Good morning. A cloudy gloomy day here in central Minnesota. Perfect reading weather that is for sure! We are leaving this afternoon for the cabin for the weekend with friends. It will be a nice break after this week and before the hectic week I will coming back to with work and training and my assistants last day.
Yup. This calls for a cabin getaway.
I am hopeful the weather is a little more promising up north for the weekend. The friends we are going with have two daughters ages 12 and 9 so they will want to get out and explore. I don’t really care how much activity I am involved in – but I will be taking The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with me as that is our September book club read.
I had mentioned that when I read Mockingjay I was following it up with to Kill A Mockingbird. Mission accomplished. So later today will be the review of To Kill A Mockingbird, and I am hoping to stop at the video store today and see if they have the movie To Kill A Mockingbird as I have never seen it and now is the time.
I hope you will all have a wonderful weekend. Posts will come up throughout the weekend as well as on Sunday the Monday, What Are You Reading post will go up as always. Meanwhile, I will leave you with this little mockingbird experience. 😀
Earlier this summer I RAVED about a book I had read AND an author I had met while in New York for BEA. The book, Twenty Boy Summer, was such a fun read and if you read my review you know I gushed…. and gushed…. and maybe gushed a bit more.
I had kept in touch with Sarah Ockler… anxiously anticipating her next book and around her busy life she found time to chat with me a bit about the first book, the second book…. and well… why now just see for yourself.
Please welcome Sarah Ockler.
Sarah Ockler
Well Sarah, I am so glad to have you here today. I enjoyed Twenty Boy Summer immensely and I know many of the Book Journey readers did as well. Thanks for chatting with me today. How do you take your coffee?
Sarah: Soy milk, no sugar. If I’m out in a coffee shop, I’ll usually just do a plain soy latte.
Twenty boy summer was your first novel, how long would you say it took to write from the first idea, to the moment you had a publisher?
Sarah: From idea to book deal? 8 years. But it’s not as scary as it sounds!
The idea for Twenty Boy Summer started developing a few years before I actually started writing it. I was working for the National Donor Family Council, an organization that supports families whose loved ones died and donated organs and tissues. I met so many grieving teens, and somewhere inside, I knew that if I ever wrote a book, I wanted to share a part of those stories. 4 years later, I started writing. 3 years after that, balancing a full-time job, graduate school, and fear that prevented me from committing to writing a book, I finished. 3 weeks later, I had an agent. Less than 3 months after that, we sold the book. So really, once I accepted the fact that I was a writer, and that I *had* to finish the book, it all came together very quickly.
Wow! I almost fell out of my chair when you said 8 years! Would you say that time period was exciting, frustrating, or all of the above?
Sarah: Mostly exciting, but there are always moments of frustration with any creative pursuit. Some days the ideas just don’t flow as well, or the story doesn’t seem to make sense anymore, or the self-doubt creeps in. But overall, it was an exhilarating time, and I wouldn’t trade any of the ups and downs! It’s all part of the process of writing a book.
I have heard some authors say they do not read reviews on their book. Do you?
Sarah: I read reviews when they first start coming out, but after the book has been on the shelves a while, I try to stay away. I like to know how the book is being received by readers, and I also like to think about what I can do better for the next book. At the same time, reading reviews can be damaging, and they’re not a real indication (or definition) of a book’s success. What one person hates about a book, another person loves. What one person loves, everyone else hates. Some people will give a book a negative review just because they don’t agree with a character’s choices. Others will love it because they identify so strongly with that character. Others will love only the writing style, but hate the setting. Before I sold my book, I heard this advice from pubbed authors all the time, but I didn’t get it until recently: “Don’t read reviews. The best thing an author can do for her career is to just write the next book.”
That sounds to me like it was good advice. What made you choose to write YA books?
Sarah: I like to say that YA chose me. 🙂 It’s just the voice in which my stories come out. I think it’s partly because I was so expressive in my journals during high school — in many cases, they were like a best friend that never judged me, never scolded me, never dropped me. The issues, the emotion, the choices — all of those things from my own teen years really stayed with me. The first time I took a YA writing class, I read contemporary young adult authors like Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, Laurie Halse Anderson, and I knew that’s what I was meant to
do. I can’t imagine not writing YA!
I felt you really tapped into the teen vein. When Anna and Frankie were going through the hard times, I hurt along with them. I think this is a real gift for YA authors. How do you feel you create such realistic young adult characters?
Sarah: I think it goes back again to my own teen years. It’s such a time of intense emotion, and it’s always stayed with me. When I write teen characters, I basically revisit high school. I remember what it was like. I put myself in the character’s shoes and think, what would I have done here? What would my best friend have done? What about my opposite, or someone I could never relate to? What did that breakup feel like? What about that fight with my parents? What about when that person died? What about that awesome party? Then, I observe teens interacting today (not in a stalker way. Usually not anyway. 🙂 ) and see how the dynamics are, the language, the cues, the clothes. And then I mix it all up and write it. 🙂
I am so excited about your next book coming out in December of this year,Fixing Delilah. Can you tell us a little about this book?
Sarah: Fixing Delilah is very much a mother-daughter book. I remember having such a difficult, complicated relationship with my mother back then — I hated her. I loved her. I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to be nothing like her. I remember thinking that she must’ve been born a grown-up, because she clearly had no idea what it was like to be a teenager. I really wanted to explore that through Delilah and her family. The story opens with Delilah and her corporate workaholic mom
traveling to Vermont to settle her grandmother’s estate. After a
family fight 8 years earlier, no one had spoken to or about the
grandmother, and now that they’re heading back to the house after her death, Delilah struggles with her memories of what happened and the role her mother and aunts played in the estrangement. The story explores generations of women and all of the secrets, hopes, and fears mothers and daughters keep from one another, and how the assumptions and misconceptions can really tear us apart. There’s also a really cute boy in the mix, but I’ll let readers meet him on their own. 🙂
Oh I can not wait! I have drooling over this book since I seen the cover, and that I know more about it, I am putting the release date on my calendar. What is coming up for you?
Sarah: I’m currently working on another YA story about one girl’s struggle to find and follow her dreams, to see beauty in the places we call home, and to finally discover what it means to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Unlike Twenty Boy Summer and Fixing Delilah, this one is set smack in the middle of winter. 🙂 More details soon!
It is tradition that I ask each author I chat with to share a little known fact about themselves.
Sarah: I always wanted to play the clarinet, but when it came time to pick instruments in 4th grade, the band conductor told me that since I’d probably need braces, I couldn’t play clarinet. Devastated, I picked the violin instead. I was actually pretty good, winning competitions and playing in the all county orchestra. But I always secretly longed to play the clarinet. I never ended up needing braces, but you know who did? The lead clarinet. Didn’t seem to interfere with her lead chair status in the least.
I quit violin in high school, but every once in a while I pick it up
again. I totally suck at it now. 🙂
Thank you Sarah for your time! If you are ever in Minnesota give me a shout!
Me and Sarah Ockler, May 2010
Readers, you can find Sarah Ockler at her website, Sarah Ockler: Making Stuff Up. Writing It Down. and at the lovely new website The Comtemps which is a group of YA Authors who are passionate about realistic fiction. Check this spot out there are author stories of the teen years, special events, book and they even have a fun challenge going on!
Coffee Cup and I have been up for about an hour. Between letting the dogs out for their morning jaunt in the back yard and catching up on my emails before I go to work… I have come to admit something I fight every year. Summer has gone again.
I felt it the last few days as I stand on the deck in the morning and the mornings are cool. You can actually smell it in the air. If you can smell crispness, this is the scent. Then I sit down at my laptop and see an email from Barnes and Noble titled “A Sad Farewell to Beach Reads”.
*sigh* it must be true.
I did enjoy a nice run with summery light reads, beachy topics and quite a few YA reads, especially after I returned from New York and BEA in May.This time of year, and I have mentioned it before in recent posts, takes on a different read for me. A heartier read. I am drawn to larger books that will draw me into characters that I do not so easily want to let go of.
This was the picture that went with the B & N email:
The only one of these I have read at this time is The Passage and I have to say I would agree with them here that I know this book will make my 2010 Best Books of the year list. I would like to read Matterhorn and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been on TBR since Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness told me about it over breakfast one morning in New York.
So how about you – are any of these on your wish list or you read them. Do you agree that these are must reads?
On a separate note I had mentioned yesterday on having a tough day on Tuesday. My Grandfather passed away that morning. He had a long, good life, living to the age of 94. He had his health and lived on his own all the way to a couple of weeks ago when he broke his hip and things just went rapidly down hill from there. Thank you for those on Twitter and here who shared their condolences, many of you sending kind thoughts and payers my way without even knowing why I took a little pause in my Morning Meanderings yesterday and then moved on.
I look at the wonderful bloggers and book lovers I have had the privilege to meet either in real life or through chatting on this little blog and I have to smile.
It is 1886 and Charlotte Gleason is on her way from England to New York with turmoil in her heart. She is to marry a rich American and never be in want of anything – a man who she has never met. In a panic she switched identities with her maid, Dora.
For Dora this is a chance of a lifetime, thrust into mansions and pretty gowns…. yet she is tormented by being found out….
For Charlotte it means giving up financial security, but she is willing to take the risk. What starts as a whim of a spoiled rich girl soon becomes a test of survival, and beyond Charlotte’s darkest nightmares as her “adventure” turns into something else.
And what of the man in New York?
I have enjoyed Nancy Moser’s writing from the first time I read The Seat Beside me and The Invitation series. Books that I read years ago, but was reminded of when I opened this book, like being reminded of old friends.
Lately, as the mornings become a little crisper and the scent of fall is in the air, I have been craving Historical Fiction. Odd? Maybe, but it seems as the seasons change, so do my reading habits. Masquerade filled that craving with its descriptions of England and early New York.
Well written and well paced, I had memories of Titanic, not only for my love (LOVE!) of the movie, but for the time the girls travel to America – and their choices become somewhat of a disaster. I enjoyed reading about the changes in both women, Dora finding that she has a bit more elegance than she had thought, and Lottie (who comes off as extremely snobby and spoiled) has a soft spot in her heart for children.
As I read through the tangled web the two girls have created by their choices, author Nancy Moser pulls God into the mix. Even through the blunders and mistakes on both sides, God provides and I find myself closing the last page feeling satisfied and warm inside, for a cool Fall morning.
Good morning. Yesterday was a long hard tough day. I don’t really want to go into details and don’t want to be sad so I am taking a deep breath and moving on and hope that you will all move on with me to this happier space…
Right here.
Monday was the weekly What Are You Reading Post and as of the last couple weeks I have had a lot of fun sharing with you the lovely bookish finds I come across while visiting the participating blogs as well as a few rabbit trails off to visit other blogs as well.
I have come to refer to this sharing of my finds as:
Over at The Books I Read Blog I found this gorgeous looking (and sounding book). You Don’t Look Like Anyone I know is a memoir that gives new meaning to insight, hindsight, and forgiveness. Pop over there and read the review!
At The Perpetual Page Turner I found another memoir (what is with me and memoirs lately?). This one is about an Iraqi girl and is written in blog posts during the Iraq war. I am interested in knowing more about this.
And while I didn’t add a lot to my TBR this week, I did find Alita over at alita.reads struggling over choices of what to read next. One of her choices was The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society which I encouraged her to read that one as I had it on my shelf as well unread. In fact – I told her we should both pinky swear to read this book in September.
She said I was on and that discussion led to this:
That is me and Alita in our own corners of the world – pinky swearing to read this book! 😀
That was a lot of fun and thanks Alita for going along with this!
On the eve of their silver anniversary, Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband, Jimmy — still every inch the handsome star athlete he was in high school — to come home. As night turns to day, it becomes frighteningly clear to Mary that he is gone. Through the years, disappointment and worry have brought Mary’s life to a standstill, and she has let her universe shrink to the well-worn path from the bedroom to the refrigerator. But her husband’s disappearance startles her out of her inertia, and she begins a desperate search.
She boards a plane for the first time in her life and flies across the country to find her lost husband. So used to hiding from the world, Mary learns that in the bright sun and broad vistas of California, she is forced to look up from the pavement. And what she discovers fills her with an inner strength she’s never felt before: perfect strangers who come to her rescue, an aging, sometimes hostile mother-in-law who needs her help, friends who enjoy her company. And through it all, Mary not only finds kindred spirits, but reunites with a more intimate stranger no longer sequestered by fear and habit: herself.
With the generosity and delicate grace that had readers falling in love with her bestselling novel, The Girls, Lori Lansens brings us another moving and beautifully wrought story, this time of a woman taking small yet courageous steps toward her authentic self.
If you would like to be a part of this book discussion please fill out the form below. You have between now and October 6 to read and either post a book review on your blog (if you have one) or for non bloggers you may email me your thoughts on the book.
Author Lori Lansens
As a bonus for those who choose to participate this month, author Lori Lansens will be offering a few signed copies of her books, not only this book, but also of The Girl’s and Rush Home Road. I will announce the actual giveaway closer to the review date, but for those of you who sign on to review the book with me through Wordshakers, you will automatically be entered twice into the giveaways.
Following our online review on October 6, there will be an author chat here with Lori Lanssen and participants in this discussion will have the opportunity to send in your questions for her for this chat.
If you have already read the book you are still welcome to join in. A five-week window will be given to give participants enough time to secure the book and read it. If you would like to be included in a mailing group that will be notified each time a new read is announced, leave me a comment below saying so and I will add you to the group. (*You do not need to post your email, I receive it with every comment)
Where did word shakers come from? I read a lovely book called The book Thief, and if you have not read it I highly recommend it. There is a part in the book when one of the characters writes a story involving a word shaker. The whole story is beautiful, and if you have the opportunity to read even the word shaker part of the book it is pages 445-450. The part that touches me deeply is:
THE BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be without words.
I think this one touches me so because I am a word lover, much like many of you, and therefore – we are all word shakers. ♥
Hello and good morning! COFFEE is on!!! SO what is so SSSQQQUUUUEEEE worthy that I am dancing around my home at such an early hour – in some cases rousing you out of your email boxes? WELL… I thought you would never ask!
Last week Wordshakers went live with its first 2010 Online group review of Summer At Tiffany. Around the blogosphere and even throughout some homes, 26 people signed up to read and review this book. While most were bloggers who posted reviews on their blogs, a handful were book lovers – blog free, who just sent me emails of how much they enjoyed the book.
The fun of this review went beyond the review. Marjorie Hart, the wonderful author of Summer At Tiffany has been in communication with me over the last month chatting about her book and the memories and that all went into the author chat we had last week as well as her gift of a signed copy of her book to one of my Book Journey readers.
All of this has left me with warm fuzzies of what Wordshakers can be…. and so I allowed myself to dream…
I wanted Wordshakers online book discussions to be not only a group of us booklovers all gathering our noses around the same book, but I really wanted our book choices to involve author interaction as well. I wanted to move us to the next level and I felt all I could do was try.
SO…. (I know I am rambling a bit – blame the coffee) I asked last months participants for ideas for our next read and some lovely ideas came out of that. Then I took two of the books mentioned that I thought would make for wonderful discussions and I contacted the publishers about the idea behind Wordshakers hoping one would be able to respond with a yes, this will work.
Both publishers and book authors responded favorably, not only wishing to be a part of making this a successful reading experience, but offered the author chat as well as a giveaway post.
Thus the SSSQQQQUUUEEEEE!!!
I will announce later today the Wordshaker book for now – October 6. I think it will generate excitement. I know it has for me. After this book is reviewed by whoever wishes to participate, I will then announce the next book that will go from the second week of October to the third week of November (before Thanksgiving).
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.
I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment. You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.
Congratulations! Please choose an item out of the PRIZE BOX and email me your choice with your mailing address as well! journeythroughbooks@gmail.com
** And on a special note I totally overhauled the Prize Box earlier today and it is filled with new book choices! So many in fact that I think for this next week we will have two winners!!! Why do I do this?
I think to get the full “community” of this meme, its important to go out and visit a few blogs that are new to you…. you may just find one that you love – and you will definitely hear about books that are new to you. 😀
I always have books that I have read and reviewed that I do not wish to keep. I like passing them on so they may be enjoyed by others.
For every 10 blogs you stop in and leave a comment on and tell me here in the comment section, I enter you for a chance to choose a book.
So how we all doing now as we come to the end of August? I find it pretty bitter sweet as I know my days of summer are flying by and fall is in the air. While I love summer for the bike rides, the reading on the deck, trips to the cabin…. I appreciate fall because life starts to slow down and I tend to read more as I have more time to read.
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins review (with a link to a spoiler page so if you have read you can stop in and hash out your thoughts with other Mockingjay addicts….:D )
That’s my week! I actually read a few more books this week but have not had time to post their reviews yet:
PREP
To Kill A Mockingbird
I Am Nujood Age 10 and Divorced
And – I am really excited about this week! Here is what I am planning:
I will be announcing at some point this week what the next read for the Wordshaker Online Book Club will be. I am waiting on one little detail….. it’s a secret…. 😉
I am starting this one for my Bookies Book Club. This is our September read and I am so excited to finally get a chance to get into this book 😀
Woo Hoo! Just in from my library reserve is this little gem that I can not wait to dive into! Doesn’t it look awesome? Doesn’t it? Huh? Huh? 😀
Off the TBR Mountain(s), comes this mystery that the cooler evenings call me to. I also have two of these. Hmmmm….. what to do with the second one… what to do……. I think we will be having a giveaway!
Here is the audio I will be starting in my car this week. Fresh from Hachette I am excited to start listening to this one. I have a cabin road trip this weekend, and I may actually head up a day early to get things ready as will have guests this time. Going early means going alone and going alone means – AUDIO!!! 😀
And this is a treat for my IPOD that I picked up off of Audible.com this week. I am mere moments away from starting this one and – well, I know right? It’s just calling to me!
Oh yes, my long anticipated author chat with Sarah Ockler, author of Twenty Boy Summer…. oh and yes, we are going to talk about her new book too!
So this looks like a big week for me and I obviously will not finish the audio this week, or for that matter the book club read either as I have until the second Tuesday of September to get that one done…. but it will be a fun start anyway.
I am so ready to hang out with all of you now and see what you can add to my TBR list are reading!!! 😀
Please add your post link to the spot below where it says “Click Here” so I and other happy “What Are You Reading memers” can pop in and say hi! 😀 I hope you meet some of our newer participants this week as well as our regulars – you are all such a fun group!
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Thank you to Hachette Audio for offering me three copies of this audio to give away to lucky readers of Book Journey!
Paris is stunning in the summer
NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe’s most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren’t what draw him–he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter’s killer.
The killing is simply marvelous
Kanon’s daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim.
Wish you were here
Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm–and they think they know where the next victims will be.
I know many of you are not big audio fans but I have to tell you – if you were to try audio (and I a going to continue bugging you of course on this! 😉 ) Patterson is a sure win.
If you have read any of my past reviews on Patterson’s I have raved about the quality. In fact I have probably not read James Patterson in 5 years, but I have listened to just about everything he has put out on audio.
SO why not give audio a try and look here – I am offering a giveaway where you may be able to do just that! If you love a good thriller mystery – come along and try Patterson!
How to enter
If you are a book person even if you have not read Patterson you must have seen that the man has a new book coming out at least once a month recently. I read that he has a large conference table in his study that is covered with unfinished manuscripts. Amazing!
So to enter this giveaway, I would like you to come up with a character for a Patterson book (and remember his genres are not only mystery so go with whatever) and a scenario: such as,
Johnathon Winters: Once second-hand store owner/ hitman now Priest and undercover FBI
😆 Or something like that
Bonus Entries
Tweet, blog, or add this giveaway to your Facebook page and receive an extra chance by letting me know here in a separate comment
Subscribe to Book Journey (upper right sidebar – third down) and let me know in a separate comment and receive two bonus chances
This giveaway will end on September 17. USA and Canada only please.
Discipline discipline discipline. Structure is a way of life. Make sure you hit the gym 5 times a week. Do not splurge on yourself. Never give in to desert and never ever fall for the gorgeous pair of shoes in the window.
In Joyce’s new book, eat the Cookies… buy the Shoes Joyce explains how we were not built for guilt. Using biblical stories Joyce Meyer reminds us how God likes to celebrate, and while we shouldnt give in to our every whim… we certainly can celebrate and enjoy “cookies” that come our way.
Ok…. confession time. I would like to think that what this book is telling me is go ahead Sheila…. eat ALL the cookies you want!
Or…. moderation…. shmoderation! Get the shoes….. get all the shoes!
Ok, I am just being funny. I really did enjoy this read because I came from that world that Joyce Meyer’s describes. There was a time when I thought that I had to always be on my game… that I was never to falter and had to remain structured and disciplined at all times. What I found interesting is that is where Joyce once was as well, and like her – our worlds were bland.
Joyce in a light humorous manner explains in this book why it is ok to enjoy life and what is has to offer. Moderation of course is the word, and making good choices, but God does want us to have fun…. and the sooner I learned that the better my life became all the way around.
If you woke up this morning with more body parts that don’t hurt than those that do, you are blessed.
If you have food, clothes, and a place to live, you are richer than 75% of the world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, or spare change at home, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthiest people.
If you have never experienced the dangers of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of the five million people in the world.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than two billion people in the world who can not read.
eat the Cookie… buy the Shoes page 100-101
I also had the opportunity from Hachette to review the audio version of this book. The audio is read by Sandra McCollum, who is Joyce Meyer’s daughter. While the audio is handy to listen to while driving, and I really like that…. I almost hate to say this,but the reading was not what I had hoped for. Sandra’s voice felt to me like she was reading to a child and gave me the impression she was always talking down to the listener. I am hopeful that is just my opinion. I was unable to finish the audio for that reason.
Overall – the message in the book/audio is an easy one to follow with gentle reminders of how we can live out our lives fully as God had planned being able to be who we are He created us. I found it enjoyable and refreshing.
I received both the book and audio from Hachette Books
Book Journey 