nomadreader

Update: A winner has been drawn. Congratulations, Andy B! Today I'm thrilled to celebrated the publication of Rebecca Makkai's latest novel, The Great Believers , by giving away a copy to one of you. It's already received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly , Kirkus , and Booklist .  Here's a synopsis: "In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chica...

Today, in honor of the paperback release of Neely Tucker's first mystery novel, The Ways of the Dead , I'm reposting my review from last fall. It made my Best of 2014 list (#6!) I'm also thrilled to offer a copy of the paperback to one lucky reader in the U.S. The second Sully Carter mystery , Murder, D.C. is out June 30, 2015. Look for my review on June 29th! The backstory:  The Ways of the Dead  is the debut mystery by Neely Tucker, a veteran journalist and memoirist. The basics:  Set in the late 1990's,  The Ways of the Dead  opens with the murder of Sarah Reese, the fifteen-year-old white daughter of a U.S. federal court judge. Veteran newspaper reporter Sully Carter, who like Tucker himself spent years covering foreign wars, notices a pattern of other dead young women on the same block, but the others are poor and not white. While the police actively pursue Sarah's death and mostly ignore the other deaths, Sully uses his contacts and press badge to...

Today I'm pleased to be hosting a giveaway in conjunction with the theatrical release of  the new  Anna Karenina  film .  Anna Karenina is acclaimed director Joe Wright’s bold, theatrical new vision of the epic story of love, stirringly adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s great novel by Academy Award winner Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love). The film marks the third collaboration of the director with Academy Award-nominated actress Keira Knightley and Academy Award-nominated producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Paul Webster, following their award-winning box office successes Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. Two lucky winners will receive this prize pack: a copy of the book (the gorgeous paperback tie-in edition !) the official soundtrack Votivo candle with bookmark The film is already playing in select cities and will open in wide release this Friday, November 30. After my failed attempts to read Anna Karenina  last year , I'm looking for...

Last week I announced a fabulous contest to win a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy giveaway. To enter, I asked people to name their favorite spy book or film. Here's the list, in order of number of responses: Jason Bourne James Bond (with one vote for Casino Royale in particular) Hunt for Red October The 39 Steps Charade Jason Bourne and James Bond dominated the preferences of contest entrants! And the two winners of the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy giftpacks are... Melissa from An Avid Reader's Musings and Lisa! Congratulations! As an affiliate, I receive a very, very small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you for helping to support my book habits that bring more content to this blog!

Last week I held a contest for an ARC of The Leftovers  by Tom Perrotta, and Melissa from The Avid Reader's Musings is the lucky winner! Contest closed: Congratulations to Joanna from A Worn Path ! Didn't win? You can still buy the  book  ( Kindle version ) or audiobook , you can do that too. Look back for my review on August 29; The Leftovers  comes out August 30. As an affiliate, I receive a very, very small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you for helping to support my book habits that bring more content to this blog!

Giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Melissa from The Avid Reader's Musings ! It's no secret I'm a HUGE fan of Tom Perrotta and have been eagerly awaiting his latest novel, The Leftovers , which comes out August 30, 2011 . I was fortunate enough to snag an early copy and have been spending a heavenly weekend with it. I'm not the kind of lady to rub it in your face that I have a copy of this book when you, my lovely readers, do not.  The wonderful folks at St. Martin's want to give a copy to one lucky reader. That's right: you too can read The Leftovers before you can buy it. Awesome, right? Here are the details: you have until midnight (Des Moines time) next Sunday, August 7, 2011 to fill out the following form. When the contest ends, I'll randomly pick a winner, email the lucky person to let them know, and St. Martin's will send the book to the winner. Good luck! If you'd rather buy the book ( Kindle version ), you can do that too. L...

In January, I read and fell in love with One Day  by David Nicholls. It was my first five-star read of the year. Since then I've been eagerly awaiting the release of the film adaptation. At first glance, this novel is not one that can necessarily be easily adapted. The novel covers one day in the lives of Dex and Emma over twenty years. Do you cast actors young enough to be the right age at the beginning of the film and use makeup to artificially (and ideally realistically) age them? Or do you opt for actors somewhere in the middle of the story and use makeup to make them younger and older? I'm a firm believer in finding the right actors and making it work, and I hope that's how One Day will be. As soon as I heard David Nicholls was adapting the novel for the screen, I was relieved and excited. I love this novel, but it matters more to me to have the spirit of the novel created for the cinema than to have an especially faithful-to-the-details adaptation. The ...

Congratulations to the five winners of The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson: 1. Shannansbooks 2. Tami 3. Jennifer 4. Barb 5. Jenny You five should have an email from me asking for your mailing address. Thanks to all who entered. I look forward to reading the reviews on your blogs. Many, many thanks to Hachette for letting me host this giveaway.

Hachette Book Group is kind enough to offer 5 copies of Joshilyn Jackson's new book The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. Here's how they describe this book: Laurel Gray Hawthorne needs to make things pretty, whether she's helping her mother make sure the literal family skeleton stays in the closet or turning scraps of fabric into nationally acclaimed art quilts. Her estranged sister Thalia, an impoverished Actress with a capital A, is her polar opposite, priding herself on exposing the lurid truth lurking behind middle class niceties. While Laurel's life seems neatly on track--a passionate marriage, a treasured daughter, and a lovely home in suburban Victorianna --everything she holds dear is suddenly thrown into question the night she is visited by the ghost of a her 13-year old neighbor Molly Dufresne . The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne's backyard pool. Molly's death is inexplicable--an unseemly mystery Laurel knows no...