Best Book Blog

Review of "Shrek: The Musical"

2011-06-15T12:37:00.005-04:00

Just when you think you can't be surprised, a musical as brilliant and buoyant as "Shrek: The Musical" comes along and thrills and delights.

You think you know the story. I certainly did. But what I wasn't prepared for was how delightful and thoroughly entertaining the story would uplift and illuminate.

Based somewhat on the original "Shrek" movie, the musical gives even more context and begins in the early years of Shrek and Fiona's lives. By the time the story aligns with the movie adventure, you are given so much more insight into their individual and collective journeys.

Eric Peterson (Shrek) and Haven Burton (Princess Fiona) are personable and charming but truly the two actors who steal the show are Al Mingo Jr. (Donkey) and David F.M. Vaughn (Lord Farquaad). They offer depth, humanity and hilarity to their roles that far exceed their movie counterparts.

I had the good fortune to interview Vaughn, aka Lord Farquaad (read my Charlotte Weekly story here) and he said that during the national tour some people said they were initially reluctant to see the show because they thought it would be only the movie come to life. But that after the show people would rush up and let them know that the show was so much more. Now I understand why.

The music is memorable and exciting. The costumes and choregraphy brought the nuance and texture to the roles in a way the 2-D version of the movie couldn't. And the whole package results in an uplifting and exciting evening.

Understandably, the show was packed with kids. This is a terrific gateway musical to introduce young children to the delights of live theater.

See "Shrek: The Musical" running at the Blumenthal until Sunday, Feb. 19. You won't be sorry you did!

Review of Opera Carolina's "HMS Pinafore"

2011-05-13T12:34:00.005-04:00

Photo courtesy of Opera Carolina. "HMS Pinafore."

Last night Opera Carolina ended their beautiful season dedicated to love with a delightful rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore."

The show is a delicious delight and the perfect ending to a season that has been uniformly spectacular.

The story is simply about what happens when the one you love is not the one your parent would choose for you. And with the standard topsy turvy world of a Gilbert and Sullivan ending, all turns out right. BTW, seeing the show last night made me want to see the fabulous movie about Gilbert and Sullivan's partnership, "Topsy Turvy," available now on Netflix's instant viewing.

The whole cast was solid but among the standouts worthy to call out include Deborah Fields, who imbues a lot of sass in her rendition of Little Buttercup; Alicia Berneche's Josephine, the captain's daughter, who brought endearing qualities and sweetness; John Muriello as Captain Corcoron and a true send up and class clown, Gary Briggle playing Sir Joseph Porter. They make going to the opera one enchanting evening.

Before the curtain opened, maestro James Meena, executive director of Opera Carolina, took a moment to share the 2011-2012 season, which includes a mixture of opera classics, such as "Il Travatore" and "Madame Butterfly" and a new opera, the Russian classic "Eugene Onegin." It's going to be an amazing next season too, so get your subscriptions early! Learn more at http://www.operacarolina.org/.

The opera may be one of the best places to see such a mix of Charlotte lovers of arts. I loved seeing many friends and colleagues from years past.

Take the time out to enjoy a delightful night of arts that is truly entertaining! "HMS Pinafore" is in town until Sunday, May 15. Tickets and more info at the Opera Carolina website: www.operacarolina.org.

Review: Young Frankenstein

2011-03-16T11:18:00.000-04:00

Lovers of old fashioned nights at the theater, you know the ones where you sing and dance your way as you exit the theater and felt like you had a rousing good time, will love “Young Frankenstein” now showing at Charlotte's Blumenthal Performing Arts Center until Sunday.

The show’s lead Christopher Ryan (playing Dr. Frankenstein himself) is energetic and delightful charming the audiences on a two-hour fun fest that has all the delight of the classic Mel Brooks movie and more. Ryan offers a deft comedic touch and dancing chops that put Fred Astaire to shame. (To read my interview with Ryan, visit: http://www.thecharlotteweekly.com/arts_entertainment/2011/03/a-monstrous-hit/)

When Brooks hit comedy gold by transforming his 1968 sleeper movie, “The Producers” to a Broadway musical at the encouragement of his wife actress Anne Bancroft, he turned around and took the same creative team and they looked to doing the same with “Young Frankenstein.” When the show hit Broadway in 2007, critics’ enthusiasm was a bit muffled but truly the comparisons of the two are unfair.

“Frankenstein” is unique to itself. The audience is so enthusiastic about the material they mouth the lines even before the actors have a chance to. The result is that it’s more of a communal theatrical experience much more akin to “Rocky Horror Picture” but with so much more fun.

The musical numbers you loved in the movie, like “Puttin on the Ritz” is so much more when the real audience gets to play a part. And numbers like “Join the Family Business” take on a life of its own with a reimagined dream sequence that takes the original material to new heights.

Joining Ryan are Cory English (Igor) and Johanna Glushak (as Frau Blucher) who are truly spectacular. Musical numbers “Translyvania Mania” and the “He Vas My Boyfriend” are worth seeing the show for alone.

Whether you are a fan of the classic movie or newbie, go see “Frankenstein” and have a delightful evening. It’s old-fashioned entertainment in the very best way imaginable!

Tickets for “Young Frankenstein” can be purchased at http://www.carolinatix.org/ or by calling 704-372-1000.

Book Review: Butterfly's Child by Anne Davis-Gardner

2011-03-08T22:41:00.005-05:00

Editor's Note: You are most welcome to submit book reviews by e-mailing them directly to me at alison at thecharlotteweekly.com.

Review of Butterfly’s Child by Angela Davis-Gardner
By Vera Woo

"Butterfly’s Child" is a unique and beautiful story and the imagined sequel to Puccini’s beloved opera, “Madam Butterfly.” Written by Angela Davis Gardener, who spent time when she was a professor emeritus in Japan, “Child” is a captivating novel of love, guilt, sin, sorrow and finally joy.

Set in the early 1800’s when America did small trade with Japan, the novel’s fascinating the transcultural theme sets the perfect back drop and yet remains particularly relevant today.

The story begins where “Madam Butterfly” ends. Expansively imagined, carefully researched and beautifully told, Davis-Gardner has written this book for anyone who longed to know what came next after the famous unhappy ending of the famed opera.

With a narrative that sweeps from the farmlands of Illinois to the Japanese settlement of
San Francisco to Butterfly’s homeland in Nagasaki, Japan, the story starts with Butterfly (Cio- Cio) being introduced by Sharpless, an American seaman, to Colonel Pinkerton in Nagasaki, Japan. They enjoyed each other’s company and Cio- Cio ends up conceiving a child from the union.

Colonel Pinkerton is recalled to duty in America but promises that he will return to Japan. He does return two years later, but with an American wife.

Cio- Cio is so distraught over this; she fakes suicide with a sword – the same one her father used to commit suicide. Prior to committing suicide, she butchers the family cat and lies on the cat. Her lover and his wife come in and see her in a pool of blood and take her son away with them home to Illinois to live with his mother. Though they introduce the boy, Benji, as an orphan his arrival raises eyebrows with his looks. Benji sports blond hair and a big nose similar to Pinkerton.

Kate, Pinkerton’s wife, is a good woman. She treats the boy well and even teaches him English. In the meantime she tries to get pregnant but miscarries each time. She joins a literary group to keep busy. She gets invited to a “Suffragettes” meeting but because of her illness declines.

When Benji finds a photograph in his kimono with inscription on it, he takes it to one of the Suffragettes to read it, since she is a woman of the world. The woman looked at it but said nothing to Benji. Instead she gossiped with her host that Pinkerton was in the photo. Soon, the news spread like wild fire in the village.

Benji heard of this and decided to run away, before his father heard the news.
He saddles his horse and leaves home that night. He rides as fast as he could towards the West Coast with a goal to reach San Francisco. His idea is to make his way to Japan to seek his mother’s relatives.

On his way he makes friends with a Japanese business man who does Import/Export. This man gets him a Birth Certificate and a Passport so he can boards a ship to Nagasaki.
When he arrives in Japan he sets out to find his mother’s relatives. But along the painful search in the Geisha district, he meets a woman who knew of his mother’s tale.

To say any more would deprive you of the joy of reading how the skilled author resolves the plot but needless to say, this is a very fulfilling read. Fans of Puccini’s opera will also find some fascinating clues as to how the true story of “Butterfly” came to international acclaim.

Davis-Gardner explores and researched this book with great tenderness. It is beautifully written and deeply moving. Once you enter Benji’s world and begin his journey, there’s no turning back. I read this book in 48 hours and did not stop until I finished the book.
I enjoyed the book and loved every bit of the author’s style. Now I am looking forward to reading more her previous book, "Plum Wine."

"Butterfly's Child" is available at booksellers everywhere.

Turning a new page...

2011-03-08T22:35:00.002-05:00

Hello all!

Where has the time gone? It feels like just yesterday that we met to discuss the fabulous "Juliet" book by Anne Fortier.

While we retool before our next book club selection (more news on that soon!) I'm going to be updating the blog with the latest and greatest books for your reading pleasure.

Please sign up on the blog so you can receive these updates directly in your inbox.

What are you reading now? Send me your news or comment here on the blog.

Cheers!
Alison

Review: In the Heights, Charlotte

2011-02-16T09:23:00.007-05:00

If you're looking for a fabulous experience where your heart soars, you wipe tears away from your eyes and you struggle to stay in your seat because the beat of the music wants to make you salsa your way down the aisles, run, don't walk to see "In the Heights" playing at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center until Feb. 20.

This show has been described as a modern day "West Side Story" but it's so much more. Born as the brainchild of creator Lin Manuel Miranda, this 2008 Tony-award winner for Best Musical is the inspired tapestry of stories from residents living in NYC's Washington Heights. Fear not, the New York-inspired stories translates well; much like Seinfeld's humor became universal. It works because it tugs at the heartstrings and carries the universal stories no matter who you are or where you're from.

The entire company is inspired. But absolute standouts include Joseph Morales ("Usnavi,") Genny Lis Padilla ("Nina") and Danny Bolero ("Kevin.") The ensemble carry the same type of intensity and energy that made this show such a hit on the Broadway stage. Know that this is a modern show, one that honors the best of Broadway musicals of great storytelling, beautiful sets and magical lighting but brings something entirely fresh and modern that we haven't seen in a contemporary setting before.

Miranda's lyrics blend the best of hip-hop, rap, and a pop beat mixed with salsa, meringue and bossa nova beats. All set within the American Dream. That's a pretty high bar and "Heights" surpasses it in every song.

This is a show that will be enjoyed by anyone who ever had a dream and put it all on the line to make it happen. It's one of the most entertaining and inspired theatrical experiences I've had in awhile. 2011 is shaping up to be a fabulous season for the arts in Charlotte. See "Heights" and know your heart will soar the heights, too!

Alison Woo
Arts & Entertainment Reporter, Carolina Weekly Newsgroup

To read my interview with "Heights" actress Genny Lis Padilla, click here.

Review: Opera Carolina's La Traviata

2011-02-04T07:36:00.004-05:00

Opera Carolina's sensational production of "La Traviata" debuted to delighted Charlotte audiences providing a spectacular no one will soon forget. Giuseppe Verdi's beloved opera tells the story of true love found, noble sacrifices and love triumphant.

The story is a classic: Violetta is a courtesan in Paris in the 1850s when Alfredo professes his unabashed love for her. As someone who uses love as currency, she never believed that true love could happen to her. But she allows life grand experience to happen to her, her entire life changes. She begins to heal from the consumption she battles and they move to the country. Three bliss-filled months later, Alfredo's father asks her to give up their love to save their family from scorn. She does with much difficulty, returns to her life as a courtesan in Paris and tries to convince Alfredo that she no longer loves him. After a duel with her patron, Alfredo's father tells him of her sacrifice. He rushes to her side and they reunite but her illness takes her life shortly thereafter.

Leads Jennifer Black (Violetta Valéry) and Jonathan Boyd (Alfredo Germont) bring the lovers to life with full splendor. Ms. Black, a recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera prestigious training program (think American Idol for opera singers) is spectacular and will be the next great opera star. See her in this production now so you can say you knew her when.

The production was brought to life under the guidance of guest conductor Joel Revzon, house conductor for the Met. The entire set glitters with spectacular costumes, evocative lighting and a score that has you humming out the door.

If you're looking for one artistic experience this season to lift your spirits and send your soul soaring, see "La Traviata" before the run ends. This show reminds us why classics deserve to live on for so long and Opera Carolina's production of the show is truly world class.

Steve Harvey Rocks the House!

2011-01-24T11:53:00.003-05:00

Photo Credit: By Adriana Medina

Steve Harvey feels his mission is to empower women. During his visit to a packed Barnes & Noble at the Arboreteum this weekend, he shared his story. Six years ago his life changed and he's now doing something for women. He believes that "failure is a wonderful teacher." He feels he hasn't always gotten it right, so the books are about him and sometimes his friends and trying to get it right.

Question for Harvey: "Due to the advent of social media sites such as Facebook and Classmates.com, many people are reconnecting with former loves. From a male perspective, if a guy finds and reconnects with a former love, what's he thinking, what does that mean to him?"

His respond was that this is exactly what happened to him. His wife was a woman he had dated 20 years earlier. He thinks that the reconnection is "God telling you, 'let me show it to you again. Please, listen to me this time.'" I asked him if he thought it was any different if a woman reconnected with the man, and he responded, "No. Love is love." As he answered other questions, he mentioned his belief about men, specifically, that "real men need to take care of business." And that "if [a man] promises something to a woman, he needs to keep that promise."

He also expressed his belief about women. He said, "women, you are so powerful. A man cannot hold your hand without your permission. He cannot hug you without your permission. He cannot kiss you without your permission. He cannot lay with you without your permission. Women, you are so powerful. Stop giving up your power."

By Adriana Medina, CW Book Club member

Steve Harvey Comes to Charlotte

2011-01-22T11:40:00.003-05:00

Get ready Charlotte to be rocked! Steve Harvey, best-selling author, radio show host and TV host of the "Family Feud" is coming to Charlotte this Saturday at the Barnes & Noble at the Arboreteum. I had the great honor to be able to ask him a few questions. Here's what he had to say:

QUESTIONS

1. Mr. Harvey, you have become an expert on helping women understand men. How do your male friends feel about you revealing their "secrets?"

Well, you know my real friends that have read the book, they like it, they understand what I’ve done. I’ve exposed the truth so that women have a better understanding of men. Now if you’re out there running game, then I’m sorry but what do you want me to do? That’s not the business I’m in [running games]. That’s really not the business we’re supposed to be in, but we are as men oftentimes; you know I just think if we’re going to play the game with women and they’re going to play the game with us, then they ought to know all the rules.

"Straight Talk, No Chaser" is available at booksellers everywhere.

December Speaking Volumes Selection: The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir

2010-12-06T16:02:00.004-05:00

Typically when you think of holiday books, you think of sweet, quaint holiday stories full of magic and mirth. As we progress into our sixth year of book club selections, we have chosen a decidedly offbeat yet thoroughly charming holiday book, “The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir” by Ken Harmon as our December pick.

Harmon, who holds a very serious day job at Wells Fargo writing much of the bank’s marketing materials, decided to tweak this holiday tradition. The result is a book that is both unexpected and thrilling. Harmon took some time out of his very busy schedule to answer our questions.

South Charlotte Weekly: What inspired you to write "The Fat Man?"

Ken Harmon: Most of the stories we have about the North Pole, the main characters are very sweet or befuddled, but good at heart. Don’t they ever get tired? Don't they ever have a bad day? When I started asking these questions, I began to imagine the different jobs elves and others could have in the North Pole machine and started to explore what that world would be like. If things aren't always hunky-dory, then there would have to be some kind of law enforcement - that's where my elf detective of sorts, Gumdrop Coal, was born. SCW: The book has a definite Raymond Chandler-esque tint. What were your influences? Are you a fan of noirs, books and movies?

KH: I am a big fan of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and the fun they have with the language. I reread The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon and some other works to study the rhythm of the language and re-discovered some of the great slang from that genre. I am also a

fan of the old, black and white detective movies of the 40's and re-watched quite a few of those.

To put those tough-talking, hard-boiled guys and dames into the world of the North Pole was where the fun came. It was a great time.

SCW: What was it about Christmas that inspired you to set the story during that period?

KH: In the secular Christmas, there is naughty and nice - a fixed battle between good and evil - conflict that every story needs. We can all identify with the part of Christmas that's full of drama and anxiety as we try to work through that to get to the peaceful promise of the holidays. We see people getting violent in lines shopping for toys. We get angry at traffic and lines. I thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if characters at the North Pole did too - and then take it a step beyond.

SCW: How did you manage writing and your full-time job at Wells Fargo? Seems like the skill sets are dynamic opposites? Did that provide a good counter balance for each job?

KH: I get up very early in the morning to do my fiction writing. It's quiet and I can concentrate more easily. The marketing work at Wells Fargo is much more collaborative with lots of going back and forth. The writing of the novel was fun because I had more than a headline or a short paragraph to tell a story. The two kinds of writing do demand two different skill sets, but they do help each other. Even in the novel, I found myself trying to write as descriptively while being as concise as possible.

Meet the author

Join us on Tuesday, Dec. 28, at 7PM at the Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall to discuss the book with its author. Please RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com

Google Launches eBookstore

2010-12-06T15:10:00.003-05:00

If you're a reader who is digitally connected, life just got a little sweeter!

Today Google launched their new eBookstore where you can download eBooks onto your reading devices or on your PC. In addition to all the usual suspects you can buy, "The Help," "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" and "Freedom," you can also download a fair amount of free ebooks, including Oprah's latest book club picks, "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations."

Over 3 million books are available! Check it out by clicking here.

Anne Fortier Chat Rescheduled

2010-11-22T20:46:00.001-05:00

Due to a number of tech issues, we had to reschedule the video chat with author Anne Fortier.

We so apologize to all those who were at Barnes & Noble and those who tried to log on at home. We're trying to find a date to resked with the author. It will most likely be towards the end of December.

Many thanks to all and thank you for your patience!

All the best,
Alison

Online video chat with "Juliet" author Anne Fortier

2010-11-21T22:58:00.005-05:00

Hi all,

Please join us Monday, Nov. 22 at 7 PM to chat with author "Juliet" Anne Fortier.

This is an AMAZING book! And you'll enjoy talking with this spectacular author.

You can join us in one of two ways:

1. You can come watch the video chat at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall. Come to the second floor and ask for Becky, who will be in the cookbook section.

OR...

2. You can participate in the chat from the comfort of your home or office with the following directions below.

Details to chat with "Juliet" author Anne Fortier.

Join our online webinar:

1. Log on to: http://snipurl.com/1i1hvi

The meeting password is: books.

You can use your own computer's speakers and microphone to chat with the author.

2. Or you can just listen to the audio portion of the call. Call-in at toll number 408-600-3600 and put in the access code:807 175 737.

Have any questions? E-mail me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Enjoy!

Alison

Ready to write a novel?

2010-10-31T22:27:00.003-04:00

This is it, book lovers!

Nov. 1 begins National Novel Writing Month! That means you get to join people all over the world who have decided to shun all the excuses and just do it! Write, write, and write! Every day for a month!

It's pretty exciting. And it's all free!

Thank you to fellow book club member Lena Claxton, who's running a great new writer's retreat in Jamaica, who reminded me of all of this this morning.

Learn more here on the National Novel Writing Month website.

Who's in?

Speaking Volumes Selection for November: Juliet by Anne Fortier

2010-10-27T17:16:00.002-04:00

The lushly beautiful book, "Juliet" by author Anne Fortier is our book club selection for November. We'll be chatting with the author live on the web via video so everyone who is a fan can join in. Details to come! But mark your calendar. The event will be Monday, Nov. 22 at 7 PM.

Keep checking back for new news or sign up for updates on this blog and get the latest news in your inbox!

-Happy reading!

Alison

Review of "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"

2010-10-25T12:25:00.000-04:00

From our book club member and guest reviewer Adriana L. Medina

A “hornet’s nest” usually refers to a contentious situation. So if you stir the hornet’s nest you are likely to make people uncomfortable and upset. However, if you kick the hornet’s nest, you can better believe that an army of “hornets” are coming after you with a vengeance. That is exactly what comes to pass in Stieg Larsson’s final installment of the Millennium Trilogy, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest."

This third novel is much like the first two in that the story jump starts from the first page, in this case, right where we left off in book two, but then slows down as additional back-story is provided through exposition. There are new characters introduced and their relationship to the “hornet’s nest” or Sweden’s security police, and the criminal investigations surrounding the murders for which Salander is the prime suspect, are slowly revealed. A few of these new characters are on Salander’s side; however, most are not. Those out to get revenge will sacrifice even themselves to protect the “nest,” the other “workers,” and the “cells” they have created over time. Since Salander is in critical condition due to a gun shot to her head, this time, it’s Bloomkvist’s turn to outwit the “hornets” and he does so by pulling a few pages from Salander’s book. Still, Salander, in her true fashion, also does her part to undermine authority and through her own methods take the law into her own hands for what she deems to be justice.

This novel does tie back to the first one and once the reader sees the parallels and Salander’s choices are revealed, he/she will agree that Salander has matured over the course of the trilogy. She is capable of maintaining her sights on the bigger picture and of making better choices. And while her kick of the hornet’s nest does create quite a stir and many problems for her and others, ultimately, like any good crime thriller, lose ends are tied up, the crime is solved and exposed, the “hornets” are captured and the “nest” is eliminated, and the detective, who in this trilogy is sometimes involved in criminal activities herself, proves that she has more wits and fury than a nest of hornets.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" is available wherever books are sold.

Review of "Look Again" by Lisa Scottoline

2010-10-23T12:33:00.001-04:00

Review by book club member and book blogger Cheryl McDermitt.

"Look Again" is another wonderful mystery/thriller written by Lisa Scottoline! I have to admit at first when I saw the subject matter of this book I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. Stories about abducted children aren’t the genre I usually read. I am glad I read this one though.

Ellen Gleeson is a Philadelphia reporter who adopted this sick little child named Will. She juggles work and home life like any other single mother. She has a very competent nanny named Connie to help her out with Will. One day she picks up her mail and staring her in the face is a card with an age-processed photo of a little boy named Timothy Braverman and he had been abducted in Florida . Ellen can’t stop thinking of how much the little boy on the card looks so much like her Will. Ellen’s mind constantly goes back to the little boy in the picture and she starts investigating her son’s birth mother. During the length of the investigation she finds out the attorney that handled Will’s adoption commited suicide 3 weeks after the adoption, the supposed birth mother, Amy can’t be questioned because she died of a drug overdose and according to Amy’s mother Amy could never get pregnant. Ellen tries to locate a man who was Amy’s boyfriend at the time of the abduction of the Braverman boy. Ellen keeps going back and forth in her mind about whether Will could be Timothy Braverman or not. Her instincts are telling her they are one in the same but her Dad tells her to leave well enough alone and her present attorney tells her the same thing.

In a desperate attempt to find out the truth Ellen flies to Miami where the Braverman’s live. She finds their home and parks out on the street watching them. All the time it is driving her deeper and deeper towards danger. You really need to read this book to find out how the story unfurls-it is worth the read!

David Sedaris Visits Charlotte; Signs 'Squirrel', Sings Praises

2010-10-19T14:19:00.004-04:00

Photo by Anne Fishbein

Almost every year, America’s beloved humorist and best-selling author David Sedaris visits Charlotte to read from his latest work, albeit a book, an essay or even bits from his journal. This week, the author’s visit to the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center featured a happier, shinier version of the author who enchanted the packed Belk Theater leaving the audience more uplifted and enlightened than when they arrived.

Sedaris fans are an interesting cross section of the community that might not ordinarily come together in one space. There were his National Public Radio fans; (Sedaris breakthrough the comedy barrier with his piece for Ira Glass on what it was like to be an elf in Macy’s Santaland in NYC.) And then there were commuters who delight in hearing his exquisite and unique voice read his numerous best-selling books such as “Me Talk Pretty”, “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “When Engulfed in Flames.” And then there were the progressive, forward-thinking citizens that delight in Sedaris’ acid tongue and rapier wit.

Sedaris on stage is something to behold. All he needs is a few well-chosen essays and you could feel the laughter of the packed audience here to see North Carolina’s favorite son buoy to higher levels of delight. The author’s newest book (which he reminded the audience is now No. 5 on the New York Times best-seller’s list) is “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.” “One might call them a set of fables; but they are not,” Sedaris opened. “Fables have morals. These are a collection of animal stories where the animals act like people.”

Indeed his latest book can easily be best described as animals gone awry or at least gone human. And with his incredible attention to detail, animals take on the type of qualities we humans might be afraid to mock in ourselves. However in animals, it’s all together charming.

The collection of stories includes “Motherless Bear”, “The Parenting Storks” and “The Grieving Owl,” which Sedaris read for the howling crowd. The story is about how a great horned owl, that recently lost his spouse, spends the rest of his time trying to become a more informed creature by asking his prey to teach him something. Sadly, just as he does and lets the animal go, a family member will swoop down for the kill. “It’s easier than doing it alone; think of the hours I’m saving, the owl’s sister shrieked,” he read.

Sedaris and friends on tape
Normally one of the best things about a new Sedaris book is the audio book version, which features his deadpan delivery and inimitable voice. For the uninitiated, his comic stylings are as unique as Woody Allen or Chris Rock. This time, “Squirrel” features the vocal talents of three other contributors who breathe a new twist into the author’s words. “When I write these stories I keep reading them aloud over and over and testing the material in front of audiences,” he said. “But when you hear (Broadway legend) Elaine Stritch read the sentence and talk about the Motherless Bear in her own way, it’s pure delight.”

To keep producing quality work takes a commitment to the craft. Sedaris told the audience that he writes for at least four hours a day, every day of the week, splitting the work between morning and evening. “After any more than four hours of sitting in front of the computer and it becomes time to check out YouTube for videos of animals eating other animals,” he opined.

The stop in Charlotte was one of many; the author will visit 36 cities in 37 days and then begin a four-week book tour to promote “Squirrel.” Sally Brewster and Frazer Dobson, owners of the esteemed Park Road Books who have often been the bookseller of choice on his visits, commented on the author’s convivial air at the Belk. “You can tell he’s happier and more relaxed this time around,” said Brewster.

Part of that can be attributed to the author’s new healthier lifestyle: he’s quit smoking and works out regularly. He even had time to offer praise for a Charlotte institution. “Do you all know how lucky you are to have an amazing YMCA?” Sedaris offered praising the Dowd. “They will all be friendly, but swimming in the pool at the Hilton was amazing!”

Sedaris rounded the evening out by sharing essays such as “Stand By” about the travails of airline traveling and selections from his journal. It can be intimidating to think, ‘who can be funny even in their journal?’ But as audience members lined up to get their book inscribed and chat with the delightful author, the author asked those in line to share their favorite joke. As many comic tidbits flowed forth it became obvious, this man knows how to not only be funny but help others delight in the humor of life as well.

“Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk” is now available at booksellers everywhere.

Review of Opera Carolina's "Cosi Fan Tutte"

2010-10-18T14:10:00.000-04:00

There are many reasons art enriches life. Besides its beauty and its spectacle, it speaks truth.

Recently, I've been musing a lot about the role of love in one's life. It's very easy to somehow forget how transformational true love really is. We all get busy with work, family and just day-to-day life and even if we have a beloved in our lives; it becomes very easy to forget the magic.

Opera Carolina's premier offering of the season, Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" reminded me just how important love really is. And more importantly not questioning or testing love but believing, accepting and surrendering to its power.

At the heart of the story lies two sisters who are faithfully devoted to their beaus. However a world weary older man convinces their boyfriends that they could be swayed by their devotion. And therein the plot unfolds.

To say more might ruin the fun. But take a dash of "The Road" movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, add some modern goddesses and add some the lushly inspired music of one of the world's greatest composers and you begin to understand what a delightful experience "Cosi" offers.

James Meena's thoughtful staging of the show really helped make the plot relevant and realistic. Originally Mozart wrote this as a contemporary piece in the 1790s but Meena updated the period to the 1920s/30s and used a somewhat contemporary set from "The Transit of Venus." This helps make the opera far more approachable than if it had stayed in the 18th century. Even though stories of love are universal, the updated staging and costumes helps the audience just relax and slip into the beautiful arias.

The opera talent on stage -the combined talents of Robert Mack (Ferrando), Caitlin Lynch (Fiordiligi), Elizabeth Stannard (Dorabella) and Marian Pop (Guglielmo) - are uniformly spectacular. Together with Sarah Callinan and Krisopher Irmiter, as Despina and Don Alfonso, respectively, the cast puts forth a world class offering. They make the quartets and sextets reach incredible heights as well as shine in their solo arias.

Ultimately the story leaves you wondering to the end how this romantic folly will play out. But I walked away feeling more hopeful about love than before and being grateful how great art can inspire great living. See "Cosi Fan Tutte" before its run finishes this week at the Belk and remember the magic of love!

To learn more or purchase tickets, visit CarolinaTix.

Alison Woo
Carolina Weekly Newsgroup

Opera Carolina's Cosi Fan Tutte

2010-10-15T09:45:00.000-04:00

Opera Carolina launches its new season with “Cosi Fan Tutte,” featuring, from left to right, Robert Mack (Ferrando), Caitlin Lynch (Fiordiligi), Elizabeth Stannartd (Dorabella) and Marian Pop (Guglielmo).

Ah, Mozart. Nothing really does it for me more then a bit of Wolfgang.

That's why I'm super excited to be going to Cosi Fan Tutte, Opera Carolina's debut offering this season.

There are still tickets left so join me! With performances Saturday, Oct. 16, Sunday at 2 PM (that's the one I'm going to!) and Thursday night, Oct. 21, you still have plenty of chances to join in the magic. Here's more details.

I had the great fortune of sitting down with the esteemed conductor of Opera Carolina, James Meena, who is now in his 11th season with the beloved arts organization. Read my article here.

If you can't make it this weekend, I'll be tweeting and blogging more. Be sure to follow me on Twitter by clicking here. I'll give you all the inside scoop on what's bound to be the premier event of the season!

See you at the opera!

Alison

Speaking Volumes Selection for October: The Works of Laura Esquivel

2010-10-11T10:38:00.006-04:00

Photo courtesy of Simon and Schuster

To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, we've decided to do something completely different. Rather than just read one book, we're going to open it up to any or all five of the compelling works from one of the most popular and enduring authors of modern literature, Laura Esquivel.

Laura Esquivel is a Mexican born author who sprang to fame more than twenty years ago with her brilliant work, "Like Water for Chocolate." The story started as a series of installments that captured the tales of Tita and Pedro. Being thwarted from pursuing their love, Pedro marries Tita's sister, Rosaura. The two spend the next twenty years under the same roof while Tita shares her love through food. The lyrical novel offers recipes and romance in such a poetic manner; it instantly became one of the most successful books written by a Latino author of all time.

It was No. 1 on the best-sellers list for more than three years and was translated into 23 languages. The book also became a movie, with the screenplay written by Esquivel herself and directed by her husband, Alfonso Arau.

Esquivel's second book, "The Law of Love," did not achieve as much success as its predecessor but offers a tale of magic realism at its best. The story revolves around Azucena and her beloved Rodrigo and their fate of finding love through different ages. It's lushly romantic and it pushed the forms of literary convention in a time when such things were not heard of. The book comes with a CD, the songs of which are geared to trigger certain emotion and memories for the characters, and a Manga-esque storyboard. This is hands down my favorite book and the one I'd be taking with me on a desert island, given the choice of just five books.

In 2000, she followed up "Love" with a collection of essays on love, food, romance in To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, we've decided to do something completely different. Rather than just read one book, we're going to open it up to any or all five of the compelling works from one of the most popular and enduring authors of modern literature, Laura Esquivel.

Laura Esquivel is a Mexican born author who sprang to fame more than twenty years ago with her brilliant work, "Like Water for Chocolate." The story started as a series of installments that captured the tales of Tita and Pedro. Being thwarted from pursuing their love, Pedro marries Tita's sister, Rosaura. The two spend the next twenty years under the same roof while Tita shares her love through food. The lyrical novel offers recipes and romance in such a poetic manner; it instantly became one of the most successful books written by a Latino author of all time.

It was No. 1 on the best-sellers list for more than three years and was translated into 23 languages. The book also became a movie, with the screenplay written by Esquivel herself and directed by her husband, Alfonso Arau.

Esquivel's second book, "The Law of Love," did not achieve as much success as its predecessor but offers a tale of magic realism at its best. The story revolves around Azucena and her beloved Rodrigo and their fate of finding love through different ages. It's lushly romantic and it pushed the forms of literary convention in a time when such things were not heard of. The book comes with a CD, the songs of which are geared to trigger certain emotion and memories for the characters, and a Manga-esque storyboard. This is hands down my favorite book and the one I'd be taking with me on a desert island, given the choice of just five books.

In 2000, she followed up "Love" with a collection of essays on love, food, romance in "Between the Fires." Shortly thereafter, she penned "Swift as Desire" an intriguing story about true love and what happens when communication, or lack of it, distorts it.

Most recently, Esquivel wrote "Malinche" based upon the real-life story of the translator who worked for Herman Cortes, the Spanish conqueror. Malinche holds a controversial place in history and was seen by many as a traitor to her people. But Esquivel does a noble job examining her plight as a woman caught between two worlds. The author travels a familiar, yet satisfying, route of navigating the territory of dancing between one's head and heart.

In all of her books, the author captures an elevated sense of life and love in such a darling and endearing way, it's really hard to pick a favorite. "Chocolate" was a previous book club selection but for all our new members, feel free to start your voyage of discovery with this book or any of the others mentioned here.

Save the Date
We're still working out details but we'll be meeting on Monday, Oct. 25 at 7 PM to discuss the book at a festive location sharing delicious and authentic Latin-inspired food! Check this column next week for more or visit our blog at: http://bestbookblog.blogspot.com/ for details.

Happy reading!
Alison

Speaking Volumes Radio Show: Live Chat with NYT Best Selling Author Jennifer Crusie

2010-08-31T19:04:00.005-04:00

Author Jennifer Crusie

Hi everyone! Please note we've had to make a quick change on the date for this event.

Join me LIVE on Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 7 PM EST as we chat with New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Crusie,who has just returned to the literary scene with her first solo novel in years, "Maybe This Time."

Click here to listen to the show or call us at (347) 539-5852 to ask Jennifer a question!

We'll talk about her latest book, the writing life and what she's working on now!

Have a question? You can also e-mail it to me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Note: This live chat will be recorded for future listening.

Speaking Volumes Selection for September: The Wet Nurse's Tale

2010-08-30T11:49:00.001-04:00

As the days shorten, it feels like the time to curl up with a great book lengthens. This September as we continue our sixth year of our newspapers’ signature book club, Speaking Volumes, we choose a book that looks at the daring choices women made in the past. “The Wet Nurse’s Tale” by North Carolina native Erica Eisdorfer is a story of intrigue and romance set in the midst of Victorian England.

The main character jumps off the page in a sort of “Upstairs/Downstairs” type of saga which keeps you on the edge of your seat. After tragedy befalls Susan Rose, she is forced to become a wet nurse for a wealthy family. Soon she finds more trouble but it’s Rose’s plucky character and resolve to reunite her family that keeps her going. Rose is a character you won’t soon forget.

Meet the author
Join us on Sept. 27 at 7 PM at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall to discuss this exciting new book, now in paperback, with the book’s author Erica Eisdorfer. The Duke grad discusses her debut novel and the writing life. Please RSVP by e-mailing us at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

Happy reading!

Alison Woo

Come join us at Eat, Pray, Love movie night!

2010-08-11T15:25:00.002-04:00

Join us Tuesday, August 17 at 7:35 PM at the AMC Carolina Pavillion 22 on 9541 South Boulevard, Charlotte, NC to watch a book club favorite movie, "Eat, Pray, Love" starring Julia Roberts. Please RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

We'll meet inside the theater! Hope to see you there!

Enjoy the trailer!

Speaking Volumes Selection for August: The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

2010-08-09T14:02:00.002-04:00

The one thing that has propelled our book club readers through all the diverse books we have read over the six years of book club is this: our own love of reading. Reading has a way of expanding your horizons the way nothing else can. British author Alan Bennett’s brilliant and whimsical novella takes a bit of literary license to look at this weighty topic.

As we begin “The Uncommon Reader” by Alan Bennett we meet Queen Elizabeth II who discovers there is a book bus that visits the palace weekly. To her surprise, she finds that reading becomes a consuming passion. And the insights she gleans about herself and the power of reading are both insightful and universal.

At 112 pages, this novella is a brisk and bright read!

Join us on August 19 at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall at 7 PM to discuss this delicious book and your own passion for reading. Please RSVP at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewsgroup.com.

Enjoy!

Alison

Speaking Volumes for July – LIVE Online Author Chat with Maryann McFadden, So Happy Together

2010-07-13T12:41:00.003-04:00

As we hit the peak of the summer season, it seems like the perfect time to read one of our book club’s favorite authors. Our July selection is Maryann McFadden’s newest novel now in paperback, “So Happy Together” - an intergenerational family story that takes place on Cape Cod. McFadden authored our previous book club pick, “The Richest Season.”

Considering everyone’s schedule, we’ve made this book club event convenient for all. You can call in via telephone or log on via your computer to watch live video of author Maryann McFadden from your own beach house or summer hideaway.

The live book club author chat takes place on Monday, July 26 at 7 PM. Here's how to participate:

1. You can call in on your phone at:

1-408-600-3600; then type in access code:803 937 381.

OR....you can log in to WATCH the video online by clicking:

https://newmediasolutions.webex.com/newmediasolutions/j.php?ED=137830922&UID=1129068387&PW=NZDhlYzczY2E0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D

The password is: bookclub

If you have trouble and need the meeting number, it is: 803 937 381

Please RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com. Happy reading!

Speaking Volumes Selection for June 2010: Return to Sullivan's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

2010-06-16T16:40:00.004-04:00

Come celebrate the beginning of summer and Speaking Volumes’ sixth anniversary Monday, June 28 at 5:30 PM at McCormick and Schmick at SouthPark.

This month we’re reading “Return to Sullivan Island” by Dorothea Benton Frank. We’ll discuss the book while partaking in M &S’s most excellent happy hour goodies! Click HERE for the menu (which BTW they've mentioned can change, but at least it gives you a good idea of the plethora of possibilites for just $1.95!) Please be advised, all food and drink will be the responsibility of the purchaser.

Kindly RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspaper.com. For more info, visit our blog, which is linked on our website, http://www.thecharlotteweekly.com/.

Want to Get Your Book Published?

2010-05-17T20:54:00.003-04:00

Writers, want to learn some inside secrets of the publishing business?

Katharine Sands, literary agent at the Sarah Jane Freymann Agency and agent provocateur of the book, "Making the Perfect Pitch," will appear as a guest on the "Your Book Is Your Hook!" Show Tuesday, May 18th, 2010, 9:00am on WomensRadio.com. Ms. Sands talks about what authors need to know to catch a literary agent's eye. She also discusses how authors can make the perfect pitch for their books and how she uses her book as her hook.

The Creation of Eve - Date for Book Club Set!

2010-05-16T19:21:00.001-04:00

Hello all!

FYI, the new date for "The Creation of Eve" discussion with author Lynn Cullen is set for Friday, May 28 at 7 PM EST.

Please RSVP by e-mailing me at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspaper.com.

See you there!

Alison

May 2010 Book Club Selection: The Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen

2010-05-09T18:19:00.002-04:00

We're reading the amazing book, "The Creation of Eve" for May's book club.

Originally it was scheduled that we meet Monday, May 17 but we're moving the date to the last week of May. We're trying to secure the exact date with the author now but we're hoping to meet with the author via SKYPE. Stay tuned to this blog for more details.

But in the meantime, happy reading!

Alison

Looking for a Great Read for your Mom?

2010-05-01T18:14:00.000-04:00

The best book I've read this season hands down is the new book from NPR: Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps.

It's filled with beautiful vignettes about the impact of mothers on a number of people's lives. And these little bite-size delights are perfect for the mom on the go (BTW, what mom do you know who doesn't multitask?)

Buy a copy for your mom, yourself and your friends! You won't be sorry you did.

Listen to our book club chat with Adriana Trigiani

2010-04-02T15:50:00.002-04:00

If you couldn't call in Monday night, no worries. Here's our chat with best-selling author Adriana Trigiani.

DETAILS for Adriana Trigiani LIVE Book Chat TONIGHT!

2010-03-30T17:28:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone,

The chat with Adriana Trigiani is over but look to this website tomorrow morning as we will post the link. Wasn't she just the BEST?

She truly is an extraordinary talent! Watch the videos below for more!

Alison

My Favorite Adriana Trigiani Video Clips

2010-03-30T15:14:00.000-04:00

As we get ready to chat with the ONLY AUTHOR who has been a CW' Speaking Volumes author four times, I thought it would be great to share some of her amazing videos.

Enjoy!

Speaking Volumes Selection for April 2010: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

2010-03-20T10:36:00.000-04:00

Hi all!

A quick reminder: We're meeting with author Robert Goolrick IN PERSON on Friday, April 23 in the early evening (more details soon!) at Park Road Books.

Hope you're enjoying all the great reading!

All the best,
Alison

Speaking Volumes Pick for March 2010: Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

2010-03-09T15:29:00.004-05:00

It’s shaping up to be a glorious spring!

Speaking Volumes, Carolina Weekly Newsgroup's book club, has selected Adriana Trigiani’s newest book, “Brava, Valentine” as its pick for March.

Adriana holds a very special place in our heart. She kicked off our very FIRST book club meeting on June 27, 2005! See the photo above! And here we are, still going strong.

And so is she! I just finished this book and I never thought I'd love anything more than the Big Stone Gap series but seriously, this is FABULOUS! Read the review of her newest book below this post.

We will be hosting an exclusive phone chat with the author from her home in NYC on Tuesday, March 30 from 7-8PM.

Book clubs or individuals interested in participating can do so from the comfort of their own homes. E-mail us at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewsgroup.com to receive the direct call-in information for the event.

Looking forward to hearing from you all soon!

Alison

Book Review: Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

2010-03-09T15:10:00.005-05:00

“Brava, Valentine” is the latest and second installment in a series written by New York Times best-selling author Adriana Trigiani, who sold more than 8 million copies of her uber popular “Big Stone Gap” series.

The series revolves around Valentine Roncalli, a shoe designer who works in New York City’s Greenwich Village, following literally in the family footsteps. Her grandfather Michel was a brilliant creative artist and founder of Angellini’s Shoes. And now with her grandfather’s passing, the prospect of modernizing the custom shoemaker’s business lies on the shoulders of Valentine. She’s a 35-year-old woman who at the book’s open is in Tuscany with her family celebrating the marriage of her beloved grandmother to the man who supplied the shoemakers with supple leather.

Valentine has all the modern conveniences and challenges of most single, 30-something women: demanding work, the desire to have a fulfilling relationship, meddlesome family members, a gay best friend and wondering if this is all there is in life.

At the wedding in Italy, Valentine reconnects with former flame Gianluca Vechiarelli, son of the octogenarian groom, and she flirts with the idea of romance, all while trying to launch the ready-to-wear line of shoes that hopes to keep the company’s fortunes and future afloat during challenging economic times. Her grandmother asks her to work with her cantankerous brother, a former Merrill Lynch banker who had been downsized, to help revive the family’s signature business.

What elevates this story is Trigiani’s uncanny ability to take the intricate family dynamics and dialogue and mesh them in a way that lifts off the page from melodrama to the situation every reader has experienced or can imagine. Whether Valentine is dealing with her parents, or drama between her sisters, it’s the relationships in all of Trigiani’s books that bind readers to the author and bring them back for more. Trigiani is a superbly skilled writer adept who creates characters that resonates with readers long after the books are through.

When it comes to classifying her books, Trigiani’s genre is known as “women’s fiction” but her talent lies beyond even that or even that dreaded label – “chick-lit.” No, these are thinking women’s books. And as the ultimate Renaissance women herself – she is an accomplished playwright, screenwriter – the author is perfectly suited for examining the multitudes of conflicting options women have in the 2010’s and beyond.

“Brava” is a standalone book; those who did not read the first installment, “Very Valentine” can pick it up and enjoy it as an individual book. But as in most series of note, it will nevertheless entice readers to start at the beginning, albeit out of order because this series is a delicious read.

“Brava, Valentine” is available at booksellers everywhere.

Join us on Tuesday, March 30 at 7 PM as we chat LIVE with author Adriana Trigiani. E-mail us at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com for more details!

Breaking News: Book Club to Meet with Author Robert Golrick in Person

2010-03-04T15:19:00.003-05:00

It's rare, OK, never, that I've used that phrase to blog about but seriously, this is as good as it gets!

Just finished chatting with Park Road Book's most excellent Frazier Dobson. And guess what book club fans? While I was working on getting Robert Golrick, author of "A Reliable Wife" to chat with us in March, they were working on getting him to come to Charlotte in person. So we're combining forces and will host one, super duper event on Friday, April 23. More details to come but thought you should all know this instantly!

So keep reading...but now you have time for work, family and such.

Stay tuned for what will now be the NEW March pick.

The April selection will be "A Reliable Wife."

- Alison

Book Review: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-03-04T10:45:00.001-05:00

How does a successful author follow up mega-wattage success? That question has plagued best-selling writers since they started keeping track of book sales. (Hello, Shakespeare!) Elizabeth Gilbert answered that question by writing a book that’s quite different than “Eat, Pray, Love,” the book that vaulted her to literary superstardom. For the uninitiated, “EPL” was Gilbert’s best-selling divorce memoir and carried the author’s distinctive and lyrical voice as she travelled through Italy, India and Bali.

Her success became the pinnacle of the memoir genre and inspired Oprah and Julia Roberts to come knocking. Both women bought dozens of copies for friends; Oprah hosted on her show several times and Roberts is currently turning “EPL” into a major motion picture.

In “Committed” Gilbert picks up the story where “EPL” left off with the author still romantically entangled with her darling Felipe. The book opens with a prologue that attempts to answer the question of following up success. Her answer: The feat is impossible. So she decided to go in a totally different direction. The result is a book that takes an almost anthropological, Margaret Mead-esque approach to the how’s and why’s of marriage.

The book’s prologue points out that Gilbert had been working on a manuscript for a year before she decided the tone was too self conscious. Not wanting to repeat her work line-for-line she threw the baby out (with the bathwater!) and started afresh.

Gilbert and her amore were content to stay united in partnership, not marriage, until the Homeland Security Department got involved and questioned Felipe’s legal status to remain in the U.S. A kindly U.S. Customs agent suggests the one way to get around the complications was to marry and therein our heroine begins her tale.

Fans of “EPL” will find the same type of delicious writing that propelled Gilbert to success with that tome and her previous books and magazine career. The only downside is that the stunning moments of beauty are knitted together with some prose that can sometimes feel pedantic. Readers looking for a repeat of the same type of navel gazing about the inner workings of one of human kind’s most vaulted institution might ultimately be disappointed. Limited to the conventions of marriage, albeit crossing a span of age and cultures, Gilbert’s limited topic and extreme focus can sometimes feel like neurosis.

As a writer, Gilbert is like a Golden Retriever with a sunny disposition and willingness to please. “To thine own self be true,” Hamlet’s Polonius reminds us. She does accomplish her mission. Though her readers may want to know what happens next. The book ends on the not-too surprising conclusion but leaves you craving more. Perhaps she’s saving those details for Book 3. No matter. Gilbert’s ability to turn a phrase and her ability to elevate the mundane to the magical guarantees her a legion of loyal and committed readers.

“Committed” is available at booksellers everywhere.

Feb. 2010 Book Club Selection: Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-02-11T13:42:00.002-05:00

Join us Monday, Feb. 22 at 7 PM at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall for our discussion of Elizabeth Giberts newest book, "Committed." Please RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

Hope you're having a great month!

Alison

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Movie Trailer

2010-01-29T18:19:00.002-05:00

Interview with Game Change Authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

2010-01-27T11:49:00.000-05:00

A Conversation with "Game Change" authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann

A few questions and answers from the authors of THE must-read book of 2010.

Enjoy!

Alison

Q: Given the amount of coverage available during the 2008 election, why does the world need yet another campaign book?

A: The idea for the book arose in the spring of 2008 out of a pair of firm convictions. The first was that the election we had both been following intensely for more than a year was as riveting and historic a spectacle as modern politics had ever produced.

The second was that, despite wall-to-wall media coverage, much of the story behind the headlines had not been told. What was missing and might be of enduring value, we agreed, was an intimate portrait of the candidates and spouses who (in our judgment) stood a reasonable chance of occupying the White House: Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, John and Elizabeth Edwards, and John and Cindy McCain.

As you explain in the book, you conducted more than 300 interviews from more than 200 people that had a wide range of roles in the campaign. However, you did all of these interviews on “deep background,” which means you agreed not to identify the subjects as sources in any way. Why did you choose such a potentially controversial method of journalism?

We believed this was essential to eliciting the level of candor on which a book of this sort depends. To a very large extent, we were interviewing people with whom one or both of us had long-standing professional relationships, and thus a solid basis to judge both the quality of the information being provided and the veracity of the providers.

The book gives an extraordinary amount of details—specific conversations, email exchanges, etc. How did you verify this information using deep background sources?

With the help of the participants, we have reconstructed dialogue extensively—and with extreme care. Where dialogue is within quotation marks, it comes from the speaker, someone who was present and heard the remark, contemporaneous notes, or transcripts. Where dialogue is not in quotes, it is paraphrased, reflecting only a lack of certainty on the part of our sources about precise wording, not about the nature of the statements. Where specific thoughts, feelings, or states of mind are rendered in italics, they come from either the person identified or someone to whom she or he expressed those thoughts or feelings directly.

Want to see more? Watch the authors on "Charlie Rose."

Book Review: Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

2010-01-26T15:14:00.009-05:00

"Game Change" is easily the most riveting and unputdownable book of the winter 2010 season.

The basics of the story we already know. Even if you didn't pick up a newspaper or watch TV in 2008, you are familiar with the main characters in this drama: an upstart politician with limited national experience, a seasoned First Lady, the maverick, the unknown political phenom and the former U.S. Senator from North Carolina and his cancer-stricken wife. This was the playing field in the race for the land's highest office. We also know the ending. But what makes "Game Change" so fascinating is the in-depth story behind the story.

The success of the book is largely due to authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's treatment of their subjects as flesh and blood, fully dimensional human beings. As someone who watched the campaign with interest, I remember what happened. What I often wondered about is why it happened.

"Change" answers those questions and more.

What made Obama feel like this was his time? Answer: He had a lot of backroom prodding from fervent yet undercover supporters in the Washington ranks plus a true sense of destiny.

Why did Hilliary really cry in New Hampshire? Answer: Just before that press junket, a senior campaign official suggested she throw in the towel.

Why did McCain pick Palin? Answer: It was a risk-taking choice and one he thought his party would celebrate him for.

For me, the most intriguing aspect about the book was the ability to look at the three main players - Obama, Clinton and McCain - and see their overall narrative arc. Despite their images as clear-headed leaders, Clinton and McCain come off as indecisive and hesitant. Obama was not the perfect candidate when he threw his hat in the ring. But he was someone who was dedicated to being open and learning as he trudged down the year-long path to the White House. He became a better candidate as he went along and it's this capacity for intellectual and emotional growth which makes him the hero of this story and, ultimately, of the election.

The book's most stinging rebuke is left entirely for former U.S. Senator John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth. The authors say they interviewed hundreds of staffers, who obviously based on the information gleaned here, want to remain anonymous. The details of the Edwards' downfall is staggering and sad. For someone who inspired a great deal of promise, their footnote in history will go down as one of ego and selfishness. If you're just interested in that bit of the story, read NY Magazine's fascinating excerpt. (A shout out here to Katherine Johnson, who first pointed out this tidbit to me!)

The chapters on Palin don't add anything more to what we already know- the botched Katie Couric interview, her complete lack of brain stuffing and those infamous Tina Fey impressions -but further makes readers certain that she was clearly not fit to hold the highest office in the land, if circumstances had come to that.

"Game Change" is a must read for anyone who wants to examine the forces that shape our political leaders. It's an unputdownable read and the fact that this tale is true, makes it even more potent.

I'm looking forward to their next collaboration, which I hope is the president's first year in office.

"Game Change" is available at booksellers everywhere. Tune in tomorrow for my interview with the authors!

Penn, Pattinson circle 'Water'

2010-01-21T23:39:00.003-05:00

Posted using ShareThis

One of my all-time favorite books and one of our previous book club selections, Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants," is being made into a movie.

Slated to star is Reese Witherspoon. And currently the studio is talking to Sean Penn and "Twilight's" Robert Pattinson. Read more on "Variety." Penn, Pattinson circle 'Water'

Brace for Impact Signing at Park Road Books

2010-01-21T20:41:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone,

Who can believe it's been a year since we first heard of Capt. Sullenburger and the entire crew of US Air Flight 1548?

A number of survivors on the flight will be at Park Road Books this Saturday at 2 PM for a signing of their new book, "Brace for Impact." Visit PRB's website for more details.

Game Change: The Book I Cannot Put Down

2010-01-18T11:10:00.002-05:00

I was thrilled to receive a copy of "Game Change" the hot new political book about the 2008 race Friday. I thought I'd read a few pages over the weekend and savor it. NOT! I cannot put this book down. My eyes were so tired from reading half the book that by Saturday night they were watering.

I'll have more later this week including an interview with the authors but wanted to share that if you are even remotely interested in living history, run, don't walk, to pick up a copy of this book.

Alison

A New Kind of Book Tour

2010-01-18T11:06:00.002-05:00

Ever wonder what book tours are like for authors? Stephen Elliott shares his own DIY book tour in a fascinating new essay in the New York Times.

Having gone on tour last year, I can tell you that it's somewhat of a surreal experience. Sometimes you have big crowds, sometimes, not so big. But it absolutely is a completely different dimension than writing the book. One of the most satisfying, for me at least, was hearing how your book impacted a person and that they were able to put to use some of the concepts and ideas in your book to much success.

The dynamic between author and reader is so important. You need both. If you're a reader, consider going out to a reading a month. It brings a book to life in a way you probably never expected.

January 2010 Book Club Selection: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2010-01-04T09:07:00.003-05:00

For January, we're reading something completely different: a thriller!

"The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" by Stieg Larsson.

The plot is lengthy and fascinating and a great summary of it can be found on Barnes & Noble.com.

Winter feels like it's the perfect time to curl up with a mystery and a great one at that!

A SMALL CHANGE TO OUR ORIGINAL POST:

We'll be meeting ONLINE in our first virtual event for 2010 on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 7 PM. Kindly RSVP by e-mailing me at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com and I'll send you the links and all the info.

Happy January everyone!

Alison

New Year, New Beginnings!

2010-01-04T09:03:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone and happy new year on this fourth day of January!

Isn't a fresh start a wonderful thing? It feels like the world is full of possibilities!

Did you make your resolutions yet? How's that going? One of mine is to keep this blog updated on a regular fashion. December came and went so quickly. But thank you to all who made it the Ritz Carlton to discuss "Holiday on Ice" by David Sedaris.

I'm looking for 2010 reading sugggestions. What are you reading now that you cannot put down? Winter inspires thoughts of cozying up on the sofa curled up with a fanastic read. Did you ever notice how reading is very addictive? It's a high I love!

Some of the books I am most looking forward to this season is Elizabeth Gilbert's newest "Committed" and a new bio on actor/director Warren Beatty. I've never been a huge fan of his personally but I think as an artist, he's a fantastic study. Hopefully the book won't be too tawdry.

Thanks everyone for keeping up with us for yet another great year!

Hope to see you all soon!

Alison Woo
Book Club Editor
Carolina Weekly Newsgroup

A Note from Author Maryann McFadden

2009-12-09T12:08:00.002-05:00

Last week's book club meeting was a smash! Thank you to all who came! We were chatting about how wonderful authors are and one of our book club favorites just sent me a note for you all. Here's a note from Maryann McFaddeen:
================================================================
Happy Holidays!

I can't think of a better way to thank you for your support and enthusiasm than to give away signed and personalized copies of SO HAPPY TOGETHER and THE RICHEST SEASON, along with handcrafted bookmarks to go with them.

I hope you'll visit my website to get the details. Winners will be drawn 12/31 and I hope you're one of them!

Simply go to www.maryannmcfadden.com Details are right on top!

Have a Wonderful Holiday and a Blessed New Year!

Maryann McFadden

Know a Senior Who's Ready to Downsize?

2009-11-29T18:09:00.002-05:00

Get yourself to Park Road Books this Friday!

From 12:30 - 2PM, author Jan Robbins Durr will be signing and discussing her book, "De-Stuff: A Step by Step Guide for Seniors Preparing for an Estate Sale & Downsizing." Written particularly for those individuals who don't know what to do with their lifetime accummulation of 'stuff', this book covers how to sort, research, price, advertise, hold the sale, and disposition after the sale.

To learn more about Durr, visit her Web site at: www.robbinsappraisals.com. For Park Road books, visit www.parkroadbooks.com.

Book Club Selection for November 2009: The Receipe Club

2009-11-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

Just in time for the holidays and the season of food and family, CWG has chosen a book that celebrates a dynamic relationship between two friends and the sharing of recipes in an inventive new novel, “The Recipe Club” by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel.

Barnes & Noble writes:

Lilly and Val are lifelong friends, united as much by their differences as by their similarities. Lilly, dramatic and confident, lives in the shadow of her beautiful, wayward mother and craves the attention of her distant, disapproving father. Val, shy and idealistic-and surprisingly ambitious-struggles with her desire to break free from her demanding housebound mother and a father whose dreams never seem to come true.In childhood, "LillyPad" and "Valpal" vow to form an exclusive two-person club. Throughout the decades they write intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets-and recipes, from Lilly's "Lovelorn Lasagna" to Valerie's "Forgiveness Tapenade."

Readers can cook along as the girls travel through time, facing the challenges of independence; the joys and heartbreaks of first love; and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.But no matter what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart, Lilly and Val always find their way back together through their Recipe Club . . . until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

Now, decades later, while trying to recapture the trust they've lost, Lilly and Val reunite once more-only to uncover a shocking secret. Will it destroy their friendship, or bring them ever closer?

To celebrate, join us Monday, Nov. 30 at a private home in south Charlotte at 7 PM where we’ll chat with the authors live via SKYPE. Bring a dish that has a memory associated with it to share and come delight in great food and conversation. To RSVP, e-mail bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

Brush up your Shakespeare!

2009-10-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

I had the most delightful evening Tuesday night at the Booth Theater watching the "Reduced Shakespeare Company here in Charlotte.

All it took was 97 minutes to condense all of the Bard's 37 plays -both tragedies and comedies with some sonnet relief to boot!

Even though some of the material was fairly new to the audience, I have to say it helps if you know the plot of "Romeo and Juliet" or at least the movie, "Shakespeare in Love." You'll get a lot more out of the inside jokes.

For a delightful evening, run, don't walk and get the to the theater!

More info...

Reduced Shakespeare Company: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) plays October 27 through November 1 at the Booth Playhouse (130 North Tryon St., Charlotte, NC, 28202).Tickets start at just $24.50.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call 704-372-1000 or visit BlumenthalCenter.org.

Book Club Pick for October: The Lost Symbol

2009-10-16T00:53:00.001-04:00

Dan Brown is at it again! And we're reading the adult version of the Harry Potter mania for October's book club.

Join us Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7 PM at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall to discuss "The Lost Symbol." Kindly RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

Happy reading!
Alison

Charlotte Writers' Club Hosts Robert Inman

2009-10-16T00:32:00.001-04:00

Charlotte Writers’ Club Hosts Robert Inman
by Jerri Gibson McCloud

The multi-talented journalist turned novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, Robert Inman will be guest speaker at the Charlotte Writers’ Club meeting on October 20th at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, SouthPark, 7 p.m.

Numerous Charlotteans will remember “Bob” Inman as anchor/reporter in 1970 for WBT TV, the #1 station in Charlotte during his 5-year stint. He left WBT in 1975 only to return in 1979 to become one of Charlotte’s most recognized anchor over the next 17 years.

Enamored by his passion for writing, in 1996 he left WBT to pursue a new career of writing.
Success continued for Inman with his first novel Home Fires Burning, followed by Old Dogs and Children, Dairy Queen Days and Captain Saturday. His down-home style and rich sentiment pulls the reader into his stories. He captured the south and brought the reader back to their own experiences in days long forgotten.

Inman crossed over from fiction to non-fiction with Coming Home: Life, Love and All Things Southern, and yet another genre, he wrote his first stage play Crossroads, writing the book, music and lyrics. The author of six motion pictures of which two were presented by Hallmark Hall of Fame, Inman has received many awards for his outstanding work, too numerous to list here. For additional books, plays, awards, education, please visit his website:
www.robert-inman.com.

Charlotte Writers’ Club is all about furthering its members’ writing experiences and encouraging them to soar to greater heights of writing. Robert Inman’s story will please all. Visitors welcome.
Jerri McCloud
President
Charlotte Writers' Club
www.charlottewritersclub.org

September Book Club Meeting

2009-09-18T22:25:00.001-04:00

The book club event will go forward on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 7 PM at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall as originally scheduled.

Please RSVP at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

Thanks!
Alison

City at the Cusp: How the Culture of Plenty Demolished the American Economy

2009-09-10T18:50:00.002-04:00

Listen to our interview with author J. Allison Brown about her debut nonfiction book.

City at the Cusp: How the Culture of Plenty Demolished the American Economy

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For more, visit www.cityathecusp.com.

Fall sizzles with best-selling authors

2009-09-10T06:46:00.007-04:00

The Queen City will host some of the nation’s best-selling and most beloved authors. The following is a list of some of the author visits book lovers can look forward to this fall.

Noted documentary film maker and author Ken Burns will appear at Joseph-Beth at SouthPark on Sept. 14, at Noon, to discuss the companion book to Burns’ newest documentary “The National Parks: America's Best Ideas.” Burns, whose illustrious 25 year of filmmaking includes documentaries on baseball, jazz and the Civil War, wrote the introduction to the book; writer Dayton Duncan wrote the book and co-produced the series.

The series looks at NPS’ span from inception to current status. Now almost 150 years old, there are parks in every state of the nation, except for Delaware. The National Parks System now includes 400 individual sites and 84 million combined acres.

“Parks” is a six-part series that will begin airing on PBS stations around the nation on Sept. 27.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dr. Andrew Weil, best-selling author and health guru, will speak on Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. at Queens University of Charlotte. The Harvard-trained physician will discuss this and other topics included in his newest book, "Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future. The book shares his analysis of where he believes the American healthcare system has gotten off track and he offers suggestions for new wellness-based models.
Weil’s other 10 books include "Healthy Aging," "Spontaneous Healing" and "8 Weeks to Optimum Health.”

Tickets are $40. The event will take place at the Dana Auditorium. To purchase, click here.

The visit is being sponsored by The Learning Society of Queens.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of mega best-seller and our own book club favorite, “Eat, Pray, Love” will speak with her sister, Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. at Davidson College’s Duke Family Performance Hall.

The New York Times named “Love” as one of the top 10 books of 2006; filming is currently underway for the movie version starring Julia Roberts. Gilbert is putting the final touches on her new book, “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage,” which is due out early next year.

Gilbert’s sister, Catherine Gilbert Murdock is the author of young adult novel “Dairy Queen” -- the story of a girl who runs her father’s struggling dairy farm and tries out for the high school football team. Its sequel (and third book in the series) “The Off Season” will be published this fall.

Tickets are free, and are available at Davidson’s College Union from 10-4 weekdays, and will be distributed at the door beginning an hour before the presentation.

September and October selections

2009-08-23T13:05:00.004-04:00

Hi all!

Thanks to everyone who came last Monday to our book club discussion. It was a wonderful, ecclectic mix of women from 20-80 about the wonderful book, "Gift from the Sea."

For September, we'll be reading, "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Meeting date is TBA but will most likely be the last Thursday of the month. After getting some feedback from book club members, it looks like Monday is getting a bit difficult. And who wants to miss Dancing with the Stars!

For October, we may has well join the mayhem and find out if Dan Brown's newest and much anticipated book, "The Lost Symbol" was worth the wait. We'll be meeting in October to discuss the book that is the adult's version of the latest Harry Potter book. Buy your book early and you can get significant discounts. Look for online specials, too but definitely check in with your favorite bookseller.

As always, please RSVP by sending me an e-mail at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com and let me know you'll be there.

See you soon!

Alison

7 Days of Kindle: Day 7: Experimental Features

2009-08-08T12:37:00.002-04:00

Kindle offers three new cool features including a basic web browser, the ability to play MP3 files and text to speech. You can also e-mail yourself documents and PDFs and read it on your Kindle. I tried the feature and liked it a lot. It’s perfect for the commuter who doesn’t want to pull out their bulky laptop.

I liked their battery life and be sure to get the leather cover. It kept the Kindle clean and portable. There is the standard black leather but I am groovin for the purple leather cover, available at Amazon, which is delicious looking.

The result:
Would I get the Kindle right now? Maybe.

The portability factor is amazing. This is a HUGE selling point. I have to say that a few days down the line, I really miss it. And the only other piece of tech equipment I feel that way about is my iPod.

Prices just dropped to $299 but if Apple has taught us anything it’s wait for the next generation to get more features at a lower price. I love the convenience and the cool factor of the Kindle. But I really want the color screen and better navigation for the newspaper articles. I’ll be eagerly waiting for those features and then I’ll pounce.

August 2009 Book Selection: Gift of the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

2009-08-08T12:29:00.002-04:00

As we face the peak of summer, we all slow down just a bit more and start to contemplate life and what’s important. This is a time honored tradition of the season. Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote “Gift from the Sea” in the ‘50s but her advice and contemplation rings true for women of every age and at every stage of their lives, including those living in this fast-paced millennium. Lindbergh’s key question: How can a woman blend all her roles of mother, sister, daughter and friend while still having time for herself?

It was a question the author lived her entire life. Lindbergh led a life of adventure. She is the first American woman who earned a first class glider’s pilot license in 1930 and travelled with her husband, Charles Lindbergh around the world. Their son’s kidnapping, the famed Lindbergh baby case, was the scandal of the 30s. She moved to France shortly after the kidnapping trial and went on to raise five other children.

Lindbergh remained a woman of accomplishment for decades and wrote more than a dozen books. In 2001, she died, just four years before “Gift” celebrated its 50th year in print. Join us on Monday, August 17 at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Pineville Mall at 7 PM to discuss what I like to think of as a palate cleanser for the mind and soul. RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.
-Alison Woo

Author Maryann McFadden discusses So Happy Together

2009-08-07T12:16:00.002-04:00

Hear book club favorite author Maryann McFadden discuss her newest book, "So Happy Together" during her trip to Charlotte's Park Road Books.

Author Maryann McFadden discusses So Happy Together

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Mortons: The Cookbook

2009-08-07T12:14:00.002-04:00

Hear from Tylor Field, co-author of Mortons: The Cookbook to find out how you can bring the delicious flavors of fabulous food from one of the nation's most respected steakhouse restaurants to your home and grill.

Mortons: The Cookbook

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7 Days of Kindle: Day 6: Blogs and Magazines

2009-07-31T23:25:00.000-04:00

With over 6,325 blogs and growing, there’s a healthy list but once again you have to subscribe (average price $1.99) and much as I like popular blog Gawker, I don’t love it that much.

The magazine selection is slimmer, with 32 titles which are mostly business and technology. But hey, even Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (which seems somewhat odd considering the high-techie other selections) are here. At $1.49 a month, Time Magazine’s Kindle version is full-featured at a drastically reduced cost than their paper counterpart.

Green features
By now you realize I'm an avid reader. If you are green conscious at all, you realize that reading both newspapers or magazine causes problems for the environment. Sure we all recycle but I'm surprised more isn't made of the green benefits of using a Kindle. Also, not having to lug those ungainly magazines to the recylable bin is a good thing.

7 Days of Kindle: Day 5: More Books!

2009-07-30T23:28:00.003-04:00

Using the Kindle makes reading even more addicting.

I find myself wanting to rush home, or anyplace quiet so I can switch the Kindle on and read more. Discipline is definitely needed. With Kindle's ease of ordering a book at Amazon's site, I find myself buying (or wanting to buy books) at a moment's notice.

For the record, I have bought Chris Anderson's "Free," Coelho's "By the River...," and Julia Cameron's "The Right to Write." I really want to buy Julia Child's "My Life in Paris." The sample was divine! But with only two more days left of the test, I have to pace myself.

Feature I fall in love with today: the gorgeous and whimsical screen savers which depict some of literature's greatest heros and heroines (including Jane Austen!). What a thoughtful touch!

7 Days of Kindle: Day 4: Travel and Portability

2009-07-29T22:50:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!

If you're wondering what happened to my 7 days of blogging, I'm here to say you'll still get them but they won't be successive. It's still going to be great, don't worry.

My blogging bonanza fell right in the middle of a trip to NYC for business. But all my travels has given me an opportunity to take the Kindle 2 out for a run in numerous conditions. I knew that the Kindle was going to save me a lot of space packing my usual books but I have to say that having it ready to read the newspaper and my several books, I think I've fallen in love.

I've taken it with me in a 12-hour car ride from Charlotte to NY, where I read USA Today and my latest Paulo Coehlo book, "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept." And it was AMAZING and easy reading on the NYC subways. I saw fellow riders admire my easy breezy reader. With its lovely leather cover, it fits easily and discretely in my bag.

I've come to realize that the Kindle is the ultimate travel accessory.

BTW, the feature I fell in love with today: The ability to zoom in on a photo.

7 Days of Kindle: Day 3: Books

2009-07-26T22:39:00.000-04:00

And now...what the Kindle was truly created for: BOOKS!

Kindle offers 300,000 titles, which include almost all the NYT best-sellers and some public domain work such as The Art of War, Pride and Prejudice and Shakespeare, which is free.

What I absolutely love is the fact that all books offer a sample, which can range anywhere from three to 30 pages, depending on the publisher. This try before you buy mechanism allows you to get a good feel for the book. Samples that need more pages include Julia Cameron's "The Right to Write." Three pages? Uh, no. But what was amazing was the sample from the book, "Strapless" at over 30 pages.

Prices are far less than their hardcover options and run on average from $4.99 to $9.99 per book. I wish they put the prices on the main navigation bar so you can see them before you have to click in each title. But specials abound and I don’t miss turning the pages the way I thought I would.

Features I love: include the fact I can resize the text in six directions which helps late at night, and I like the fact that the automated voice can read anything on the Kindle to you.
Features I dream of: a color screen, a volume button for the voice (it’s a tad low without earphones).

Feature that is most fabulous: The wonderful buy one get one free offers and all the other special deals Amazon offers for the Kindle. I bought Chris Anderson's new book, "Free" and got "The Long Tail" along with it. It's these kind of deals that make the Kindle the medium of the future.

I also was able to download the No. 1 NYT best-seller free, "Paranoid." It's a thriller, something I don't get a chance to read much of but at free, you can't beat the value. Somehow I already feel that the Kindle is making me a much more varied reader.

7 Days of Kindle: Day 2: Newspapers

2009-07-25T09:25:00.001-04:00

At our recent fourth anniversary celebration of “Speaking Volumes” (Carolina Weekly Newspaper Group’s book club which I’ve been running since 2005) I shared with book club member and former librarian Felicia Lee (seen left with fellow book club member Lena Claxton) that I one of the first things I do after I open my eyes is read the New York Times on my BlackBerry. She seemed shocked. And possibly aghast.

My love for the NYT started when a substitute teacher during third grade teacher at P.S. 209 in Brooklyn cracked the code and demystified how to read the front page, pointing out that the top right corner above the fold was the lead story. From thereafter every Saturday night at around 10:45 PM, I remember going to the newsstand with my mom or dad, buying the Times and picking up some freshly made bagels and settling and starting to read the sections. It felt so exotic reading the Sunday paper on Saturday. Watching old school wrestling with the likes of Bruno Samortino added to the fare.

I was most curious what would reading newspapers on the Kindle be like.

Kindle offers 44 newspaper subscriptions with the majority (33) of them U.S. newspapers. National newspapers such as the NYT, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal are here as are many the dailies in major cities but the southeast is sorely underrepresented. The only ones offered are from Atlanta and Richmond. But if you want to read the Shanghai Daily or Le Monde, you are in luck.

I’m in a bit of a sticker shock. To read the papers on the Kindle you have to pay a monthly subscription fee, which ranges from $5.99 for the Orlando Sentinel to a whopping $14.99 for the Wall Street Journal. The Times is $13.99. While there are whole conversations within the media industry to try to monetize their online content, most newspapers (except for the WSJ which started out and continues to offer a fee-based subscription online) are free. I can read the entire Sunday NYT online with my laptop for free. The good news is that they offer a two week trial. I sign up for the NYT, USA Today and WSJ.

Kindle’s electronic ink makes it very easy to read in both direct sunlight and shade. I would love it if they would consider adding a nightlight for easier reading in bed. But with the flexibility of changing the font to six different sizes, reading was easier.

The 6 inch screen is wider than my PDA, which makes reading even swifter. What I’m not crazy about is the way the newspaper publishers display their content. On my PDA, I can swiftly scan all the headlines and choose what I want to read. On the Kindle, the content is broken down into main headlines such as Front Page, National, International, Arts and so on. I use the new five-way toggle to skim the articles and I can clip the ones I want to read later, a handy feature. But I find this lack of navigation has me hitting the “Next Page” button again and again. The effect of this feature has me reading far more than just a few articles. After an hour, I feel like I’m incredibly well read.

7 Days of Kindle: Day 1

2009-07-24T16:01:00.000-04:00

As an avid reader, geek and techie I couldn’t resist the offer to take the new Kindle 2, Amazon’s proprietary electronic book reader, for a seven-day spin. Having recently read the book, “Julie & Julia” – where author Julie Powell cooks every recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blogs about it for 365 days, I felt like a week’s worth of blogging was not only doable but sounded like fun. As actress Amy Adams says in the movie version of “Julie & Julia,” ‘I have thoughts!’ And anyone who knows me knows I’m not scared of sharing them.
On Thursday, the package from Amazon arrived and I felt like it was Christmas in July. Though one should not, normally, judge a book by its cover, I like the details. The whimsical phrase on the side of Kindle’s box “Once upon a time…” suggests this will not be any ordinary technical gizmo.

My goal for the next seven days is simple: do all my normal reading on the Kindle and see how it compares. My daily reading diet consists of two daily newspapers, a dozen blogs and an array of four or five books at various stages – in addition to our book club’s monthly selection. To maintain this information influx, I use a combination of laptop, BlackBerry and lug around a duffle bag just for reading material. The idea of swapping those 10-pounds for the sleek convenience of the Kindle, which weighs 10.2 ounces, is exhilarating.

I plug in the Kindle overnight to make sure it’s fully charged and can’t wait until day 2.

August 2009 Book Club Selection: Gifts from the Sea

2009-07-23T22:47:00.000-04:00

As we face the peak of summer, we all slow down just a bit more and start to contemplate life and what’s important. This is a time honored tradition of the season. Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote “Gifts from the Sea” in the ‘50s but her advice and contemplation rings true for women of every age and at every stage of their lives, including those living in this fast-paced millennium. Lindbergh’s key question: How can a woman blend all her roles of mother, sister, daughter and friend while still having time for herself?

Lindbergh remained a woman of accomplishment for decades and wrote more than a dozen books. In 2001, she died, just four years before “Gifts” celebrated its 50th year in print. Join us on Monday, August 17 at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Pineville Mall at 7 PM to discuss what I like to think of as a palate cleanser for the mind and soul. RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com.

-Alison Woo

Maryann McFadden Visits Charlotte!

2009-07-23T19:40:00.003-04:00

Author Maryann McFadden signs So Happy Together at Charlotte's Park Road Books

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Alison's Audio Blog Post

2009-07-23T17:30:00.001-04:00

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Dorothea Benton Clark Visits Charlotte!

2009-07-14T09:23:00.004-04:00

Fans of Dorothea Benton Clark united at ImaginOn last week as the best-selling author came to the Queen City to discuss her newest book, "Return to Sullivan Island," her career and what's she's doing next.

Have you read "Return to Sullivan's Island?" The action in this family drama starts on the first page and is quite a saga. Pick it up at your local bookseller for a fun and frothy summer read.

Celebrating "Speaking Volumes"

2009-07-14T09:11:00.003-04:00

Happy Bastille Day everyone!

It's the day to celebrate French indpendence and the fourth anniversary of our book club.

Join us tonight at Crepe Cellar in NoDa for a spectacular party with a menu from the page to the plate of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Some of the delicious goodies include Mussels in white wine sauce, roasted chicken, croque monsieur and Crepes Suzette!

Ticket prices are $15. E-mail me at bookclub@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com to RSVP. Only 8 seats are left!

Hope to see you there!

Alison

Julie & Julia Trailer

2009-06-20T19:41:00.001-04:00

The movie comes out in August. Start getting excited!

Mecklenburg Library to Close on Sundays

2009-06-20T18:55:00.004-04:00

It's a sad note on the times. All Mecklenburg County libraries will be closed on Sundays beginning in July.

Writes PLCMC....

"The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC) will implement new summer hours starting July 5 and ending September 6. During this time all 24 libraries in Mecklenburg County will be closed on Sundays. This change will affect the hours at seven libraries which are normally open on Sundays: Main Library, ImaginOn, Independence, Morrison, South County, University City and North County. Barring any other changes to the economy, Sunday hours at these locations will resume on September 13."

For more, click the PLCMC website.

July 2009 Book Selection: Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

2009-06-15T23:21:00.002-04:00

Hello all!

This month we have a lot to celebrate!

It’s now the book club’s fourth anniversary! Wow! Where does the time go?

So in honor of summer and celebrations, we’re reading “Julie and Julia” the wonderful book about how a fellow Brooklyn girl took Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and committed herself to cooking every single recipe in a year.

To celebrate, we’re planning a festive party to not only commemorate our anniversary but also Bastille Day on Tuesday, July 14. Look to this blog for more details as soon as we can confirm them.

In the meantime, plan on spending some seriously fun time with the book. We’re also trying to see if we can work out an arrangement to see the movie, with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, when it comes out in August. More on that soon, too!

Please RSVP by e-mailing me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Thank you book clubbers for making book club such a fabulous place to be! Here’s to Year 5!

Alison

June 2009 Book Club Selection

2009-05-13T21:52:00.001-04:00

The book I can’t put down these days is Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help.” It’s a fantastic story of three women whose lives intersect during the ‘60s in Mississippi.

That’s why I was thrilled when her publicist said yes to our book club’s request to host Ms. Stockett at our next book club function.

Join us on Thursday, June 4, at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall. We’re expecting a big crowd so please R.S.V.P. by e-mailing me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Stay tuned! There will be an exclusive interview with Ms. Stockett on this blog shortly. To read more about her, visit the author’s website at www.kathrynstockett.com

Update from Alison

2009-04-21T18:14:00.001-04:00

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New News from Alison

2009-04-21T18:06:00.001-04:00

Look to this blog for weekly updates on the latest on book club news, book reviews and everything else as we transition from print to the web.

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Speaking Volumes Selection for April 2009: The Alchemist by Paul Coelho

2009-04-21T17:57:00.003-04:00

I believe that the right book finds you at exactly the moment you need it. With thousands of people around the globe in dire straights for a variety of reasons, there’s never been a better time to look within. This month, our book club selection takes readers on one character’s thrilling voyage within. Our selection is Paul Coelho’s “The Alchemist.”

The story is a mythical tale with parallels to our everyday lives. It is the story of Santiago, a young boy in Spain and his quest to discover his personal legend. He is guided by dreams and the way events in his life unfold. Besides the book’s poetic quality, the story aims to help everyone understand that each life has a purpose and it seeks to help us understand how to find it.

Author Paul Coehlo is a Brazilian journalist, actor, theater director turned novelist. In 1986, he walked the famed Christian pilgrimage path in northern Spain, known as the Santiago de Compostela. A year later he documented his walk in the book, “The Pilgrimage” – a book I read and fueled my own passion to walk the same path later this year in June. A year later, Coehlo wrote “The Alchemist.”

Despite initial slow sales, the book is now one of the single most successful books in modern literature. Last year, the book celebrated its 20th anniversary with an announcement that actor Lawrence Fishbourne and producer Harvey Weinstein would make the book into a movie. The book has been on a bestseller lists in 74 countries, and so far has sold 35 million copies. In 2008, it earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for most translated book in the world – 67 languages.

Join us Thursday, April 30 at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall to discuss this exciting work. Please RSVP by e-mailing bookclub@carolinaweeklynewsgroup.com.

-Alison Woo

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency comes to HBO

2009-04-03T08:05:00.006-04:00

Dearest readers,

If you are looking for the most magnificent example of how to take a beloved book and take it to the screen, look no further. Alexander McCall Smith (former SV book club author)and artists such as Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella have brought the best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series to HBO.

Make sure you tune to HBO every Sunday night at 8 PM EST for the latest installment. You won't be disappointed. It is a pure delight. Seeing the first installment last Sunday made me start reading the series all over again. Watch the trailer below!

Thank you...

2009-02-19T04:45:00.002-05:00

My deepest thanks to all the book club members and Weekly newspaper readers who have been so kind to share their condolences, prayers and best wishes after my family's recent loss of my beloved brother, Mike.

Many of you have shared your own stories of love and loss and it's humbling. When something like this happens, it underscores how important it is that each of us spend each day with people and doing the things that make our heart sing.

I am forever grateful to all the book club members and the staff at Carolina Weekly Newspaper Group for being such a wonderful family of people whom I love dearly.

With all my heart,

Thank you.

Alison

Stephanie Kallos Visits Charlotte

2009-01-27T07:41:00.007-05:00

Stephanie Kallos, author of our book club favorite "Broken for You," visits Charlotte next week to discuss her latest book, "Sing Them Home." I am forever indebted to Kallos. Not only did is "Broken" one of the best books our book club has ever read, she was one of the very first authors who did a phone chat with us when we were just getting our sea legs. I can't believe that was four years ago!

Run, don't walk to buy her latest book. She is an exceptional writing talent who creates characters that live with you long after the end of the book. She will be appearing at Park Road Books on Thursday, Feb. 5 at 7 P.M. For more details, visit their bookstore at 4139 Park Road, in Charlotte's Park Road Shopping Center, or call them at 704-525-9139.

Want to get to know Kallos better? Here's an indepth interview with the author.

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The idea for SING THEM HOME has clearly been with you for quite a while. Where did the story come from? How close is the final story to your original idea?

The initial idea for SING THEM HOME arose from a photo from the March 1974 National Geographic—and from my family’s personal connection to that photo. Until I was five, my parents and I lived in Wymore, Nebraska, and among my folks’ best friends at that time were Ed and Hope McClure. They lived a few miles outside of town in a nineteenth-century farmhouse that had great historical significance to the community and that Hope had lovingly restored and furnished with period antiques. I still remember a great deal about that house—even though the last time I saw it was in 1960, which is when we moved away.

In 1974, in one of those examples freakish tornadic behavior, a funnel cloud came through, passing by the farmhouse across the road, bouncing over the highway, and landing on the McClure house. Hope—who had MS, and was in a wheelchair at the time—was home alone with the youngest of her five children, who was at that time a toddler. The baby was found wandering the fields wearing her diaper, having suffered nothing but a few scratches and (one would assume) a terrible scare; Hope was badly hurt, but survived. The house—and everything in it—was gone.

The National Georgraphic photo was taken a few miles away, near Blue Springs Nebraska. It shows a vast, flattened, muddied milo field with a farmer leaning over the remains of Hope’s baby grand piano. It was the only thing that came down in any kind of recognizable form. My mom used to say, “How can a deep freezer just disappear? How can a washing machine disappear? All those things—where did they go?” These questions—and their implications—have haunted me ever since.

I always envisioned the book as the story of three siblings whose mother went up but never came down, and the grief surrounding such a loss—so in that sense the story didn’t change. But the book took on a new and deeper significance when I lost both of my folks during the writing process—my dad in January 2005 and my mom a year later, almost to the day. For that reason, SING THEM HOME evolved into a much more personal book. The gift of my own loss I suppose is that it allowed me to stand with more authenticity, humility, and empathy in my characters’ shoes. For years I believed that this book would be my first novel; I’m glad it wasn’t.

There are many strands to the novel including letters, diary entries, shifts in time and point of view. In what order did you actually write the various strands?

I’d like to say that I went about writing this novel in a methodical, ordered way, but that was not the case. I did work with a detailed outline (even though I ended up deviating from it quite a bit) and that provided a way for me to move around in the story without always moving chronologically. In other words, if I woke up one morning to find Bonnie clamoring for attention, the outline gave me a kind of mental “filing cabinet” so that I knew roughly where that scene would occur. The only part of the book that I wrote all at once and in order were the Hope diary entries—with all the skipping around in time and through memory that the other characters do, I wanted the reader to at least have one point-of-view character who told their story in a traditional, chronological manner!

Do you have a favorite Jones child?

Nope. That would be something like saying I favor one of my children over the other, wouldn’t it? I love all the Jones kids, deeply. The challenge of writing about siblings was new to me, however. I’m an only child, and although I daydreamed about having brothers and sisters for much of my childhood, that hardly qualified me to write about them in a credible way! I’ll be interested to hear from people who have brothers and sisters to see if I got it right. I love meeting people’s families. I’m always asking folks about their families and never tire hearing about what it’s like to have siblings.

Also—and I’m not sure if this was a conscious choice at the very beginning of the writing process, but it certainly became conscious over time—I gave each of the Jones children different parts of myself—the flawed parts, that is. This helped me feel a personal, empathetic connection with each of them—and perhaps allowed me to avoid the danger of favoritism. (Actors have to do this, too: find the common ground that you share with the character, so that you don’t stand outside of them and judge them. The worst thing an actor playing Lady Macbeth could do would be to think of her as a “bad” person. But that’s another discussion.)

So Larken got my body image problems and my desperate need to please; Gaelan got my innate fear of being undeserving of anything good and of being “found out” as someone who’s not terribly competent or bright; Bonnie got my obsession with looking for signs and my sometimes unhealthy preoccupation with the little picture. And my frustration with blenders.

There is a point in the novel where the reader knows all the big answers, but the details—Hope’s final actions, her location, the details in her diary, the letters she wrote—are never going to be known to Viney and the Jones children. It seems that denying them that information is a key element in keeping the ending from being too pat, too standard “happy ending.” Their challenge is to achieve redemption/resolution without benefit of this knowledge. Only then can they move on in their own lives. Still, did you worry about things working out too easily, too completely?

Interesting that you ask this, because in the first draft of the book, the siblings found Hope’s body. That initial resolution did indeed seem too easy, too pat. It also undermined the substantial growth the characters had found without that deus ex machina.

And in the end, I became interested in the kind of people— there are so many in this world and in these times—who have to learn to live with that very special kind of unresolved grief, the grief of never receiving what Hope calls “the gift of bones.” I was interested in trying to bring my characters to a place where—even if they couldn’t ever get over Hope’s death or that fact that her body’s whereabouts would always be a mystery—they could at least believe that she was somewhere, and that a relationship with her was possible.

Hope writes in one of the entries about how she wants her children to be able to find her after she is gone, not in the things she leaves behind (which would include a body) but in the air they breathe. In her suicide note, she encourages them to “turn the coin over” and find her on the other side of heartbreak. I wanted the characters to learn over the course of the story to do this, to find her elsewhere—in the gestures and expressions of strangers, in music, in coincidental encounters. Because after all, this is really the only way we can really find those we’ve lost. They’re not in their coffins, not really. They’re not lingering in the vicinity of their remains. They’re somewhere else. I’ve come to believe that if one is open for business, the dead make themselves known to us. They have ways of saying hello. That’s been my experience, anyway. Knowing where a loved one is buried is a comfort, to be sure. But in this story, I wanted to look at how people might come to find comfort and redemption and the ability to move on without that knowledge.

The Welsh elements in SING THEM HOME create such a strong and unique community. Do you have any personal connections that you drew on to create this community?

Wymore, Nebraska, has a strong Welsh heritage— I didn’t know this when I lived there, it was only after I visited in April of 2004 with my dad in the interest of research that I learned about this. There is a Welsh Heritage Museum in Wymore, and a great deal of pride surrounds that historical legacy. Part of my research involved understanding why the Welsh settled in Nebraska. Another part was understanding what it means to be Welsh, why there is pride surrounding that. It’s not a culture that most of us have an immediate, clear sense of—at least I didn’t. It’s not like Italy or France or Greece—most of us have ideas, even if they’re erroneous, about what it would mean to be from one of those countries. But Wales? What does it mean to be proud of being Welsh?

The Welsh component gives the people of Emlyn Springs something that is unique to them, something that wouldn’t necessarily get them on the front page of a newspaper (or even the back page of a travel brochure) but which endows them with a sense of pride. Thus the special funeral celebration evolved over the years, Fancy Egg Days, the speaking of Welsh. I very much wanted the town of Emlyn Springs to be a character in the book, and for the sense of place to contribute in a large way to the characters’ stories.

I think sometimes it’s easy for people from larger communities to write off small towns as bland, culturally deprived, and unenlightened, as places where nothing daring or outrageous ever happens. And yet, people make their lives and deaths in those small towns and are often very proud of their communities. When a natural disaster strikes such places (and we’ve had no limit on that kind of story lately, it seems) the fortitude and courage of those small town folks astounds me.

I heard an interview with Wendell Berry when I was working on this book—he was reflecting on something that was happening in a small town in West Virginia, I believe, talking about a certain kind of mining being done there that essentially removes a mountain, bit by bit, from the top down. He said something that made its way into the book—it was about the special kind of suffering these people were experiencing, a unique suffering that comes from loving a place that has been utterly destroyed. Small town people have that kind of love. It’s a unique courage and one I very much wanted to commemorate in this book.

In regard to your first novel, Broken for You, you once discussed how you wrote letters to some of the characters while or after you had finished writing the book. Did you need to write a letter to any of the characters in SING THEM HOME?

The only character I remember being slightly recalcitrant in the early stages was Larken, and I think we did have an epistolary exchange at one point early on. She’s just not a warm and fuzzy, trusting type, and I also think she needed to be reassured that I wasn’t judging her based on her looks. There was also a lot of shyness/resistance about writing the sex scenes—particularly the first time that Viney and Welly get together. But I think that came less from the characters and more from me. I’m very shy about writing sex scenes. My agent and my editor had to really nudge me hard to get those written. I’m glad they did. They really needed to be in there.

Now that you have finished the second novel, which can be so difficult for many authors, are you working on a third?

I’ve just started daydreaming about the third novel, taking notes in my journal, reading books related to the territory I expect to explore, mining my dreams. Again, I’ll be revisiting a subject and characters that have had a fascination for me for years. Ghosts, talking to the dead, the Spiritualism movement in America, the intersection of the creative impulse and religious faith—that’s some of what I’ll be obsessing about for the next few years.

I really do feel as though it was a huge milestone getting through that second book— which, if you listen to the majority opinion, is doomed. Amy Tan’s essay “Angst and the Second Novel” was a tremendous comfort, and it’s something every writer struggling with that second book should read. I passed it on to my editor, who didn’t know of it. She immediately photocopied it for all her colleagues at Grove and now I understand it’s required reading!

February 2009 Selection: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

2009-01-24T19:47:00.003-05:00

This month, we're reading historical fiction best-seller, "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks.

SUMMARY
In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding-an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair-she begins to unlock the book's mysteries.

Hanna's investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra- nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love.

JOIN US!
Join us Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 7 P.M. at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall for a phone chat with the author. Please RSVP by e-mailing us here.

Cornell West Visits Charlotte

2008-12-11T20:17:00.003-05:00

New York Times best-selling author Dr. Cornell West will visit Charlotte next week. Before his trip, I had a chance to speak with this incredible philosopher, author and deep thinker.

Listen more by clicking here.

What I'm Reading Now: "Forever Lily"

2008-11-25T16:16:00.002-05:00

Made in China
Author shares heartwarming story in ‘Forever Lily’

by Alison Woo
alison@thecharlotteweekly.com

Every year, roughly 1 million girls are abandoned by their families in China. This staggering statistic is a direct result of the government’s one-child-per-family policy set by the communists in 1979 to limit the nation’s growing population, which is currently straining at the seams with 1 billion people. However, the culture’s predisposition to value male heirs over females has left a growing tragedy on China’s hands. In an effort to stem the tide, the government allowed parents to give up their unwanted babies for international adoption in the mid ’90s. American families adopted approximately 6,493 children by 2006, according to the U.S. State Department.

The numbers paint a broad picture. But first-time author Beth Nonte Russell puts it into personal perspective in her riveting and impossible-to-put-down memoir, “Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother’s Journey to Adoption in China.”

Unexpected mother, author
Russell was a 30-something psychologist living in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and three stepchildren when her neighbor, Alex, asked her to accompany her to China where Alex planned to adopt a child. The story takes a dramatic turn and soon Russell finds herself embroiled in the midst of an emotional roller coaster. Alex is ambivalent about wanting the baby and suffers a nervous breakdown, asking Russell to take the baby. Just when Russell warms to the idea, Alex wants the baby back. Set with the backdrop of the already cumbersome and heartbreaking adoption process where scores of babies are left to die and wither away unattended, the story ultimately has a happy ending.

Though the author wasn’t a working writer at the time she visited China, she’s a skillful narrator who displays elegant prose that is thoughtful and insightful, both into her mind’s own inner workings and the unfolding situation. “When I returned from China, I knew beyond a doubt that I would write this story and try to share it with others,” she said. “There was a strong urge to tell others about the abandoned children that I had seen in the orphanage there; I felt obligated to be their voice. Thoughts of those children would not let me go, and I began writing the book a year after I returned.”

“Forever Lily” raises real-life questions that prompt the reader to explore ideas of what constitutes a family, and how spiritual bonds can sometimes grow deeper than physical ties. The story sends strong messages of love, hope and inspiration that readers will find meaningful whether they’re considering adoption or not. It’s one of the finest nonfiction books I’ve read in a decade.

Sharing the experience
Russell’s psychological training gave her the necessary tools to break down the complex emotions that accompany adoptions, but it also gives her a unique way to approach the memoir. “With ‘Lily’ I did not set out to write a memoir to tell ‘about’ my life; instead, I hoped to give the reader a chance to share the experience and bridge the gap of subjectivity,” she said. “My primary intention was to let the reader enter my own internal psychological, emotional and spiritual process as it took place in the context of this particular event.”

Ultimately, Russell and her husband adopted the unwanted child and a few years later returned to China to adopt a second daughter. She sees herself not as their “adoptive” parent but as their mother, in a complete sense. But while she wants her children to know about where they came from, she is preparing them for their own unique futures. “In my view, I am raising two American daughters who happen to have been born in China,” Russell said.

“Forever Lily” is available at booksellers everywhere.

January 2009 Book Club Selection: "Bridge of Sighs" by Richard Russo

2008-11-20T23:00:00.003-05:00

I'm thrilled beyond measure to announce that our January book club selection will be famed American author Richard Russo's "Bridge of Sighs." Mr. Russo will be joining us via a phone chat on Monday, January 19, 2009 at 7 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall.

Please RSVP by e-mailing alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

P.S. No...you didn't miss December's pick. We're taking the month off to make sure everyone has a chance to read the 600+ page tome.

November 2008 Book Club Selection: "The Glass Castle"

2008-11-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

Join us Monday, Nov. 24 at 7 p.m. to discuss "The Glass Castle" at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall. Please RSVP by e-mailing alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Secret Life of Bees Trailer

2008-10-06T10:48:00.001-04:00

Sue Monk Kidd's beautiful book "The Secret Life of Bees" is coming to a theater near you October 18! Be sure to see it. Take a gander at the trailer here.

October 2008 Selection: The Richest Season by Maryann McFadden

2008-10-06T10:35:00.002-04:00

This month's selection is The Richest Season by Maryann McFadden. Join us on Monday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble in Carolina Place Mall to chat with the author about her breakthrough novel. To RSVP, please e-mail me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

To read more about our selection, read the interview I did with McFadden when she visited Charlotte in July.

Breakthrough author
Self-published author turns story into mainstream success

Some authors put all their drama and intrigue on the page. But for Maryann McFadden, the author of “The Richest Season,” the story of how she became an author is worthy of its own book. This former public relations and marketing professional, who took a twenty year detour as a real estate agent, has written of the most unputdownable books of the season.

“Season” tells the story of what happens when a dutiful wife whose husband works in corporate America dares to dreams about what her life could be now that her kids are grown up and have gone off to college. Faced with an empty nest, Joanna Harrison decides to leave her comfortable life in a New Jersey suburb to discover herself in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. There she discovers depths she had forgotten she had and her life, her husband’s life and the life of the woman she takes care of will never be the same again.

McFadden is clear; “Season” is not an autobiography. “I don’t think a woman has to leave her husband to find herself,” she said during a stop earlier this month at Park Road Books. “But I do think there is immense value in leaving the routine of your day-to-day life so you can pull back and get a grander vision of what your life could be.”

But it was McFadden’s life as a real estate agent that inspired her character’s dilemma. “I remember being with a client and their 4-year-old son was screaming and crying because he didn’t want to move,” McFadden said. “That what made me realize that there was a dynamic here that was worth exploring and a story we had not heard before.”

Rich back story
How the book came to be is another story worth telling. After her kids had grown up she decided to pursue her Master’s degree to teach but it was a writing course that rekindled her passion in the craft of putting words to paper. “Soon I wondered why I ever left writing to begin with,” she said. “I was back in love and had rediscovered a part of myself that I had closed off while I was raising a family.”

“Season” started off as a short story but turned into a 120-page thesis. She tried the traditional route of getting an agent to represent her work to a publishing house to no avail. Finally buoyed by questions of fellow book club members who asked her when she was going to publish and her 50th birthday looming in the near future, McFadden decided to self-publish her book. “Having been in PR I knew what it would take to build buzz around a book,” she said. After a self-financed book tour up and down the east coast, and events with bookstores and book clubs, within seven months an astonishing 2,000 books were sold.

Another key component in her success was getting independent booksellers on the “Season” bandwagon. “Once I read it, I knew I could hand sell it to anyone just based on the story,” said Frank Burlson, a 26-year veteran of Park Roads.
McFadden says she secretly hoped that having been denied the traditional publishing route, she could come in through the back door. “One night I was watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and I said, I’ve got to reach out to agents again’ so I put everything I had done – how many copies were sold, how I marketed the book, reviews from booksellers – everything!” she said. “I e-mailed it to a handful of agents. By the morning I was asked by a top agent for an exclusive.”

The agent asked her to pump up the first chapter and make Joanna’s husband a more prominent character earlier in the book, which was feedback readers had given as well. Soon many of the top houses were in a bidding war for the rights to her novel. McFadden signed a two-book deal with Hyperion Publishing, owned by Disney. McFadden is touring the country, selling the book which she calls “the expanded version” to many of the readers who loved the book the first time around. She’s also working on a second novel, tentatively titled “So Happy Together” which is a story about the sandwich generation.

After the entire struggle, McFadden is serene and sanguine. “After years of effort I can’t believe how lucky I am but this has always been my dream, and I can’t believe I get to live it.”

Want an autographed copy?
Park Road Books has a limited number of signed editions at their store at 4139 Park Road. For more information, visit http://www.parkroadbooks.com/. Or buy your copy at booksellers everywhere and bring it with you on Oct. 20.

Elegy: The Movie

2008-09-04T21:01:00.004-04:00

Ah, the controversy of the eternal question -- which is better? The book or the movie. My answer: it always varies. But I did have a chance to catch the movie Elegy this past weekend. And it was fantastic! Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruise and Dennis Hopper are at their finest. There's even a turn by Blondie's Debbie Harry that will take you by surprise. I found the movie to be thoughtful, thought provoking and brutally honest. If you are in Charlotte, run to Park Terrace -- they are now an art house! If you are anyplace else, visit Fandango and find it at a theater near you!

Seen it? What did you think?

Countdown to our new book: Marketing with New Media

2008-08-26T18:30:00.004-04:00

It's pretty incredible that in seven days readers will be able to walk into any bookstore around the country and in 25 countries around the globe and pick up a copy of our book, "Marketing with New Media: A Guide to Promoting Your Small Business Using Websites, E-Zines, Blogs, and Podcasts" (Penguin/Prentice Hall Press).

Written with fellow book club member, business partner and friend, Lena Claxton, the book came as a natural outgrowth of seminars we did on technology. We realized that businesses were clammoring for information on technology and that we could help them.

I'll post more information here over the next couple of weeks but we'll be having two big kickoff events:

1. On Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m. EST we will host a worldwide launch party online. For more information, visit http://www.newmediamavens.com/page/page/6056407.htm.

2. If you live in Charlotte, come see us in person! Queens University's McColl School of Business will be hosting our kickoff party on Friday, Sept. 12 at 6: 30 p.m. For more information, visit http://www.newmediamavens.com/calendar/calendar_day/6056407/2008-9-12.htm.

Enjoy!

Speaking Volumes Sneak Peek

2008-08-26T18:27:00.003-04:00

The book for October will be Maryann McFadden's "The Richest Season." Details TBA.
The book for November will be "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls.

Want to suggest a future book club pick? E-mail me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Happy reading!

Favorite cookbook of the moment

2008-08-26T18:24:00.003-04:00

Run, don't walk to pick up a copy of "Two Dudes, One Pan" by Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo. These guys are the real deal and honed their skills in Hollywood cooking for the likes of George Clooney and friends. What I love is that this is the kind of book you can curl up on the sofa and dream about making such mouth-watering delights. It's real food that's really good. Simple stuff like roasted chicken and lemon bars and Sunday specials such as braised roasts.

Read more about why I call them the cookbook for the season in this week's Charlotte Weekly and Union County Weekly.

September Speaking Volumes Selection: The Dying Animal by Philip Roth

2008-08-26T18:16:00.002-04:00

Love and loss are familiar themes in life and literature. But National Book Award winner and literary legendary author Philip Roth takes a new look at the topic in “The Dying Animal,” Charlotte Weekly’s book club selection for September. Hollywood producers revived interest in the novella and currently Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruise play the central characters in “Elegy” the movie inspired by the book.

The story follows cultural critic and star lecturer David Kepesh at a New York college who hopes to rediscover himself through his relationships his students. But into his life comes Consuela Castillo, a Cuban exile, who turns the table on him. In the book Roth examines the themes of eros and mortality, license and repression, selfishness and sacrifice.

Since his first book, “Goodbye, Columbus,” which won the National Book Award, Roth has been a darling of the literary scene. Numerous other best-selling books followed including “American Pastoral,” “I Married a Comunist” and “The Plot Against America.” He has made a career looking at the dissolution of relationships, the absurdity of neuroses, and the downside of his own literary fame. So much of his work draws on his roots born in New Jersey, the son of immigrant parents. Many of his readers believe that Roth has been writing his own story for nearly fifty years.

Roth’s twenty-ninth book, “Indignation” comes out on September 16 and Charlotte Weekly has won an exclusive interactive webinar with the author. Join us on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall in Pineville where we will discuss his book, “The Dying Animal” and hear from the author himself about his latest work. Please RSVP by e-mailing alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Hear Author Barbara Kingsolver discuss "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"

2008-07-20T16:51:00.001-04:00

Summer Book Club Selection: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

2008-07-20T16:47:00.004-04:00

This summer, my dad decided he wanted to grow cucumbers in his garden. This is my dad’s first foray into growing “serious” vegetables. His first was last summer when he grew some miniature chilies, tomatoes and some scallions on pots on his deck. Now that my parents bought a house, his first thought was “Now I can grow some real vegetables.” I neglected to remind him that a decade ago my mom and I grew cucumbers in another house we had on Long Island and they completely took over the yard. The creeping vine strangled all the other vegetables we put in the same area but I figured planting seeds is like planting hope. You optimistically hope for the best. And grow the next vegetable at least 20 feet away.

Watching the tiny yellow flowers turn into giant cukes brings one much closer to the miracles of daily life. It’s crazy to think that just outside the kitchen window the magic happens, and even I find myself rushing out to check on the plant’s progress each day. With food prices rising more than 30 percent since the beginning of the year, it seems like growing your own food is a much more economical idea and one that could catch on. For the reasons mentioned above, we’ve chosen best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” as our summer book club selection.

Kingsolver, who is mostly known for her 11 novels (including “The Poisonwood Bible”), decided to devote one year of her and her family’s life and only eat things that she could grow, trade with her neighbors or buy from local farms. This idea of sustainable living is often encouraged to subsidize trips to one’s local grocery store but very few people have done it to such depths and heights.

“This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air,” Kingsolver writes as the book’s central narrator. Also adding their perspectives in the form of sidebars are Kingsolver’s husband, Steven Hopp, a professor of environmental sciences, and her daughter Camille offers brief essays on her then- nineteen-year-old’s perspective on the local-food project.

The author was born in Maryland, and grew up in rural Kentucky. In 2004, after more than 25 years in Tucson, Arizona, she left the southwest and now lives with her family on “a farm in southwestern Virginia where they raise free-range chickens, turkeys, Icelandic sheep, and an enormous vegetable garden.”

We're meeting Monday, August 18 at 7 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble at Carolina Place Mall. To R.S.V.P., e-mail me at alison@thecharlotteweekly.com.

Lisa See chats with CW

2008-07-01T18:56:00.002-04:00

Lisa See, our first guest was magnificent. Her insights into Peony in Love makes you want to read the book all over again. To listen, click on the radio player.

'Speaking Volumes' launches online radio show

2008-06-26T21:04:00.003-04:00

OK, book club fans, get ready for the online version of our book club.

Each month we chat with wonderful authors but now we've decided to let all our readers get involved. This Tuesday we'll be interviewing June Book Club author Lisa See to chat about "Peony in Love."

Join us by clicking on the button: