Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Waiting on Wednesday - (I Couldn't Decide)


Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. Here's my pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection:

(Release Date 5/25/2010 - Farrar, Straus and Giroux )

(amazon).....A fireworks factory explodes in a quiet seaside town. In The House on Salt Hay Road, Clay Poole is thrilled by the hole it’s blown in everyday life. His older sister, Nancy, is more interested in the striking stranger who appears, dusted with ashes, in the explosion’s aftermath. The Pooles—taken in as orphans by their mother’s family—can’t yet know how the bonds of their makeshift household will be tested and frayed. As their aunt searches for signs from God and their uncle begins an offbeat courtship, they are pulled toward two greater cataclysms: the legendary hurricane of 1938 and the encroaching war.

The House on Salt Hay Road is suffused with a haunting sense of place: salt marshes in the summer, ice boats on the frozen Great South Bay, Fire Island at the height of a storm. A vivid and emotionally resonant debut, it captures the golden light of a vanished time, and the hold that home has on us long after we leave it.

Ape House; Sara Gruen
( Spiegel and Grau - 9/ 7/2010)

I loved Water for Elephants, and I am a big Chimp lover as well (isn't this guy cute)?

(amazon)....Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants has become one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of our time. Now Gruen has moved from a circus elephant to family of bonobo apes. When the apes are kidnapped from a language laboratory, their mysterious appearance on a reality TV show calls into question our assumptions about these animals who share 99.4% of our DNA.

A devoted animal lover, Gruen has had a life-long fascination with human-ape discourse, and a particular interest in Bonobo apes, who share 99.4% of our DNA. She has studied linguistics and a system of lexigrams in order to communicate with apes, and is one of the few visitors who has been allowed access to the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, where the apes have come to love her. In bringing her experience and research to bear on this novel, she opens the animal world to us as few novelists have done.

Ape House is a riveting, funny, compassionate, and, finally, deeply moving new novel that secures Sara Gruen’s place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.

 What's Your Pick This Week?

26 comments:

  1. Both sound interesting! Here's what I'm waiting for. Click here

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  2. I'm glad you couldn't decide because both look great!

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  3. Very interesting titles. based on the summaries I can definitely see why you would be anxious for their release. Good picks.

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  4. Nice picks, Diana. I've been wondering when Sara Gruen would have a new book.

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  5. wonderful picks! they both look great. my best friend gave me water for elephants for christmas and i really enjoyed it, so i'm looking forward to ape house :)

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  6. The House on Salt Hay Road sounds wonderful and has a gorgeous cover to boot - what's not to love?!

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  7. I love that you had two great choices...good problem to have!

    I resisted Water for Elephants for the longest time (why??), but I loved it once I read it, so Ape House is definitely on my list!

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  8. Both of these sound great. I did a WOW on Ape House awhile back...really looking forward to seeing what Sara Gruen does after the wonderful Water for Elephants!

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  9. Both of these sound great. I did a WOW on Ape House awhile back...really looking forward to seeing what Sara Gruen does after the wonderful Water for Elephants!

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  10. Both of these sound really good, for really different reasons!! Great picks!

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  11. These sound really good!

    I haven't read Water for Elephants yet, but it's definitely on my list!

    Here's mine:

    http://chezraine.wordpress.com/2010/05/waiting-on-wednesday-11/

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  12. You always spotlight the best books! I want to read the ape book -- he has such a cute face!

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  13. I think the first one is more my style, but I never read Water for Elephants. Great picks! My WOW is at The Crowded Leaf.

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  14. I LOVED Water for Elephants! I didn't realsie that she had a new on out - I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.

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  15. Great picks! I love the cover of the first one!

    Here is my WoWhere

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  16. Oh I loved Water for Elephants, thanks for the heads up. Love the cover and storyline of Ape house too. Have a great week!

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  17. The first one sounds really good. You know I still haven't read Water for Elephants even though so many have loved it. I'd better get to that one first.

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  18. I wouldn't be able to decide, either! The cover of Ape House made me :).

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  19. I can see why you couldn't make a choice. I'm curious about Gruen's new one!!

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  20. I cannot wait for APE HOUSE. I loved her last book.

    I have Michael Lawson's upcoming book (due out in ten days) waiting for me at the post office. I could not wait to get it at the library. I am loving his Joe DiMarco series.

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  21. The House on Salt Hay Road sounds like a winner to me. Thanks so much for pointing it out.

    I'm looking forward to James Lee Burke's The Glass Rainbow, but that isn't until July 13!

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  22. Sara Gruen's new novel looks and suonds fabulous. I have an ARC of it but haven't got to it yet - I heart the cover!

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  23. Now you have me all excited about "Ape House."

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  24. I love the cover on The House on Salt Hay Road..I may have to buy it jusrt for that!

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  25. I wasn't all that into Water for Elephants, but I am curious about The Ape House. I look forward to reading your thoughts on it.

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  26. I heard about The Ape House and can't wait to read it. I just picked up an old book about a chimp called "Sophie's Story." I love chimps and apes and monkeys and yeah, pretty much all animals.

    Water for Elephants was wonderful.

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