Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss

Sandi Shilhanek | Biography

January 18, 2009

Friday night I went to dinner and a book signing with several members of the DFWTea Readers group. While at the bookstore what kind of reader would I be if I didn’t take a moment to do a quick perusal of the shelves?

That quick look had me spotting two books on Barak Obama. Then I came home to do an online chat with some friends, and again the talk turned to the incoming president. The combination of these two things has me thinking about biographies.

Do you read biographies? How do you decide whom you are going to read about? I personally am not a big biography reader, and if truth be told can’t remember the last time I read one. However, I did recently buy several about Lucille Ball. I also have a biography about the late Princess Diana in my TBR pile. Will I read them anytime soon? Unlikely. However, should I decide to get educated about either of these two women I’m ready!

Sandi Shllhanek
DFW Tea Readers Group
Readers ‘n ‘ritas … celebrate
passionate literary obsessions

Sandi Shilhanek | The Book Search

December 14, 2008

This week my friend Yvonne has been visiting from England. One of the things that we try to accomplish when she visits is to see how many bookstores we can peruse in the Dallas area. Often while we are in the bookstore Yvonne’s cell phone will ring, and it will be another friend of ours from Hawaii.

The conversation almost always starts with what book are you looking at? Does it look good? Oh, I think I might want a copy of it too. Yvonne being the generous sort is always willing to contribute to someone else’s tbr pile, so we add book upon book to the basket we’re toting, and eventually try to head to the checkout stand.

So last spring Yvonne is in Dallas visiting, and the phone call comes. This time it’s slightly different. I’d like a book that I think is red, it might have heart in the title and might have been written by someone named Kane, or is it Cain, is that a first or last name? She had no clue! How in the world did she expect us to find this book?

Well, Yvonne is nothing if not determined, and I’m not far behind her when the mood strikes. We were a sight to be seen scouring the stores looking for a book. The salespeople were trying to be helpful, but we’re like we have very little information, and don’t think you can help us with what we have.

Did we ever find the book? We did! Are you as surprised about that as we were? How did it happen you may ask? We were in line to check out, and Yvonne did a quick check of a bargain book table, and there was a red book with the title Heartsick, and the author’s name was Chelsea Cain. We had no idea whether it was the correct book or not, but thought we had nothing to lose by buying it. As it turned out it was the correct book, we lucked out!

So, have you ever tried to search out a book with little to no information about it? Were you as successful as Yvonne and I were? Did you give up the search? If you gave up the search did you ever end up finding the book?

Sandi

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