebrity bio that defined a bestselling genre: Edie, American Girl by Jean Stein and George Plimpton. In presenting herself as interviewer and curator of memories, Adele paints the portrait of a tragic young celebrity who allegedly committed suicide—presented in a series of brief first-person recollections—that ultimately results in the solving of a murder.

Adele's words: "From the moment she burst into the downtown art scene, seventeen-year-old Addison Stone was someone to watch. Her trademark subversive street art and her violent drowning left her fans and critics craving to know more about this brilliant wild-child who shone so bright and was gone too soon. By means of more than one hundred interviews with those who knew her best—including close friends, family, teachers, mentors, art dealers, boyfriends, and critics—I have retraced the tumultuous path of Addison's life, with research that sheds new evidence on what really happened the night of July 28, 2013. With photo inserts and previously unpublished supplemental material."

--~ Book Giveaway ~--
WIN my review copy of this book!

Open to US only.

Offer ends: September 7, 2014

TO DO: (2-parts)

1. ADD this book to your Want To Read list on Goodreads.

OR

Tweet about this giveaway.

OR

Recommend this on Google using the mini-button at end of this post (g+1).

OR

Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest or Tumblr the Book Cover image.

2. TELL me what you did in comments.

AND, leave your email.

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Contest has ended - winner is here

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* fictional tank top image and blurb were created for this book blog tour sponsored by SOHO Teen

* image source: tank top silhouette