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Books Read
Showing posts with label Don't Let Me Go. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don't Let Me Go. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
WWW Wednesdays September 12
WWW Wednesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Clicking on the book covers will take you to Goodreads
for more information about the books listed here.
for more information about the books listed here.
What are you currently reading?
Last-Minute Love by Romi Moondi
for CLP Blog Tours
Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian
I am still listening to this one on CD for my book group this month.
What did you recently finish reading?
Don't Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde
This book is by the author that wrote Pay It Forward. Did you ever see that movie? I loved it! I had no idea this was the same author, the story just intrigued me. It's a great read. My thoughts are here
What do you think you will read next?
Finding Lucas by Samantha Stroh Bailey
for CLP Blog Tours
I do have a little time before this tour so maybe I'll just pick something from my TBR list. I have plenty there that I have been wanting to read.
What's on your WWW this week?
Leave me a comment and
I'll stop by to check out your reads.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Catherine Ryan Hyde talks about her voices
Yesterday, I posted my thoughts on Catherine Ryan Hyde's book Don't Let Me Go. Today, Catherine is here at The Book Bag talking about the voices in her head. And be sure to stop at the end of the post to enter the 2 giveaways.
Hi Catherine, I have a question I always like to ask authors, so here goes ~~
When some people hear voices, we get them medical attention, others end up becoming writers. Does this happen to you? How do you come up with your stories?
First, you’re separating out writers from those who need medical attention. Are you sure that’s wise? Also, I’ve joked about the “hearing voices” thing on many occasions.
When people ask me how I come up with my stories, I try to describe how it feels when a character comes into your head with a story to tell. But I always preface it by saying, “I’m going to be very careful in how I describe this to you, the way characters come talk to me. Because there’s still such a thing as the mandatory three-day psych evaluation.”
The difference between those strapped down and me? Maybe not as wide a chasm as I might like. But I think the main distinction is that, although I experience this conversation as though the character is separate, I know I’m really just hearing from another part of my imagination and experience. I don’t get confused about what’s real and what is not. May that never change!
I always start my stories with a character. I never start with a plot. I think it’s important to put my focus on who something is happening to, rather than what happens. Because if I care deeply for someone, I care about everything that happens to them. Big, small, and in between. If I don’t, there’s almost no story you can draw me into.
So what I’m looking for is a person (imaginary) with a story to tell. At first I’ll “see” them more than hear from them. I’ll see an image of them, usually with the emotional heart of the situation as a backdrop all around them. I’ll take some time to feel what that character is feeling. There may be many emotions flowing through that character before the story is told, but one always seems to form the natural heart of the work. When I have a good bead on that, I’ll invite this character to start telling me their story. Which is really just another way of saying I imagine a story to fit them. I think the advantage of phrasing it the first way is that it preserves the illusion that this is someone else. Which I think (hope) helps my characters not to keep turning out as thinly disguised versions of me. And so long as I know that their separateness is an illusion, I think I’m on solid ground.
But the creative process is a funny thing. I think writers play games with it because we know there’s a degree to which it’s out of our control. So whatever gets words on the page. And the more vivid the experience for the reader, the better. So…if the author can’t get lost in the head of the main character, how can the reader do the same?
This reminds me a little of the experience I used to have with movies when I was younger. I’d go see them in theaters, and, in the dark, completely lose track of myself and experience life through the movie. Then, when it was over, I’d stumble, blinking, out into the light, surprised that the real world was still there. That it had been there all the time.
That’s what an author is doing, I think, when we talk about hearing the characters’ voices in our heads. We are voluntarily stepping out of our own lives to step into the fictional world of someone else. So long as we know that’s what we’re doing, I think we’ll be okay. And if we’re really lucky, and do our job well, the reader can get similarly lost.
You could do worse than to lose yourself in a book. Whether it’s already written and published or not.
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 18 published and forthcoming books. Her newest releases are When You Were Older, Don’t Let Me Go, Jumpstart the World, When I Found You and Second Hand Heart. Forthcoming is Walk Me Home(Transworld UK, Spring 2012).
Other newer novels are Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance, Chasing Windmills The Day I Killed James, and Diary of a Witness. Both Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List. Jumpstart the World was chosen as a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards, received a third place Rainbow Award for Young Adult/Coming of Age Fiction and a tie for first place in Bisexual/Transgender Fiction. Love in the Present Tense enjoyed bestseller status in the UK, where it broke the top ten, spent five weeks on the national bestseller list, was reviewed on a major TV book club, and shortlisted for a Best Read of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.
Older works include the story collection Earthquake Weather, and the novels Funerals for Horses, Pay it Forward, Electric God, and Walter’s Purple Heart.
Pay It Forward was adapted into a major motion picture starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than 23 languages for distribution in over 30 countries. The mass market paperback was released in October 2000 by Pocket Books and quickly became a national bestseller. It is still in print, and was rereleased in a trade paperback edition in April of 2010.
More than 50 of her short stories have been published in The Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Sun and many other journals, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts and the bestselling anthology Dog is my Co-Pilot. Her stories have been honored in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and the Tobias Wolff Award and nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O'Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have been cited in Best American Short Stories.
She is founder and former president (2000-2009) of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with Americorps members at the White House and shared a dais with Bill Clinton.
Connect with Catherine!
Buy the Book!
**Everyone who leaves a comment on the tour page will be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift card! Anyone who purchases their copy of Don't Let Me Go before September 24 and sends their receipt to Samantha (at) ChickLitPlus (dot) com, will get five bonus entries.**
Catherine has 4 backlist titles that will be available for Kindles coming in October! Check out:
And When You Were Older (available now in the UK) will be will be on sale in the US in November - print and eBook!
~ Enter the Rafflecopter below ~
Monday, September 10, 2012
On Tour and a Giveaway: Don't Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Former Broadway dancer and current agoraphobic Billy Shine has not set foot outside his apartment in almost a decade. He has glimpsed his neighbors—beautiful manicurist Rayleen, lonely old Ms. Hinman, bigoted and angry Mr. Lafferty, kind-hearted Felipe, and 9-year-old Grace and her former addict mother Eileen.
But most of them have never seen Billy. Not until Grace begins to sit outside on the building’s front stoop for hours every day, inches from Billy’s patio. Troubled by this change in the natural order, Billy makes it far enough out onto his porch to ask Grace why she doesn’t sit inside where it’s safe. Her answer: “If I sit inside, then nobody will know I’m in trouble. And then nobody will help me.”
Her answer changes everything. ~~synopsis from Goodreads
There are a couple of giveaways going on that you can enter. CLP Blog Tours is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky winner. Check out the tour page, linked at the bottom of this post. The Book Bag is also holding a giveaway for a copy of Don't Let Me Go. Enter using the Rafflecopter below.
My thoughts on Don't Let Me Go ~~
I absolutely fell in love with Grace. What a sweet, caring, wise beyond her years, 9 year old. Her mother is an addict so Grace has to become her own caretaker, in a sense. She befriends Billy, the former dancer who is agoraphobic and has not left his apartment in 12 years. She says to him, when he asks her why she sits outside all the time, “If I sit inside, then nobody will know I’m in trouble. And then nobody will help me.” That just breaks my heart. And that is sort of what has happened to Billy, he sits inside all the time and no one knows he needs help.
Grace's apartment house is full of strangers who go out of their way to avoid each other. Some of them have never even talked to one another, they all just live their own separate lives. And no one is really very happy. Grace changes all that, when one by one she gets them to care for her and then to open up their lives to the others who live around them
Billy and Grace form a very special bond that is just beautiful to watch unfold. They really help each other and protect each other. All of the residents pull together to help Grace survive since her mother isn't there for her. Grace is such a precocious little girl and I loved her honesty - she just tells it like it is, even if they don't want to hear it. One example ~ "It's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "it never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose. At least, I don't think so."
Ms. Hyde also wrote Pay it Forward, which was made into a movie, a movie that I love. I didn't know this book was written by the same person. Because I knew that when I started the book, I was comparing Don't Let me Go to Pay it Forward. There are some similarities; a precocious youngster with a addictive parent, who befriends others with problems of their own and who tries to make the world a better place. But very soon, I stopped comparing the two and was totally immersed in Grace's world. Did I mention that I loved Grace?
This is a beautiful story about how much better the world can be if we all just take the time to reach out to those around us. It's not a preachy story but a wonderful look at a group of people who come to love each other, faults and all.
Other than this book and the movie, Pay it Forward, I am not familiar with other works by Ms. Hyde. I will definitely be reading more of her books. Thanks for the beautiful story, Catherine Ryan Hyde!
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 18 published and forthcoming books. Her newest releases are When You Were Older, Don’t Let Me Go, Jumpstart the World, When I Found You and Second Hand Heart. Forthcoming is Walk Me Home (Transworld UK, Spring 2012).
Other newer novels are Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance, Chasing Windmills The Day I Killed James, and Diary of a Witness. Both Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List. Jumpstart the World was chosen as a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards, received a third place Rainbow Award for Young Adult/Coming of Age Fiction and a tie for first place in Bisexual/Transgender Fiction. Love in the Present Tense enjoyed bestseller status in the UK, where it broke the top ten, spent five weeks on the national bestseller list, was reviewed on a major TV book club, and shortlisted for a Best Read of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.
Older works include the story collection Earthquake Weather, and the novels Funerals for Horses, Pay it Forward, Electric God, and Walter’s Purple Heart.
Pay It Forward was adapted into a major motion picture starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than 23 languages for distribution in over 30 countries. The mass market paperback was released in October 2000 by Pocket Books and quickly became a national bestseller. It is still in print, and was rereleased in a trade paperback edition in April of 2010.
More than 50 of her short stories have been published in The Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Sun and many other journals, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts and the bestselling anthology Dog is my Co-Pilot. Her stories have been honored in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and the Tobias Wolff Award and nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O'Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have been cited in Best American Short Stories.
She is founder and former president (2000-2009) of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with Americorps members at the White House and shared a dais with Bill Clinton.
I absolutely fell in love with Grace. What a sweet, caring, wise beyond her years, 9 year old. Her mother is an addict so Grace has to become her own caretaker, in a sense. She befriends Billy, the former dancer who is agoraphobic and has not left his apartment in 12 years. She says to him, when he asks her why she sits outside all the time, “If I sit inside, then nobody will know I’m in trouble. And then nobody will help me.” That just breaks my heart. And that is sort of what has happened to Billy, he sits inside all the time and no one knows he needs help.
Grace's apartment house is full of strangers who go out of their way to avoid each other. Some of them have never even talked to one another, they all just live their own separate lives. And no one is really very happy. Grace changes all that, when one by one she gets them to care for her and then to open up their lives to the others who live around them
Billy and Grace form a very special bond that is just beautiful to watch unfold. They really help each other and protect each other. All of the residents pull together to help Grace survive since her mother isn't there for her. Grace is such a precocious little girl and I loved her honesty - she just tells it like it is, even if they don't want to hear it. One example ~ "It's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "it never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose. At least, I don't think so."
Ms. Hyde also wrote Pay it Forward, which was made into a movie, a movie that I love. I didn't know this book was written by the same person. Because I knew that when I started the book, I was comparing Don't Let me Go to Pay it Forward. There are some similarities; a precocious youngster with a addictive parent, who befriends others with problems of their own and who tries to make the world a better place. But very soon, I stopped comparing the two and was totally immersed in Grace's world. Did I mention that I loved Grace?
This is a beautiful story about how much better the world can be if we all just take the time to reach out to those around us. It's not a preachy story but a wonderful look at a group of people who come to love each other, faults and all.
Other than this book and the movie, Pay it Forward, I am not familiar with other works by Ms. Hyde. I will definitely be reading more of her books. Thanks for the beautiful story, Catherine Ryan Hyde!
Author Bio:
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 18 published and forthcoming books. Her newest releases are When You Were Older, Don’t Let Me Go, Jumpstart the World, When I Found You and Second Hand Heart. Forthcoming is Walk Me Home (Transworld UK, Spring 2012).
Other newer novels are Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance, Chasing Windmills The Day I Killed James, and Diary of a Witness. Both Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List. Jumpstart the World was chosen as a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards, received a third place Rainbow Award for Young Adult/Coming of Age Fiction and a tie for first place in Bisexual/Transgender Fiction. Love in the Present Tense enjoyed bestseller status in the UK, where it broke the top ten, spent five weeks on the national bestseller list, was reviewed on a major TV book club, and shortlisted for a Best Read of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.
Older works include the story collection Earthquake Weather, and the novels Funerals for Horses, Pay it Forward, Electric God, and Walter’s Purple Heart.
Pay It Forward was adapted into a major motion picture starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than 23 languages for distribution in over 30 countries. The mass market paperback was released in October 2000 by Pocket Books and quickly became a national bestseller. It is still in print, and was rereleased in a trade paperback edition in April of 2010.
More than 50 of her short stories have been published in The Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Sun and many other journals, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts and the bestselling anthology Dog is my Co-Pilot. Her stories have been honored in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and the Tobias Wolff Award and nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O'Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have been cited in Best American Short Stories.
She is founder and former president (2000-2009) of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with Americorps members at the White House and shared a dais with Bill Clinton.
Connect with Catherine!
Buy the Book!
**Everyone who leaves a comment on the tour page will be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift card! Anyone who purchases their copy of Don't Let Me Go before September 24 and sends their receipt to Samantha(at) ChickLitPlus (dot) com, will get five bonus entries.**
Catherine has 4 backlist titles that will be available for Kindles coming in October! Check out:
Funerals for Horses
Earthquake Weather
Electric God
Walter's Purple Heart
And When You Were Older (available now in the UK) will be will be on sale in the US in November - print and eBook!
~ Enter the Rafflecopter below ~
Catherine has 4 backlist titles that will be available for Kindles coming in October! Check out:
Funerals for Horses
Earthquake Weather
Electric God
Walter's Purple Heart
And When You Were Older (available now in the UK) will be will be on sale in the US in November - print and eBook!
~ Enter the Rafflecopter below ~
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
WWW Wednesdays September 5
WWW Wednesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Clicking on the book covers will take you to Goodreads
for more information about the books listed here.
for more information about the books listed here.
What are you currently reading?
Don't Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde
This book is by the author that wrote Pay It Forward. Did you ever see that movie? I loved it! I had no idea this was the same author, the story just intrigued me. It's a great read.
I have read and liked other books by Chris and I am listening to this one on CD for my book group this month.
What did you recently finish reading?
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Nearly Departed in Deadwood by Ann Charles
Loved it! Just the right amount of romance, suspense, murder and crazy fun! Can't wait to get started on book #2! 
In Need of Therapy by Tracie Danister
Great story and wonderful writing. I will be posting my thoughts soon.
What do you think you will read next?
I read the first book in this series, Year of the Chick. My thoughts are here, it was a hoot. I am excited to read book #2.
What's on your WWW this week?
Leave me a comment and
I'll stop by to check out your reads.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Showcase Sunday #7
Showcase Sunday is a weekly meme hosted by Vicky at Books, Biscuits & Tea, where we show off the books and eBooks we receive each week.
Come join the fun!
After a little dry spell there, my mailbox saw a ton of activity this week! I love it!! It is so exciting to come home from work and see those packages peaking out of the mailbox, don't ya think? Most of the ones I got this week are review books, so it looks like I have my work cut out for me. Such a hard life. *sigh*
Click on the books covers to find out more about the books on Goodreads.
Bought
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
I have already read this one and LOVED it.
This is going to be my pick for our book club next month. I am so excited for the group to read it!
Won
Beach Season by Cathy Lamb, Holly Chamberlin and Rosalind Noonan
I won this one from ReadingGroupChoices
It will make a perfect summer time read!
For Review
Being Anti-Social by Leigh K. Cunningham
Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth
Don't Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde
The Healer of Fox Hollow by Joann Rose Leonard
Memories by Deanna Lynn Sletten
What are you showcasing this week?
Leave me a comment or a link so I can stop by and check out your books!
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