Mail Box Monday - June 1, 2009

Mailbox Mondays is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

This past week, I received a few books that I am looking forward to reading:

1. The Calligrapher's Daughter: A Novel; Eugenia Kim - (Aug 4th pub date; couresy of Amazon Vine)
   

   "In The Calligrapher's Daughter Eugenia Kim beautifully chronicles both the lost world of a traditional Korea and the lost childhood of her remarkable heroine. A coming-of-age story that resonates with larger significance, the novel movingly depicts the emotional cost of transformation and the love and sacrifice that makes transformation possible. The Calligrapher's Daughter is at once the story of a single life as well as the changing life of a nation and, while the details are fascinatingly exotic, the narrative rings with the hard won truths of profound human experience. It is a note-worthy debut from a writer with great heart and real empathy."—Sheridan Hay, author of The Secret of Lost Things

2. Sometimes Mine; Martha Moody - (August 6 pub date; courtesy of Putnum Riverhead Publishing)
   "Genie Toledo is a spitfire who too young married the wrong guy, had a daughter, quickly divorced, and now, in her forties, has filled the emotional gap by throwing herself into her work and holding friends and family at arm’s length—even her college-age daughter. The only person to penetrate her thick shell is Mick Crabbe, with whom she’s had a decade-long affair. He’s a charming guy—famous even, a well-known college basketball coach—but the fact that they live in different states and see each other only once a week, and that Mick is committed not only to his wife and kids, but also to his basketball team and all those fans, suits Genie just fine. She can take care of herself. She doesn’t need him.
   
   That is, until Mick becomes fatally ill and the nature of their relationship is forced to change. Genie sets her heart free for the first time and is ultimately altered by the experience. As she becomes intimately involved in Mick’s care, and makes herself known to his family, Genie finally understands the importance of making connections with others, and earns, even from the outside world, the extremely moving validation of her significance in Mick’s life".
3. Crossed Wires; Rosy Thornton (April UK Pub Date) -"This is the story of Mina, a girl at a Sheffield call centre whose next customer in the queue is Peter, a Cambridge geography don who has crashed his car into a tree stump when swerving to avoid a cat. Despite their obvious differences, they've got a lot in common -- both single, both parents, both looking for love. Could it be that they've just found it? CROSSED WIRES is an old-fashioned fairy tale. It is about the small joys and tribulations of parenthood; about one-ness and two-ness; about symmetry and coincidence; about the things that separate us and the things that bring us together".
   

What was in your mailbox this week?