Carolyn

Carolyn's brief bio and recs.

By Robyn Okrant
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9781599952390
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Center Street, 01/01/2010

In 2008, deciding to live her life according to Oprah Winfrey, Robyn Okrant pledges herself to study the "way" (and therefore to live by) what Oprah and her team of experts prescribe to the audience of Oprah Winfrey. In Living Oprah, author Robyn Okrant retells and outlines her year of living life according to the Goddess of Talk Shows, Oprah Winfrey. Included ongoing records of her blog (LivingOprah.com) as well as clear charts of time and money elaborating on her expenses demonstrate how seriously Okrant takes her project. As she elaborates on the year, her past comes to the front, and as a book, it reads well as a memoir. As readers, we see the somewhat naive but rather open-minded (and sometimes neurotic) Okrant revealing pressure and fear of Oprah recommendations through her genuine fan's mind. Her plot to "do the right thing," allows us readers to commiserate with the author. She puts out the "realness" of Oprah as a person. She is clearly enamored with the lifestyle Oprah pushes, but she also realizes the branding that Oprah places on her "experts" in all aspects of life. This almost bizarre case, a point of celebrity influence here, allows us readers to find out what all the hype is about regarding the Oprah lovers of the world.


By Junot Diaz, Junot Da-Az
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781594483295
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Books, 09/01/2008

With a unique voice, Daz creates an ultimate novel of love, understanding and growing up. In developing his unique work, he ties in a bilingual and indeed, a poetic stand of the world weaving stories together tightly and then loosely, and then tightly again. He draws the reader in with magnificently enhanced characterization as well as images of heat, beauty and rawness. His depictions of the Dominican Republic, as well as connected history, bring the reader into his deliciously multicultural magicalism; once in the thick of the story, you won't want to put it down for dinner.


By Julie Klausner
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781592405619
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Gotham, 02/01/2010

Klausner takes an all too hysterical topic - dating - and relives her bouts into desiring men while twisting her extreme sense of humor around each tale and gives us all something to laugh about out loud. Making valid points of sense regarding each type of person she attempts to make love her, the author illuminates us readers with the emotional experience she undergoes. Unable to give up on the dating scene, Klausner allows us to see her progress while giving all dateables in her world a shot. And there are a lot of them. By finishing this book, she is on the edge of 30, and she delivers her revelation on the literal eve of the new year. Looking back, she laughs at herself, and relieved to be beyond the tumultuous twenties in dateworld, she looks to the newness and "maturity" of her thirties. Rollicking and completely adorable in an adult woman's way, I Don't Care About Your Rock Band will have you laughing a lot.


New Releases This Month

Angelology (Hardcover)

By Danielle Trussoni
$27.95

"A richly detailed, brilliantly conceived work that opens a golden door into another world-or, even more alluringly, another sphere."
--Lincoln Child

Indie Next List Great Reads - in eBooks

The Staff Recommends:

By Yoko Ogawa
$14.00
I must confess that I purchased this book purely because of its cover - which is absolutely beautiful.  There's something about shiny, blue paperbacks that's really appealed to me lately (also McEwan's On Chesil Beach and Ogawa's previous collection The Diving Pool), and this one juxtaposed pink dogwoods with mathematical symbols (what's not to love?).  I was definitely pleased to find out that the text was equally memorable.  Ogawa tells the tender, simple story of a housekeeper and her son, and the bond they form with a mathematician whose memory only lasts eighty minutes.  The novel explores the nature of memory and relationships while describing several basic mathematical concepts in a really beautiful way that presents numbers as elegant things full of more meaning than simply quantity.  It is a bit peculiar in its mixing of mathematics and writing, but its themes invite reflection, and like most of my favorite books lately, the details are perfect: a character receives the nickname "Root" because his head resembles a square root symbol - perfect.