Making Toast

Grandparents, Happiness, Inspiration, Life Lessons, Making Toast, Memoir

Review Round-Up: Making Toast

9780061825934 We love getting your feedback on our books, almost as much as we enjoy reading them! With that in mind, here are three new reviews of Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast from our trusty readers.  And while you're here, don't miss Virginia's review

Our first comes from 20something Lauren Gibaldi, who blogs on halfdesertedstreets.com.  Lauren calls the book "an absolute beautiful read, a truly wonderful tribute." Her full review can be found here

Next up is Diane LaRue. of LaRue Marketing & Public Relations.  She writes: "Their story will touch (and sometimes break) your heart."  Her review is here

Nancy Renfro, director of the Watauga Regional Library, writes:

There never can be too many books on the subject of the death of a loved one.  We all mourn in different ways, and each memoir about death has its own perspective that lends credence to our own unique ways of suffering.  When faced with death, we need reassurance that others have made it through the first numbing days of sorrow, survived, and even created beauty out of their suffering.  Making Toast is a sad, but welcome addition to the growing list of titles of regular humans going about their lives with the people they love and then, unexpectedly, tragically, having the specter of death thrust upon them.  Some of the most readable, poignant and noteworthy of these memoirs are from already published authors.  They already are adept at writing, and thus can explain the emotional tangle they experience in a coherent way.  There have been several over the years  from well-known women authors: Isabel Allende ‘s moving tribute to her daughter “Paula”, Joan Didion’s heart wrenching “The Year of Magical Thinking”, where she deals not only with the death of her beloved husband John Gregory Dunne, but the continued care for her daughter in critical condition in the hospital.  But this memoir is different.  From the perspective of a father, it is less emotional and inward looking, and more a chronicle of how he, his wife, and extended family get through the day to day living that must go on after the death of a vital, healthy wife, mother, and career woman.  How does a parent bury a child in the prime of her life, and then continue to live and find meaning in the life that is left?  Rosenblatt answers that question through his own life and the lives of the family members left behind.  This book is highly recommended.

Inspiration, Making Toast, Memoir, Roger Rosenblatt, Shelf Awareness

Making Toast

9780061825934 I have been talking about this book since I read it in manuscript form last year. It has never left me.  This is the true story – told through the eyes of a father – about the sudden loss of his 38 year old daughter and how he and his wife step in to help their son-in-law care for their 3 young grandchildren.

This is not a maudlin tale. Yes, it’s sad.  But it’s also inspiring, hopeful and even humorous at times.  If you want to meet a family who will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page of their story, read Making Toast.  For more coverage on the book, including a fantastic interview with Roger Rosenblatt, check out yesterday's dedicated issue of Shelf Awareness

I’ll send a copy to you if you send a review to me at librarylovefest atharpercollins dot com.  Really, I’d love to hear what you think.

Many thanks.

-Virginia

31 Bond Street, AAP, Beautiful Maria of My Soul, Book Buzz, Brava, Valentine, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Ellen Horan, Husband and Wife, Isabel Allende, Island Beneath the Sea, Jacqueline Winspear, Leah Stewart, Louise Erdrich, Maisie Dobbs, Making Toast, Marilyn Johnson, Noah Boyd, Oscar Hijuelos, Roger Rosenblatt, Shadow Tag, The Bricklayer, The Mapping of Love and Death, The Myth of You and Me, This Book is Overdue!, Wench

AAP Spring 2010 Book Buzz

ThisBookIsOverdue hc c It was great seeing old friends and making new ones at last week’s AAP Book Buzz here in NYC.  The AAP Library Committee is comprised of library marketers from various publishing houses. We get together several times a year to brainstorm about different ways we can connect our authors and books to libraries.  We decided to invite librarians from the tri-state area and barrage them with book talks and sandwiches!  It worked – we all had a lot of fun and it was a great opportunity to talk about some upcoming books that have us jazzed  (there’s just never enough time to talk about them all!)

Marilyn Johnson, author of the upcoming This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All kicked off the event with a brief talk about the increasing demands on librarians to keep up with the onslaught of new technology.  This book is an homage to librarians everywhere – and it is long overdue!

If anyone is interested in a galley of This Book Is Overdue, I have a few to spare.  Send an email to me at librarylovefest at harpercollins dot com and I’ll be happy to send one to you. 

Here is a list of the books I had presented.  Clicking on each title will bring you to its page in our online catalog.  Note: a few of these titles won't hit our catalogs until the beginning of November, so we've put them at the end of the list.  Happy reading!

-Virginia

Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

The Bricklayer by Noah Boyd

31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani


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