Happy New Year Book Lovers!
2016 is going to be a great year. 2015 was challenging and a learning experience and I'm happy to continue to grow and learn and read in 2016.
2015 was a great travel year for me. I traveled to Arizona, Berlin, Peru, Kansas and Door County, WI.
2015 was a great reading year. I read 78 book last year but fell short of my goal of 90. I just ran out of time.
In 2015 my book blog writing took a back seat to my own personal writing and I'm happy to say my first poem will be published by The Fem online literary magazine sometime in 2016. I'm busy writing poetry, writing short stories and working on three different Young Adult Novels. My writing in 2015 then took a back seat to the two college classes I started teaching last year. I have learned so much and am looking forward to a busy, wonderful year.
So let me introduce you to Lauren Fox. Lauren has written three books and her latest, Days of Awe is getting great press and even made a Best of 2015 book list of books not to be missed. I met Lauren at the Twin Cities book festival in October where she talked in a panel about Midwestern themed books. Lauren is an author I haven't read before so I'm especially excited to Days of Awe.
This month you can expect a book review, an author interview, a giveaway and if we are lucky, a guest post. Stay tuned for a great reading month.
Here are Lauren's books and their synopsis from Goodreads:
Days of Awe:
The celebrated author of Friends Like Us now gives us a raw, achingly funny novel about a woman who, after the death of her best friend, must face the crisis in her marriage, the fury of her almost-teenage daughter, and the possibility that she might open her cantankerous heart to someone new.
Only a year ago Isabel Moore was married, the object of adoration of her ten-year-old daughter, and thought she knew everything about her wild, extravagant, beloved best friend, Josie. But in that one short year: her husband moved out and rented his own apartment; her daughter grew into a moody insomniac; and Josie -- impulsive, funny, secretive Josie -- was killed behind the wheel in a single-car accident. As Isabel tries to make sense of this shattering loss and unravel the months leading up to Josie's death, she comes to understand the shifts, large and small, that can upend a friendship and an entire life. Heartbreaking and wryly funny, Days of Awe is a masterly exploration of marriage, motherhood, and the often surprising shape of new love.
With her critically acclaimed debut novel, Still Life with Husband, Lauren Fox established herself as a wise and achingly funny chronicler of domestic life and was hailed as “a delightful new voice in American fiction, a voice that instantly recalls the wry, knowing prose of Lorrie Moore” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). Fox’s new novel glitters with these pleasures—fearless wordplay, humor, and nuance—and asks us the question at the heart of every friendship: What would you give up for a friend’s happiness?
For Willa Jacobs, seeing her best friend, Jane Weston, is like looking in a mirror on a really good day. Strangers assume they are sisters, a comparison Willa secretly enjoys. They share an apartment, clothing, and groceries, eking out rent with part-time jobs. Willa writes advertising copy, dreaming up inspirational messages for tea bags (“The path to enlightenment is steep” and “Oolong! Farewell!”), while Jane cleans houses and writes poetry about it, rhyming “dust” with “lust,” and “clog of hair” with “fog of despair.” Together Willa and Jane are a fortress of private jokes and shared opinions, with a friendship so close there’s hardly room for anyone else. But when Ben, Willa’s oldest friend, reappears and falls in love with Jane, Willa wonders: Can she let her two best friends find happiness with each other if it means leaving her behind?
Still Life With Husband:
Meet Emily Ross, thirty years old, married to her college sweetheart, and personal advocate for cake at breakfast time.
Meet Emily's husband, Kevin, a sweet technical writer with a passion for small appliances and a teary weakness for Little Women.
Enter David, a sexy young reporter with longish floppy hair and the kind of face Emily feels the weird impulse to lick.
In this captivating novel of marriage and friendship, Lauren Fox explores the baffling human heart and the dangers of getting what you wish for.
You can find Lauren at her website: www.laurenfoxwriter.com
Have a great 2016.
Hibernate with a good book.
