Giveaway - The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

Number of Copies To Give Away: 5
Host: Hachette Book Group

RULES:
I have 5 copies to give away to my readers. The contest will end June 20, 2009. To enter:
1. Go to RV Life and follow the instructions at the bottom of the page.


From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Pelecanos (Drama City) delivers a dignified, character-driven epic that succeeds as both literary novel and page-turner. In 1985, the body of a 14-year-old girl turns up in a Washington, D.C., park, the latest in a series of murders by a killer the media dub "The Night Gardener." T.C. Cook, the aging detective on the case, works with a quiet, almost monomaniacal, focus. Also involved are two young uniformed cops, Gus Ramone, who's diligent, conscientious and unimpressed by heroics, and Dan "Doc" Holiday, an adrenaline junkie who's decidedly less straight.

Fast forward 20 years. Detective Ramone, now married with kids of his own, investigates the murder of one of his teenage son's friends. The homicide closely resembles the earlier unsolved Night Gardener murders. Holiday, now an alcoholic chauffeur and bodyguard, follows the case on his own and tracks down Cook, long retired but still obsessed with the original murders. While the three work together toward a suspenseful ending, Pelecanos emphasizes the fallacy of "solving" a murder and explores the ripple effects of violent crime on society.

Listen to an excerpt

Visit www.georgepelecanos.com

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Giveaway - The Man's' Book by Thomas Fink

The Essential Guide For The Modern Man - The Man's Book
Little Brown & Co
Number of Copies To Give Away: 5
Host: Hachette Book Group

RULES:
I have 5 copies of The Man's Book - to give away to my readers. The contest will end June 15, 2009. To enter:
1. Go to Nike Outlet and tell me the name of your favorite shoe.
2. For a second entry Follow me on Twitter.
3. For a third entry - in your entry comment below include a funny T-shirt slogan that encompasses the ideas of manly men.

Winners will be selected from those who have followed these instructions, by random.org and posted on this lens.

Good Luck! READ THE REVIEW ON THIS BOOK HERE

Review: the Man's book

Although guys I know will ever have to turn off an atom bomb in under ten seconds, or fall out of an airplane without a parachute, or have to ski backwards down a mountain on one ski while engaging in a machine gun battle with ruthless villains; men still like to think they COULD be James Bond - even if it's just to pick up women.

The Essential Guide For The Modern Man - the Man's book by Thomas Fink provides guys with the opportunity to learn all the little nuances that give normal men the confidence to become 007 - if only in their own minds.

This amazing book is filled with hundreds of useful "manly tips" from learning the appropriate place to stand at a urinal, to learning postal acronyms to text your love (BURMA -be undressed ready my angel).

Want to learn the proper way to tie a tie? Find the best trees for firewood? Make the perfect Singapore Sling or championship chili? Find the best age of your bride at marriage, the best car, the best cigar or the best men's film? The Man's Book will tell all this and more.

There are also segments on "manly writers" like Ernest Hemingway and of course, Ian Fleming.

As you can see, the author, Thomas Fink, an American living and working in London, has compiled answers to every man's burning questions. Interestingly, he is a physicist at the Curie Institute/CNRS and the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and is currently working on self-assembly: when you put many copies of one or more building blocks into a box and shake it, a macroscopic structure spontaneously emerges. (Oh to have a job like that - no wonder he writes books in his spare time!)

The Man's Book is full of information for your 007 and is top on my Christmas list for the man in my life this year. I figure if he learns just one or two things from it I will be able to say, "Here he is, the man that men want to be and women want to be with - and he's all mine."

Five Stars!

Enter before June 15, 2009 to win a copy of this book.

Review: The Host by Stephanie Meyer

I must admit, I didn't think I was going to like THE HOST by Stephenie Meyer. I hadn't read the Twilight series, but I saw the movie and didn't like it. So I was surprised at the quality of writing starting on the very first page.

The Host is set in a place very familiar with me - the Arizona desert - earth, but a very different - yet eerily familiar earth than the one we know now. This new earth has been taken over by silvery parasites calling themselves "souls". The souls for the most part are kind and gentle. Once they have been inserted in humans, the human appears normal, the "souls" have all of the memories of their hosts and go about their lives in a nonviolent manner. Yet, the original occupant of that body disappears.

How could we, as humans, be sympathetic to such an insidious virus? Stephanie Meyers not only make us sympathetic, but in the cheering section of one of the "souls". One whose gentleness and goodwill win over those true humans still around her.

Stephanie Meyers takes the unbelievable from the fantasy novel and replaces it with "what if". This novel is very different from most fantasy novels and a breath of fresh air. A beautifully imagined earth and fully developed characters make THE HOST a must read novel.