BOOKFINDS

Hemingway and his “Dinky Little Boat”?

The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Scarlet Letter = Baby Daddies?

Then Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

If you’re having a bad day with your writing, just take a look at the terrible review Hawthorne received from one Amazon reader.

This novel is absolutely awful. Although it has received over 500 reviews I feel it is my duty to help bring the average star level to where it belongs, at zero. Where to begin… perhaps with the run on sentences, the failure to create significant rising action, the flat two dimensional characters… This novel is full of things which not only bore the reader, but frustrate them as well.

The fatal flaw in this piece of literature is its inability to stay relevant. Post-modern society does not really care about, “Baby daddies,” and the revelation which is made at the end, and beginning, of this novel is reproduced daily on morning television a la Maury. Unfortunately, Nathaniel Hawthorn you are the father of this literary disaster.

(…and welcome to our new series, ONE STAR REVIEWS)

Oprah Magazine and THE LIFEBOAT by Charlotte Rogan

Oprah Magazine calls Charlotte Rogan’s debut novel THE LIFEBOAT “The One Dazzling Novel You Need to Read This Month.”

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

From Oprah:

We’re reading this one now. Bookfinds review to come. Has anyone read THE LIFEBOAT? What are your thoughts on this critically acclaimed novel?

Uggie to “Pen” a Tell-All

What does one do after starring in an Oscar winning film, winning the Palm Dog Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, attending the White House Correspondents Dinner and occupying your own special booth at the Weinsteins’ Oscar Party at the Mondrian?

Write a tell-all, of course! Uggie, the breakout star of The Artist will be releasing Uggie: My Story. He’s getting a little help from author Wendy Holden and readers can pick up this gem from Gallery Books in October.

Uggie officially retired from the business earlier this year so the timing is just perfect.

Will you read a dog’s memoir? Will it be a tongue-in-cheek story? How many memoirs have there been from an animal’s point of view?

Bethenny Frankel’s Gone Skinnydipping

Bethenny Frankel, of Skinny Girl and Bravo TV fame, is releasing her debut novel, SKINNYDIPPING, today. Frankel calls it her most favorite creative project of her life. “It’s a guilty pleasure that you don’t even have to feel guilty about!” says Frankel.

Here’s a description of SKINNYDIPPING:

“Who do I have to sleep with to get a drink on this plane?”

Beloved by countless fans for being devilishly dishy, outrageously funny, and always giving it to us straight, three-time New York Times bestselling author Bethenny Frankel now makes her fiction debut with the story of Faith Brightstone. Faith is an aspiring actress just out of college, who moves to L.A. determined to have it all—a job on the most popular TV show, a beach house in Malibu, and a gorgeous producer boyfriend. But when reality hits, she finds herself with a gig as a glorified servant, a role that has more to do with T&A than acting, and a dead-end relationship. Finally, Faith decides she’s had enough of La La Land and moves back to New York with just a suitcase and her dog, Muffin.

Five years later, Faith has finally found her groove as an entrepreneur and manages to land a spot on a new reality TV show hosted by her idol—the legendary businesswoman and domestic goddess Sybil Hunter. Diving into the bizarre world of reality TV, Faith’s loud mouth and tell-it-like-it-is style immediately get her in trouble with her fellow contestants—the delusional socialite; the boozy lifestyle coach; the moody headband designer; and her closest friend, the ambitious housewife who eventually betrays her. Even Sybil is not what she appears.

As the show comes to a dramatic close, Faith discovers that the man of her dreams may have just walked into her life. Will she choose fame or love? Or can she have it all?

skinnydipping by Betheny Frankel

So, will you be picking up Bethenny Frankel’s debut novel? What are your thoughts on Bethenny Frankel and her meteoric rise to fame?

Nicole Kidman in Talks to Star in Screen Version of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by S.J. Watson

Nicole Kidman is in talks to star in Before I Go to Sleep, reports Screen Daily. Director Rowan Joffe (who wrote 2010′s The American and 28 Weeks Later) is writing the adaptation based on S.J. Watson’s best-selling novel about a woman who wakes up every morning without any memories from the last twenty years, and then tries to piece together her memory and identity with the help of her journal, her mysterious neurologist, and her husband, whom she’s not sure she can trust. Memento? 50 First Dates? Who can say? (via Vulture)

Making Babies by Anne Enright

Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood by Anne Enright

Anne Enright is one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation.THE GATHERING won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, and her follow-up novel, THE FORGOTTEN WALTZ, garnered universal praise for her luminous language and deep insight into relationships.

Now, in Making Babies, Enright offers a new kind of memoir: an unapologetic look at the very personal experience of becoming a mother. With a refreshing no-nonsense attitude, Enright opens up about the birth and first two years of her children’s lives. Enright was married for eighteen years before she and her husband Martin, a playwright, decided to have children. Already a confident, successful writer, Enright continued to work in her native Ireland after each of her two babies was born. While each baby slept, those first two years of life, Enright wrote, in dispatches, about the mess, the glory, and the raw shock of motherhood.

Here, unfiltered and irreverent, are Enright’s keen reactions to the pains of pregnancy, the joys of breast milk, and the all-too-common pressures to be the “perfect” parent. Supremely observant and endlessly quizzical, Enright is never saccharine, always witty, but also deeply loving.

Already a bestseller in the UK, MAKING BABIES brings Enright’s autobiographical writing to American readers for the first time. Tender and candid, it captures beautifully just what it’s like for a working woman to become a mother. The result is a moving chronicle of parenthood from one of the most distinctive and gifted authors writing today.

Publication Date: April 2, 2012

Genres: Memoir

Hardcover: 208 pages

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Women’s Travel Diaries: A Collection

Harriet Sanderson Stewart's Travel Diary

As someone who greatly admires the handwritten word, I am completely enamored by this collection of Women’s Travel Diaries at Duke. Check it out and let me know if anyone else is in love with handwriting?

Girls’ star and creator Lena Dunham on her reading habits

Lena Dunham, the creator and star of the hyped and critical darling HBO show Girls, spoke to the New York Times about what she likes to read and where she does it. Currently she is reading “Bad Behavior” by Mary Gaitskill (a collection of stories, one of which became the inspiration for the movie Secretary,) Diane Keaton’s memoir and “Having it All” by Helen Gurley Brown, among other things. It’s not surprising how well read Dunham is since it is evident in her writing.

What are your thoughts on Lena’s reading list? Have you watched GIRLS?

Cover Love: BEAUTY by Susan Wilson

Beauty by Susan Wilson

Every reader is familiar with the popular tale of Beauty and the Beast. But what if the fairy tale came true? Beauty tells the story of a modern woman who learns to love the deeper man, beyond all appearances; it is a totally credible, contemporary retelling of the classic tale.