October 2013

Carol Fitzgerald ([email protected])

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We are celebrating the release of Strings Attached: One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations by Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky --- which was launched by a New York Times Op-Ed piece that went viral about a remarkable teacher’s legacy --- with a special contest. 50 readers will have the opportunity to win a copy of the book, which is now in stores, for their group. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, November 6th at noon ET.

And, in the spirit of the book’s theme, we would like you to tell us about a favorite teacher of yours who had a major impact on you. Once the contest is over, we plan to share your comments on the site!

More about Strings Attached: One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations:
Mr. K never received “Favorite Teacher” gifts. He was the sharp-spoken, foot-pounding, never-praising Ukrainian-born despot whose music lessons and orchestra rehearsals reduced students to tears. Yet, when Jerry Kupchynsky --- Mr. K --- passed away, more than 100 students from three generations returned to play in a memorial concert, and acknowledge the amazing lesson he instilled: Demand great things of yourself.

Co-written by award-winning journalist Joanne Lipman and Chicago Symphony violinist Melanie Kupchynsky (also Mr. K’s daughter), Strings Attached: One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations provokes questions about education and parenting.

Let us know what your group is reading in October, and you will be entered in a giveaway to win multiple copies of a book for your group! Our latest prize book is The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood, a sophisticated and suspenseful novel about the poignant lives of two women living in different eras. We have 12 copies of the book, which is now available in paperback, to give away to three groups. Enter here by Wednesday, November 6th at noon ET for your chance to win copies for you and your group members.

More about The Obituary Writer:
On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an uncompromising young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of Jackie O, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead, Vivien not only helps others cope with their grief but also begins to understand the devastation of her own terrible loss. The surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways.

In 1923, 15-year-old Hattie Shepherd, swept up by the tides of the Great Migration, flees Georgia and heads north. Full of hope, she settles in Philadelphia to build a better life. Instead she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment, and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins are lost to an illness that a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit, mettle, and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them to meet a world that will not be kind. Their lives, captured here in 12 luminous threads, tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage --- and a nation's tumultuous journey.

-Click here to read our review on Bookreporter.com.
 

Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice. Solomon persuades Lockhart to take his case, revealing that the true Piatek was abandoned as a child and raised by Solomon's own family only to betray them during the Nazi occupation. But has Solomon accused the right man?
 

Missionary Julia Foster loves working alongside her parents, ministering and caring for young girls in India. But when the family must return to England due to illness, she readily accepts the burden for her parents’ financial support. Taking on a job at Highland Hall as governess, she quickly finds that teaching her four privileged, ill-mannered charges at a grand estate is more challenging than expected, and she isn’t sure what to make of the estate’s preoccupied master, Sir William Ramsey.

Widowed and left to care for his two young children and his deceased cousin Randolph’s two teenage girls, William is consumed with saving the estate from the financial ruin. The last thing he needs is any distraction coming from the kindhearted-yet-determined governess who seems to be quietly transforming his household with her persuasive personality, vibrant prayer life, and strong faith.
 

Hailed by Publishers Weekly as “a gripping tale of self-exploration and atonement,” The Fallen Snow follows a young infantry soldier’s difficult return to a hardscrabble Virginia community after suffering trauma in WWI. But what begins as the story of one youth’s journey soon grows into a timeless tale about the innumerable ways people cope, and find love, in even the most trying of circumstances. Evoking 1918 Appalachia with poignant simplicity, Kelley's debut charts an extraordinary coming of age, exploring how damaged souls learn to heal, and dare to grow.
 

October’s New in Paperback roundups include the following highlights for book groups:

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.

Schroder by Amity Gaige
Attending a New England summer camp, young Eric Schroder adopts the last name Kennedy to more easily fit in. Schroder relates the story of Eric's urgent escape years later to Lake Champlain, Vermont, with his six-year-old daughter in an attempt to outrun the authorities amid a heated custody battle with his wife, who will soon discover that her husband is not who he says he is.

The Trial of Fallen Angels by James Kimmel, Jr.
Everything that Brek Cuttler has ever known disappears when she finds herself standing on a deserted train platform, covered in blood. A man from her past explains that she has been chosen to join the elite team of lawyers charged with prosecuting and defending souls at the Final Judgment. As Brek struggles to find her way back to her husband and daughter, she will discover that her first client holds the shocking secret of her fate.

Palisades Park by Alan Brennert
Growing up in the 1930s, there is no more magical place than Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey --- especially for seven-year-old Antoinette (nicknamed “Toni”) and her brother, Jack. However, both their father and Jack face the dangers of war, while their mother has ambitions of her own --- and Toni is determined to take on a very different kind of danger in impossible feats as a high diver. Yet they are all drawn back to each other --- and to Palisades Park --- until the park closes forever in 1971.

-Find out what's New in Paperback for the weeks of September 30th, October 7th, October 14th, October 21st and October 28th.