Greg Hill, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Escondido
“The Hunger Games”
by Suzanne Collins
"“In a place formerly known as the United States, 16-year-old Katniss participates in the Hunger Games..."
CONTINUE
Greg Hill, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Escondido
“The Hunger Games”
by Suzanne Collins
"“In a place formerly known as the United States, 16-year-old Katniss participates in the Hunger Games..."
CONTINUE
Nancy Foley, La Jolla
NOW READING: Shantaram by Gregory D. Roberts
JUST DISCUSSED: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
"After reading 'Shantaram,' our book club felt we had traveled the streets of Bombay and experienced life..." CONTINUE
What's your book club reading?
"
DANICA McKELLAR – “Kiss My Math,” 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, Warwick's Bookstore, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla.
"
CONTINUE
“Through Stranger Eyes: Reviews, Introductions, Tributes and Iconoclastic Essays” by David Brin (Nimble Books, $22.88)
“The Killer” / “Devil On Two Sticks” by Wade Miller (Stark House, $14.95)
“Imaginary Lines: Stories of Physical, Cultural and Culinary Borders” by Linton Robinson and Ana Maria Corona (Adoro Books, $14.95)
“Maggots in My Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time” by Susan Madden Lankford (Human Exposures, $49.95, $34.95 in paperback)
“Eleanor Antin: Historical Takes” by Betti-Sue Hertz (Prestel USA, $45)
Books Editor: Robert L. Pincus
Listings: books@uniontrib.com
Kathleen Norris strives for all three in “Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life,” her latest exploration of divine grace and human purpose. Like her 1997 best-seller “The Cloister Walk,” the new book maps her spiritual journeys as a writer and a Benedictine oblate. The “marriage” in the subtitle, her union with fellow poet David Dwyer that ended with his 2003 death from pneumonia, takes Norris into terrain that will be new for her fans and appealing for novitiates.
Since her lonely adolescence in Honolulu, Norris has lived in perpetual ebbs and flows, from fervor to despondence, from creative burst to blockage, and then back again. “Monastic writers have always emphasized that maintaining a life of prayer means being willing to start over,” she writes. “Just when I seem to have my life in balance – I am picking myself up out of the ashes.”
In the powerful and unpredictable “Exit Music,” that retirement will become a reality in 10 days and that encroaching deadline infiltrates every conversation Rebus has, every moment of reflection. While Rebus is trying to tie up loose ends, he also refuses to go gently. When the murder of a “constructive dissident” Russian poet lands on Rebus' watch, he plunges in as if it were his first case. While the murder seems to have no motive, Rebus and Det. Sgt. Siobhan Clarke find a complicated case of conspiracies involving Russian businessmen and Scottish bankers and politicians. Adding to the mix is Rebus' longtime nemesis, Edinburgh crime boss “Big Ger” Cafferty.
“It's a good way to start,” she writes about being creative, “by thinking of childhood as a place rather than a time ... like an unplayed-with-playset, needing only one thing to set all things in motion.”
Well, maybe two things, as it turns out: a willingness to resurrect memories and the desire to turn them into words and/or pictures. Being Lynda Barry, she does both and does both well.