Reading on a Rainy Day

And this is how it started. Just with coffee and the exchange of their long stories. Love can be incremental. Predicaments, too. Coffee can start a life just as it can start a day. This was the meeting of two people who were destined to love from before they were born, from before they made choices that would complicate their lives. This love just rolled toward my mother as though she were standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Mother had no hand in this, only heart. Dana Yarboro always knew she was the other daughter and her mother the other woman. Her father, James Witherspoon already had a wife when he started an affair with Gwen and had Dana with her. Soon after though, his wife also gets pregnant with Chaurisse. Dana and her mother knew about James' real family. But Chaurisse and her mother were entirely in the dark. The knowledge of where they stand in the familial tree however is not without its repercussions. Dana is barred by her father from going to the same place...

Dutifully, the Boisverts traveled south to Boston for a wedding and a funeral service. But during or after either event, Donna has made no comment, no commiseration to her widowed daughter. In Donna's mind, the drive south to a city said what it needed to say. The wife of a laid-off paper mill worker, Donna Boisvert believes that keeping busy is the best approach to life's surprises or heartaches. Ellen's husband, Fintan, had just recently passed away, when she meets an old acquaintance from the past - someone who knew both Ellen and Fintan. In that one meeting, Ellen learns some new facts about her husband - such as the news that his mother is actually alive and kicking, and that Fintan was not an orphan as he had let her to believe. This discovery bothers Ellen enough to make her visit Gowna in Ireland and find out what caused Fintan to lie about his mother. I have to say - when I first came across Dance Lessons (through the many nominations it received for th...

"What do you know about shame? You walk around fixing roofs and toilets. You don't need to swallow your pride. I swallow mine. Every day. I peddle food, drinks, massages, and anything else I can think of. I clean up messes all day long. So I know about shame. It's with me like my shadow." Lek and Sarai try to make ends meet, managing a small resort in Thailand's Ko Phi Phi island, but money is short, their buildings and surroundings need maintenance, and their children need to be put through school. In addition, one of their tenants, an American man named Patch, has already been staying at their resort for much longer than is allowed on a normal visa, making Sarai nervous. Patch, however, is trying to stay low after attacking a cop who had busted him when he was buying marijuana. His do-the-right-thing brother, Ryan is on his way to the island to convince Patch to turn himself to the authorities. Ryan, on the other hand, is having difficulties with his girl...

On Monday, the winners of the 2011 Indie Lit Awards were announced. Finally, I can discuss the books with you! In the Fiction category, Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones took the cake while Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney was the runner-up, both books I enjoyed tremendously. Another nominee, The Night Circus , was also a huge favorite of mine. I did have a really tough time deciding between these three. Night Circus was beautiful - the imagery was vivid, the magic was clever, the plot was thrilling. But the characters aren't part of its strengths at all. Still, when I closed the book finally, I knew it was going to be one of my favorite books, even with its faults. Silver Sparrow was more grounded in reality. The first thought that comes to mind when I think of this book is its strong characters. They were flawed, yet very human, and not at all stereotypical. Even the plot was intriguing. Unfortunately, the ending tripped for me. It was somewhat unsatisfying. Dance Lessons...

Yesterday, I did part one of this post - some of the favorite fiction titles I read from this year's releases . Since the Indie Lit Awards are just around the corner, I wanted to list out some of the books I loved and enjoyed, so that you may read some of them or nominate any that you enjoyed as well. Since I'm voting in the Fiction panel, I listed some of my favorite fiction titles yesterday. Today, I'm talking about some books in the other categories. Some other books that I loved reading this year are Ready Player One (Speculative Fiction), The Good Daughter (Biography/Memoir), The Long Goodbye (Biography/Memoir) and Bringing Adam Home (Nonfiction). Ready Player One (Speculative Fiction) is one of my top reads this year, and I'm still looking out for a similar read, because I just can't get enough of it. It is a science fiction fantasy novel set in a future when the conditions on the earth have deteriorated a lot and people find happiness inside ...

Now that BBAW is over and things have hopefully settled down in blogland, there's another big event that's just around the corner - The Indie Lit Awards . You must have seen posts about this event sprouting up all over in your reader, but in case you missed it, here's the gist. Indie Lit Awards are annual awards given by book bloggers in various categories , such as Biography/Memoir, GLBTQ, Fiction, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Speculative Fiction. This award is now in its second year, and if you wish to see the winners of last year, go here . The nominations for this year are already open and will continue to be so all the way through December. The winners are announced next year. So if you have a book you would love to see win in any of those categories, go here , select the genre of the book and place your nomination. I am a voting member of the Fiction panel, and hence I cannot nominate. But I would love to share some of my favorite books I read this year so...

Have you guys been thinking about what books you would love to see in the Indie Lit Awards longlist this year? I hope so, because nominations will be open in September, and that's just a month away! (Seriously, I can't believe it's almost time to start thinking of books that will go on to the 2011 Best Of... lists! Have I even read enough books this year so far? For the uninitiated, the Indie Lit Awards is the brainchild of the amazing Wallace, who you may know as the blogger over at Unputdownables . These are book awards given by literary bloggers to books released for the first time in 2011, irrespective of where it was released first. I loved following this award last year and am truly glad to be a voting member of the Fiction panel. There are more panels, so be sure to check out the full list , so that you can be sure not to miss updates on any other genre that you enjoy. There have been quite a few updates lately, that I am a little late to share, but there ha...

Honestly, I didn't feel like blogging for two days. I almost didn't write this post, but I guess after a couple of days, my brain cells are itching to send some signals to my fingers. I just got back from a visit to my university with my family. This was the first time I went there after 7 months! I can't tell you how excited even I was as we approached the place that was my home for two years. My dad agrees with me that Virginia Tech is one of the most beautiful campuses in this country. (Ok, he has seen only two other campuses, I have seen only one other campus. Plus neither of us have seen Univ of Colorado-Boulder, which I've heard is even more beautiful. But let's not count that against this, okay?). My ever-neutral mom doesn't want to choose between mine and my brother's universities, but I think she secretly likes mine. Next weekend, we're all piling up into a car with my friend and his wife (or my friend and her husband...