My Weekly Book Haul.....January 25, 2015

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea, Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews, The Sunday Salon is a new facebook group I've joined and Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia to be Continued.

All  are book blogs or groups that give you a chance to share what your weekly book haul.  My hauls have been smaller lately, but I've been in kind of a funk, so I've been finding it hard to concentrate when I'm reading.  But hopefully the fog is either lifting, or I'll start reading some of the self-help books I've bought over the last few weeks!  I really wish I could just absorb them osmotically without having to put my fiction down to take in a self-help book.  Perhaps my lack of commitment to self-help is part of the problem?

From NetGalley

Hausfrau by Jill Alexander...Anna was a good wife, mostly. 

Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband, Bruno—a banker—and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and feelings, Anna tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters with an ease that surprises even her.
But Anna can’t easily extract herself from these affairs. When she wants to end them, she finds it’s difficult. Tensions escalate, and her lies start to spin out of control. Having crossed a moral threshold, Anna will discover where a woman goes when there is no going back.
Intimate, intense, and written with the precision of a Swiss Army knife, Jill Alexander Essbaum’s debut novel is an unforgettable story of marriage, fidelity, sex, morality, and most especially self. Navigating the lines between lust and love, guilt and shame, excuses and reasons, Anna Benz is an electrifying heroine whose passions and choices readers will debate with recognition and fury. Her story reveals, with honesty and great beauty, how we create ourselves and how we lose ourselves and the sometimes disastrous choices we make to find ourselves.

Not my normal pick, but I liked the cover.

From Edelweiss

It's Not Me, It's You by Mhairi McFarlane....An achingly funny story about how to be your own hero

when life pulls the rug out from under your feet. From the author of the bestselling You Had Me At Hello.

Delia Moss isn’t quite sure where she went wrong.When she proposed and discovered her boyfriend was sleeping with someone else – she thought it was her fault.When she realised life would never be the same again – she thought it was her fault.And when he wanted her back life nothing had changed – Delia started to wonder if perhaps she was not to blame…From Newcastle to London and back again, with dodgy jobs, eccentric bosses and annoyingly handsome journalists thrown in, Delia must find out where her old self went – and if she can ever get her back. 

My theme of reinventing my life continues, even in my book choices.

Love and Miss Communication by Elyssa Friedland....Could you turn off Facebook? Tune out of

Twitter? In Elyssa Friedland’s debut novel, which combines the sophistication of J. Courtney Sullivan and the wit of Jennifer Weiner, high-powered attorney Evie Rosen does just that…and discovers that life is more than a series of updates. This is a most timely story—at turns wickedly funny and delicately poignant—that begs the question: what are we missing while our eyes are glued to our smartphones

After Evie is unceremoniously dumped from her white-shoe Manhattan law firm for overuse of social media on company hours, called out by a blind date for Googling him, and—most catastrophically of all—shocked by her ex’s wedding photos on Facebook, she decides it’s time to put down the Blackberry for good (better than stowing it in her underwear—she’s done that too!). What will life be like with no searches, no status updates, no texts, no tweets, no pins, and no posts?

What Evie discovers is a fresh start for real conversations and fewer distractions. For living in the moment, even if the moments are sometimes heartbreakingly difficult. By unplugging, Evie may just find love and a new direction when she least expects it.

This looks so cute, and I keep wanting to break up with social media - maybe this will give me the push?

Books I Bought

$1.99 right now!

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman.... Alice Hoffman’s previous novel, The Third Angel, was hailed USA Today), "stunning" (Jodi Picoult), and "spellbinding" (Miami Herald). Her new novel, The Story Sisters, charts the lives of three sisters–Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart’s desire, and a demon who will not let go.

What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? These are the questions this luminous novel asks.

At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of erotic longing, The Story Sisters sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them and, finally, redeem them. It confirms Alice Hoffman’s reputation as "a writer whose keen ear for the measure struck by the beat of the human heart is unparalleled" (The Chicago Tribune).

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins....Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning.

Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut. 

Everyone has been raving about this one, so I gave up the fight!  Can't wait to read it!

Never Too Late: Your Road Map to Reinvention by Claire Cook....Claire Cook speaks to real

99 cents on Amazon today!

women—our fears and obstacles and hopes and desires—and gives us cutting edge tools to get where we want to go.
 
Bursting with inspiration, insider stories, and practical strategies. Filled with humor, heart, encouragement, and great quotes.
 
Claire Cook shares everything she's learned on her own journey— from writing her first book in her minivan at 45, to walking the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of Must Love Dogs at 50, to becoming the international bestselling author of eleven novels and a sought after reinvention speaker.
 
You'll hop on a plane with Claire as you figure out the road to your own reinvention. You'll laugh a lot and maybe even shed a few tears as Claire tells her stories and those of other reinventors, and shares her best tips for getting a plan, staying on track, pulling together a support system, building your platform in the age of social networking, dealing with the inevitable ups and downs, overcoming perfectionism, and tuning in to your authentic self to propel you toward your goals.
 
Never Too Late: Your Roadmap to Reinvention (without getting lost along the way) is real, grounded, and just the book you need to start reinventing your life.

I'm ready for a life reinvention.  Now if I can just get around to reading it!

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