The Printed Page

Today is day 3 of Book Blogger Appreciation Week celebrating books! Up today is a fun reading meme.

• Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? Yes! Ice cold diet cola and something salty – pretzels, pringles or popcorn
• Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? Never! unless it’s a textbook
• How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Never, never dog-ear! Always bookmarks. And my Kindle saves my place for me just like a CD or MP3 player
• Laying the book flat open? Another never!
• Fiction, Non-fiction, or both? Both
• Hard copy or audiobooks? Print or eBooks (Kindle version & pdf files)
• Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point? I can stop at any point
• If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? Only if I’m reading on my Kindle which has a built in dictionary
• What are you currently reading? Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie with Rita Lurie
• What is the last book you bought? The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Kindle edition)
• Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time? I’m a one book woman
• Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read? Anywhere, anytime
• Do you prefer series books or stand alone books? Nope. I just love books.
• Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over? Not really
• How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?) By height

Title: 9 Dragons (Harry Bosch, book #14) Author/website: Michael Connelly 374 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Publication date: October ’09 Genre: Suspense, thriller, police procedural Would I recommend it: Yes, yes, and a yes. I loved it! Mr. Connelly is an author on my auto-buy list so it could be I’m a bit bias. Harry Bosch and I first got together in 1992 and we’ve had a very intense yet immensely satisfying relationship over the years. Harry has had his share of issues providing highs and lows in his career and personal life. Harry is good detective who tends to go cowboy if the means justify the end. 9 Dragons provides plenty of room for Harry to wander off and create a bit more havoc in his life. If he hopes to solve the case and save loved ones he needs to skip the slow boat China and take a fast plane to Hong Kong. He is chasing a case that takes him overseas and back and his personal life intrudes smack into the middle of it big time. Harry is forced to grapple with a death that shakes his world. His daughter’s disappearance brings him closer to a child he knows little about and loves beyond measure. And finally the case forces him to face prejudices that go back to his years of service in the Vietnam war as tunnel rat creating trust issues with fellow detectives. 9 Dragons has a bit of everything and entertains page after page. If you’re a Harry Bosch fan you’ll love 9 Dragons.

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life.

Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store’s owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li’s family that he’ll find the killer.

The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation–not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li’s life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S.

And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch’s life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he’s lost. In a place known as Nine Dragons, as the city’s Hungry Ghosts festival burns around him, Bosch puts aside everything he knows and risks everything he has in a desperate bid to outmatch the triad’s ferocity.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

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Memoir ~ Detectives Don’t Wear Seat Belts by Cici McNair (new-to-me author/Hachette) (Claimed by Laura)

Growing up in Mississippi, Cici McNair was always more the tomboy her mother supported than the Southern belle her father demanded. She escaped her suffocating upbringing the first chance she had to travel the world. Whether working at the Vatican in Rome or consorting with a gunrunner in Haiti, she lived a life of international adventure. When Cici finds herself in New York, divorced, broke, and fashionably starving to death in a Madison Avenue apartment, she impulsively decides to become a private detective.

But, as Cici soon learns, the world of P.I.s is tight-knit and made up almost exclusively of former law enforcement officers. By nature, they are a highly suspicious group and are especially wary of a newcomer with an untraceable past. Diligently working her way through the Yellow Pages, doggedly pursuing the slightest lead, Cici is finally hired by a private investigator willing to take a chance. The next day she’s working side by side with a pair of seasoned detectives and a skip tracer who is scary to meet but like silk on the phone. She quickly realizes she’ll need all her energy and wits to succeed in this new world.

Being a private investigator is as exciting and liberating as Cici ever dreamed, from creating a false identity on the spot on her first case in the field to surviving adrenaline-rushing car chases. Working with law enforcement, she goes undercover, dealing with the ruthless Born to Kill gang in Chinatown and the Middle Eastern counterfeiters west of Broadway. A detailed account of the hidden world and real-life cases of a P.I., this action-packed memoir is as entertaining as any detective novel you’ve ever read.

Memoir ~ Vera and the Ambassador: Escape and Return by Donald and Vera Blinken (new-to-me authors/publicist contact)

The Blinkens alternate chapters to recount their years as the U.S. ambassadorial couple to Hungary during Bill Clinton’s first term as president. Vera Blinken escaped Hungary as a child with her mother after WWII as the iron curtain started its descent on central Europe. Donald Blinken, a former investment banker, was appointed at the dawn of Hungary’s nascent democracy and entry into the world economy, and negotiated its entry into NATO. Together they breathed new life into U.S.-Hungary relations, negotiated the opening of American military bases that contributed to the end of the Bosnian conflict and started health initiatives in the local community. Theirs is a candid behind-the-scenes look at the glamour and challenges of diplomatic life: along with consorting with the pope and Madonna came inevitable security concerns, death-defying trips in formerly Soviet helicopters and the struggle to reshape attitudes toward what was perceived as American cultural imperialism.

Memoir ~ Cult Insanity: A Memoir of Polygamy, Prophets and Blood Atonement by Irene Spencer (Hachette) (Claimed by Kim)

Life for Irene Spencer was a series of devastating disappointments and hardships. Irene’s first book, Shattered Dreams, is the staggering chronicle of her struggle to provide for her children in abject poverty and feelings of abandonment each time her husband left to be with one of his other wives. Irene was raised to believe polygamy was the way of life necessary for her ticket to heaven. The hard knocks of her environment were just the beginning of Irene’s shocking tale. CULT INSANITY takes readers into her story to uncover the outrageous behaviour of her brother-in-law Ervil – a self-proclaimed prophet who determined he was called to set the house of God in order – and how he terrorized their colony. Claiming to be God’s avenger and to have a licence to kill in the name of God, Ervil ordered the murders of friends and family members, eliminating all those who challenged his authority.

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Click on book cover to enter the giveaways.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

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Read It Forward details

Welcome to BBAW 2009. A week to celebrate books, book bloggers and everything that’s great in this wonderful book community. Even if you personally don’t blog be sure and check out BBAW as there’s something for everyone. It will be very exciting and there is a lot going on throughout the week.

First off be sure and stop by the BBAW blog. Here you’ll find everything associated with BBAW that Amy from My Friend Amy’s blog started last year. Or you can go directly to:

Awards and Nominations page Giveaways page Events Calendar page listing the various book events and memes from the book blogging community.

Enjoy!

There are no special rules. One entry please per person per giveaway. Enter one, two, three or all four giveaways. Simply leave a comment at each giveaway you want to enter and enjoy BBAW!

Good luck everyone!

Click on book cover to enter the giveaways.

Title: Top Producer Author: Norb Vonnegut Publication date: September ’09 Genre: Suspense/thriller

In a world that moves as fast as finance, top producers think three steps ahead and make snap decisions. Theirs is a blurred version of reality, one that conceals motives or rewards bold moves. All too easily, scams can be disguised as success; plotting can be mistaken for killer instincts. And it’s all fun and games…until someone gets hurt. 

For Grove O’Rourke, top producer at the investment firm of Sachs, Kidder, and Carnegie, his job is his life. His friends are his colleagues, and his best friend, Charlie Kelemen, is legend—larger than life both in the business world and in body mass, known and liked by everyone. At least it seems that way, until his spectacular murder is carried out in front of hundreds of horrified party-goers.

When Charlie’s widow asks Grove for help after her husband’s death, Charlie’s legend begins to crumble, and even his widow is hiding a dark secret. Still reeling from the death of his friend, Grove stumbles upon a web of false statements and forged documents, a web of people whose lives drastically changed the instant they signed a dishonest deal. And what he discovers is how money—vast sums of money—can cover up even the most glaring imperfections in relationships, and fool everyone. 

Well, almost everyone.

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Jill at Breaking the Spine hosts Waiting on Wednesday. Stop by and check out the great books your fellow readers can’t wait to get their hands on. What book are you waiting for?

For those who lost their lives, for those who gave their lives unselfishly, for those who move forward through the loss of loved ones ~ may whatever faith you believe in sustain you as you remember them on this day and those days that have gone before and those yet to come.

My thoughts are with you, your families and loved ones.

Marcia

Title: The Last Ember Author/website: Daniel Levin Thanks to author Daniel Levin and Katie from Riverhead Books I have 5 copies of The Last Ember to giveaway. The details:

• US addresses only. Sorry no Canadian or international entries for this one.
• Open until Friday, September 18th.

Good luck everyone!

In The Last Ember’s opening pages an Italian antiquities squad discovers a woman’s preserved corpse inside an ancient column. Pages torn from priceless manuscripts litter the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Meanwhile, across the Mediterranean, an illegal excavation burrows beneath Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, ground sacred to three religions.

Jonathan Marcus, a young American lawyer and a former doctoral student in classics, has become a sought-after commodity among less scrupulous antiquities dealers. But when he is summoned to Rome, the above events propel him on a perilous journey from the labyrinth beneath the Colosseum to the Biblical-era tunnels of Jerusalem in search of a hidden artifact that has been missing for 2,000 years.

As Marcus and a passionate U.N preservationist, Dr. Emili Travia, dig more deeply into the past, they’re stunned to discover not only an ancient intelligence operation to protect the artifact, but also a ruthless modern plot to destroy all trace of it by a mysterious radical bent on erasing all remnants of Jewish and Christian presence from the Temple Mount.

With a cutting-edge plot as intricately layered as the ancient sites it explores, The Last Ember is a riveting tale spanning the high-stakes worlds of archaeology, politics and terrorism in its portrayal of the modern struggle to define—and redefine—history itself.

Title: Detectives Don’t Wear Seatbelts Author/website: Cici McNair’s Facebook page Thanks to Brianne from Hachette Book Group USA I have 5 copies of Detectives Don’t Wear Seatbelts to giveaway. The details:

• US and Canadian addresses only. Sorry no international entries for this one.
• Open until Friday, September 18th.

Good luck everyone!

Growing up in Mississippi, Cici McNair was always more the tomboy her mother supported than the Southern belle her father demanded. She escaped her suffocating upbringing the first chance she had to travel the world. Whether working at the Vatican in Rome or consorting with a gunrunner in Haiti, she lived a life of international adventure. When Cici finds herself in New York, divorced, broke, and fashionably starving to death in a Madison Avenue apartment, she impulsively decides to become a private detective.

But, as Cici soon learns, the world of P.I.s is tight-knit and made up almost exclusively of former law enforcement officers. By nature, they are a highly suspicious group and are especially wary of a newcomer with an untraceable past. Diligently working her way through the Yellow Pages, doggedly pursuing the slightest lead, Cici is finally hired by a private investigator willing to take a chance. The next day she’s working side by side with a pair of seasoned detectives and a skip tracer who is scary to meet but like silk on the phone. She quickly realizes she’ll need all her energy and wits to succeed in this new world.

Being a private investigator is as exciting and liberating as Cici ever dreamed, from creating a false identity on the spot on her first case in the field to surviving adrenaline-rushing car chases. Working with law enforcement, she goes undercover, dealing with the ruthless Born to Kill gang in Chinatown and the Middle Eastern counterfeiters west of Broadway. A detailed account of the hidden world and real-life cases of a P.I., this action-packed memoir is as entertaining as any detective novel you’ve ever read.

I’m a very visual person and love beautiful, or interesting, cover art. It entices, and invites, me to stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by. This week’s Cover Attraction is: Title: Gateway Author: Sharon Shinn Release date: October ’09

As a Chinese adoptee in St. Louis, teenage Daiyu often feels out of place. When an elderly Asian jewelry seller at a street fair shows her a black jade ring – and tells her that ‘black jade’ translates to ‘Daiyu’ – she buys it as a talisman of her heritage. But it’s more than that; it’s magic. It takes Daiyu through a gateway into a version of St. Louis much like 19th century China. Almost immediately she is recruited as a spy, which means hours of training in manners and niceties and sleight of hand. It also means stealing time to be with handsome Kalen, who is in on the plan. There’s only one problem. Once her task is done, she must go back to St. Louis and leave him behind forever. . . .

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What’s your favorite cover attraction this week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Cover Attraction post.