Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Monday February BCB - Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Product Information:

Good news! Fannie’s back in town--and the town is among the leading characters in her new novel.

Along with Neighbor Dorothy, the lady with the smile in her voice, whose daily radio broadcasts keep us delightfully informed on all the local news, we also meet Bobby, her ten-year-old son, destined to live a thousand lives, most of them in his imagination; Norma and Macky Warren and their ninety-eight-year-old Aunt Elner; the oddly sexy and charismatic Hamm Sparks, who starts off in life as a tractor salesman and ends up selling himself to the whole state and almost the entire country; and the two women who love him as differently as night and day. Then there is Tot Whooten, the beautician whose luck is as bad as her hairdressing skills; Beatrice Woods, the Little Blind Songbird; Cecil Figgs, the Funeral King; and the fabulous Minnie Oatman, lead vocalist of the Oatman Family Gospel Singers.

The time is 1946 until the present. The town is Elmwood Springs, Missouri, right in the middle of the country, in the midst of the mostly joyous transition from war to peace, aiming toward a dizzyingly bright future.

Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible."

Thursday February BCB: Let's Roll by Lisa Beamer and Ken Abraham


From the Back Cover
9-11.
United Flight 93.
You heard hero Todd Beamer’s last words before he and other passengers fought back against the hijackers.
But is that the end of the story?
In Let’s Roll! Todd’s wife, Lisa, reveals what really happened on that ill-fated flight. She offers poignant glimpses of a genuine American hero—his growing-up years and their marriage and last week together. She talks candidly about the devastating day her children learned their daddy had died, the birth of her third child, and how she’s found the confidence to go on in the face of such tragedy and loss.
It’s no wonder that, through this unpretentious homemaker and mother, an entire nation can:
Find hope.
Find inspiration.
Find strength.
LET’S ROLL!