Three guesses as to which book I'm at fever pitch to read.
It's too hot to lie about in a hammock, even in the shade, so I have my stack of July's book next to my vintage seafoam-turquoise overstuffed reading chair. All I need is an pomegranate iced tea.
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all
but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life
changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail
for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile
group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel
Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne
Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and
audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When
the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly
exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.
A Hologram for the King - Dave Eggers
In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a
struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure,
pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great. In
A
Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one
man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of
the global economy’s gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac
novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment — and a moving story of
how we got here.
The World Without You - Joshua Henkin
It’s July 4, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved
summer home in the Berkshires. But this is no ordinary holiday. The family has
gathered to memorialize Leo, the youngest of the four siblings, an intrepid
journalist and adventurer who was killed on that day in 2004, while on
assignment in Iraq.
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh - Franz Werfel
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is Franz Werfel's masterpiece that brought him
international acclaim in 1933, drawing the world's attention to the Armenian
genocide. This is the story of how the people of several Armenian villages in
the mountains along the coast of present-day Turkey and Syria chose not to obey
the deportation order of the Turkish government. Instead, they fortified a
plateau on the slopes of Musa Dagh Mount Moses and repelled Turkish soldiers and
military police during the summer of 1915 while holding out hope for the
warships of the Allies to save them.
Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D'Art - Christopher Moore
In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself.
Or
did he? Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to
take his own life . . . and then walk a mile to a doctor's house for help? Who
was the crooked little "color man" Vincent had claimed was stalking him across
France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain
shade of blue? These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent's
friends—baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri
Toulouse-Lautrec—who vow to discover the truth about van Gogh's untimely death.
Their quest will lead them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the
art world of late nineteenth-century Paris.
The Memory Factory: The Forgotten Women Artist of Vienna 1900 - Julie M. Johnson
The Memory Factory introduces an English-speaking public to the
significant women artists of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, each
chosen for her aesthetic innovations and participation in public exhibitions.
These women played important public roles as exhibiting artists, both
individually and in collectives, but this history has been silenced over time.
Their stories show that the city of Vienna was contradictory and cosmopolitan:
despite men-only policies in its main art institutions, it offered a myriad of
unexpected ways for women artists to forge successful public careers. Women
artists came from the provinces, Russia, and Germany to participate in its
vibrant art scene. However, and especially because so many of the artists were
Jewish, their contributions were actively obscured beginning in the late 1930s.
Many had to flee Austria, losing their studios and lifework in the process. Some
were killed in concentration camps.
Along with the stories of individual women artists, the author reconstructs
the history of separate women artists' associations and their exhibitions.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith
While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a
Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight
against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of
years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon
The Secret Journal of
Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in
more than 140 years. Using the journal as his guide and writing in the
grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has
reconstructed the
true life story of our greatest president for the first
time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering
the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
America the Beautiful - Moon Unit Zappa
America Throne is living the good life in L.A. Her career is sprouting, and she
is in love -- with Jasper Husch, a sexy-sultry artist from San Fran. But just as
soon as they've realized domestic bliss, Jasper has a change of heart, and
America falters on the slippery slope of hope: hoping that he will come back,
hoping that new sex will erase all evidence of him, and hoping that in nurturing
a truce with her dead father she will make peace with all men.
Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask Your Doctor After Your Third Martini - Mark Leyner & Billy Goldberg, M.D.
Is There a Doctor in the House? Say you’re at a party. You’ve had a
martini or three, and you mingle through the crowd, wondering how long you need
to stay before going out for pizza. Suddenly you’re introduced to someone new,
Dr. Nice Tomeetya. You forget the pizza. Now is the perfect time to bring up all
those strange questions you’d like to ask during an office visit with your own
doctor but haven’t had the guts (or more likely the time) to do so. You’re
filled with liquid courage . . . now is your chance! If you’ve ever wanted to
ask a doctor . . .
Around the World in 80 Dinners: The Ulitamate Culinary Adventure - Cheryl & Bill Jamison
After years of writing award-winning cookbooks, Cheryl and Bill Jamison were
ready to take a break. They packed their bags, locked up their house in Santa
Fe, and set off on a three-month-long visit to ten countries—all on
frequent-flier miles.
The Collage Workbook: How to Get Started and Stay Inspired - Randel Plowman
Both a popular hobby and a recognized art form, collage encompasses a wide range
of creative styles and techniques--explored here by the creator of the popular A
Collage a Day blog. Offering step-by-step instruction, visual inspiration, and
even a library of copyright-free images, this hands-on guide covers all the
necessary materials, tools, and know-how, from adding color and transferring
images, to décollage (tearing away layers). And to spark the reader's
imagination, there are 52 creativity prompts, such as a collage using the
letters of a single word.
Bent, Bound & Stiched: Collage, Cards and Jewelry with a Twist - Giuseppina "Josie" Cirincione
Whether you're a collage artist ready for new techniques or a paper crafter
looking to broaden your skills, reinventing your artwork is easy with complete
step-by-step photos and instructions for twenty projects, including cards with
decorative sewing-machine stitching, a pendant sporting a photo image on shrink
plastic and even a photo stand for displaying your favorite snapshots.
