For the last week in June, we’re giving away . . . our Top Picks in fiction and nonfiction!
You Came Back by Christopher Coake is our Fiction Top Pick. This novel is both a page-turner and a tear-jerker, about a man trying to rebuild his life after the death of his young son and the dissolution of his first marriage. He’s about to get remarried to a lovely woman when something strange happens: Someone tells him that ghost of his son lives on in the house where he died. Read more about the novel in this review, or in the essay that Coake wrote for us about the tragic personal story that inspired the book.
Our June Nonfiction Top Pick is The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore. This thought-provoking book is a stunning meditation on three main questions: How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? Lepore explores the definitions of life and death and shows us how the contemplation of life and death moved from the library to the laboratory. Read more in this review.
Here’s how you can win these two fantastic books:
TO ENTER: Leave a comment with your own personal June Top Pick. What’s your favorite book you’ve read this month?
CONTEST DETAILS: One winner will be chosen by random.org from among entries received by 5 pm CST on Friday, June 29. The winner will receive copies of You Came Back and The Mansion of Happiness. Prize must be shipped to a North American address, and Rhode Island residents are not eligible. (Full contest rules here.) Good luck!
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ETA: Congratulations to our winner, Beth! Her favorite book in June was Gone Girl followed closely by Wild.
Thanks to all who entered! Contest is now closed.
LOVED Gone Girl. Book of Summers was fun, too – amazing descriptions. Though I’m a Clevelander, I can’t make myself finish Gilded Age.
I Suck At Girls by Justin Halpern. It was great!!!!
Porch Lights Dorethea Benton Frank
Fabulous read
Gone Girl
Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Although, I’m on my way to pick up Gone Girl, The Red House and Into the Darkest Corner at the library so one of them might claim the top spot by the end of June:)
I am so excited to say that I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Karen Ranney’s new novel which will be published tomorrow, June 26, 2012, entitled “A Scandalous Scot.” Again, Ms. Ranney has hit it out of the park! She is the author of over 30 novels all of which are total winners. I hope you will go to your nearest bookstore tomorrow and buy a copy. I’m betting that you will love it as much as have!
The Happiness Project, very humorous and inspiring
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
This month so far, the best book I’ve read was the non-fiction “Crossing the Borders of Time” by Leslie Maitland. It was moving, well-researched, and wonderfully written.
I just finished “So Much Pretty” and really enjoyed it. I’m now working my way through “The Odds” before I dive into “In One Person”.
My favorite read this month (s0 far! it aint over yet!) was Gone Girl, followed closely by Wild.
“Pope Joan” has been a great historical fiction novel.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Reckoning by Alma Katsu
Raced through A Walk to Grace by Richard Paul Evans. I love it when the locations of books are familiar to me, and I have traveled with him through the past 3 books on many of a summer vacation, although in a car rather than on foot. Loved listening to The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani as well-long, lush and epic.
The Sadness of the Samurai
Loved TheRed Tent by Anita Diamant.
So far, my favorite is Craig Johnson’s As the Crow Flies. Right now, I’m reading Colin Powell’s book, It Worked For Me and it is very good.
I am currently reading The Chaperone. Can not stop reading it.
Great story, comfy summer reading.
TEN BEACH ROAD by Wendy Wax
I read Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter which is a fun romp through ‘history’ in anticipation of the movie. The movie got terrible reviews, but I’m happy that I read the book anyway!
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Wow, what a ride!
thanks!
I finally read Cutting for Stone!
The Last Child, John Hart. I can’t say enough how wonderfully written this book was. Could not put it down, literally!
Loved Gone Girl couldn`t put it down.
Am currently reading The Retribution by Val McDermid. Great read.
Late to the party, but Lovely Bones this month for me!
Just finished an oldie by Kristin Hannah…Home Again.
I really enjoyed “The Sugar Queen” by Sarah Addison Allen, and can’t wait to dive into another of hers, “Garden Spells”!
This month, I really enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
Loved that book!
I just read an old classic: Rosemary’s Baby. I didn’t even realize it was a book until recently when my Mom pointed it out to me and told me I would love it-and she was right! So, so good and creepy!
It doesn’t come out until tomorrow, but I loved Shout Her Lovely Name by Natalie Serber. It’s a collection of short stories about the relationships between mothers and daughters. The writing, the fully fleshed characters…everything just feels right.
Two books that I won were wonderful reads. The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya about one isolated unit in Afghanistan. The other book, entirely different, People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Perry is a true crime story.
Enjoying “The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead” by Paul Elwork.
Just read “Spring Fever” by Mary Kay Andrews.
I can’t decide which I enjoyed more Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon or Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
For the past few days I have been so engrossed reading DEFENDING JACOB by William Landay that my husband had to get his own dinner and the laundry piled up in the basket, but I didn’t care!!
Gone Girl is my favorite so far,as long as I can read and find books
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
Porch Lights by Dorothea Benton Frank
My most recent favourite read has to be “Are You My Mother?” by Alison Bechdel.
I have “You Came Back” on my library list right now, I would love to win my own copy.
Reading time is limited during the day. I have a very active one year old! I try to reserve at least 40 minutes before bedtime to read and unwind. Last week I finished Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. I have heard the reviews of the movie were not good. No matter, I’ve already seen it in my mind through the author’s words. I have also just read Susan Beth Pferrer’s This World We Live In… a dystopian book. I’m hooked on them after reading both the Hunger Games and Divergent & Insurgent. So many wonderful books, so little time!
Hands down the best was “Gone Girl”
Gone Girl and Into the Darkest Corner were the best books I’ve read in a while. Great twists and turns!
My favorite book thus far this month was The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey- an updated version of Jane Eyre.
Gone Girl has been my favorite so far. Just started XO and am loving that,too!
The Shoemakers Wife,we all love this author,Adriana Trigiani.This would be a great movie too,we discovered her a few years ago and love her down to earth type of writing…
Definitely Jasmine Nights by Julia Gregson. Simply Wonderful.
‘Birdseye’, by Mark Kurlansky, about Clarence Birdseye, the frozen food king.
I am really excited to read “Red House”. I absolutely loved “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”, which I read several years ago.
I am currently reading “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”, by Haruki Murakami. I really like it so far…it has a unique voice.
The Shoemaker’s Wife is one of Trigiani’s best, as usual.
I just discovered Clive Cussler and am cruising through The Chase.
It’s hard to choose because I’ve read some stellar books this month, but I’m going to say “Roses” by Leila Meacham.
Just finished Gone Girl and that is now my fav for June, and my fav for 2012 so far. What a book!!! Wow. On to The Red House by Mark Haddon
“The Age of Miracles” by Karen Thompson Walker and for dessert, a fun, light- hearted read, “Wallflower in Bloom” by Claire Cook.
I loved The End of the World as We Know It
by Robert Goolrick.
I think it will stay with me for a very long time.
SING THEM HOME by Stephanie Kallos
Purchased the book a while ago and found it in a pile of books. Great read.
My fav book this month has been “When she Woke”
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I think of him every time I go to the mailbox.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Great character development and a real page-turner
My June book read is Kris Jenner and all things Kardashian
Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh
I just finished reading “Harbinger”-Jonathan Cahn
304 Turner Street
Davis,I’LL
61019
The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp, a historical novel about a Russian ballerina and mistress to the tsar.
Wonder by RJ Palacio was excellent!
Heading out to wonderful by robert goolrick