JACKSON, Miss. – Good thing Octavia Spencer is an actress. She needed all her stagecraft to hide a horrified look when her friend, Kathryn Stockett, asked her to read her new novel, “The Help.”
Stockett told Spencer she based a character on her.
“My face just got hot,” Spencer says, “and I thought, `What are you talking about?”‘
It got worse. The character was a short, loud black maid who spoke in a Southern dialect and never seemed able to keep a job because of her big mouth, which didn’t go over well in the white neighborhoods of Jackson in the early 1960s. (more…)
Today we are promoting nearly a dozen titles that for some reason got overlooked . . . either we missed giving them the attention they deserved, or perhaps, you didn’t see the newsletter. We thought we’d give them another chance, and we are cutting the price on each of them by five bucks. All eleven titles are exciting and merit another look, but please give your special attention to three of them.
First is the debut mystery by Jedediah Berry. “Jedediah Berry knows magic.
The Manual of Detection combines intricacy and thoughtfulness with the page-turning excitement of a detective thriller…. This novel is a master puzzle, with all the show-stopping elements of a flock of doves flying out of a magician’s sleeve. It made me laugh, thrill, think, and wonder.” -
Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
Next,
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee. “Evocative, poignant and skillfully crafted, “The Piano Teacher” is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary.”
- Chicago Tribune
And then there is
Help by Kathryn Stockett. “Lush, original, and poignant, Kathryn Stockett has written a wondrous novel. You will be swept away as they work, play, and love during a time when possibilities for women were few but their dreams of the future were limitless. A glorious read.” –
Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of Lucia, Lucia
Click here to see
these titles in one viewing, or here, within our updated
sale category.
Good Reading!
John
Tags:
David Stone,
Janice Y.K. Lee,
Jedediah Berry,
Kathryn Stockett,
Marcello Simonetta,
Robyn Young,
Roland Merullo,
Scott Sigler,
Stephen Cannell,
T.C. Boyle,
The Help,
The Manual of Detection,
The Piano Teacher,
William Lashner Posted in
We're Talking Books! on February 24, 2009 by vjbooks| There are currently
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