Wednesday, August 5, 2020

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn - cover reveal!

My favorite book of 2019 was New York Times bestselling author #KateQuinn's The Huntress, which I handsold widely and as recently as yesterday.  I am super excited for her next #HistoricalFiction release, #TheRoseCode, and delighted to be a part of the #CoverRelease today!  You can preorder it at Bookmarks, and I encourage you also to sign up for Kate's newsletter.

Happy reading!


ABOUT THE BOOK
The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.

1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter--the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger--and their true enemy--closer...

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Unexpected Roger Miller

After sending my car away with the tow truck (almost certainly the alternator, which we replaced back in February, so hopefully this won't cost us anything but inconvenience)...

Big Frog <watching Barnwood Builders on DIY>: He's not alone, the guy with the steadycam is there with him!
me: You can't use a crowbar and a steadycam at the same time!
Big Frog: But you can be happy if you put your mind to it!

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Hinged women's retreat - Most impactful

Grace Pres is on the big side of small churches - about 70 people on a Sunday morning.  So to have 19 of our ladies attend a weekend women's conference is a big deal.  Off the top, half the church is male and half the church is kids, so this was a big portion of the eligible demographic!  (Kudos to the men who stayed home as involved parents... and remember, it's not babysitting if they're your own kids.)  The biggest collective takeaway, I think, is that we need more women's events for us to get together and know each other better.  Stay tuned.  I have an idea at the end.  And if you were among the ladies not able to join us this time, please know we missed you and want you to come with us to future events!

Friday we had 5 local speakers over dinner, and I took pages of notes before losing my workbook (I think it got cleared when dinner got cleared.)  But the closer said to look over our notes and write down one single thing that most impacted us, so I remember this:

We are all broken people, born broken into a broken world.  So be compassionate.

And if that's all I've got, that's pretty good.



Saturday we spent the day in Ephesians, which, having grown up at CPC under Allen Harris, I always consider time in Ephesians a wink from God that I need a refresher and a reminder and to just dive back in.

Most impactful:
from Melissa Kruger, on It Matters What You Know, Eph 1:3-23
(CPC's mission statement drew from Eph 1:16-23: To know Him, to know Our Hope, and to know His Power.)

It matters what we know to be true.

Prayers reveal our hearts.

What do you think about when you're not thinking?

And a super-cool Oprah-based illustration:  If Melissa handed out $100,000,000 inheritance checks to each of us but we couldn't cash them until next month, how would that change how we lived today?  Where would we eat?  What would we do?  What would we give to?  It changes our decision-making.  

But then if she started handing out pennies for today, and one got 50 and another 200, another 5, and another 5000, would you fight and complain over "you got the best portion"?  I like her car better.  I like her house better.  Her family has it all together and mine's a mess.  What we have on earth is just pennies!  Don't compare your house/job/situations!  (I'm satisfied with just a cottage below/A little silver and a little gold/But in that city where the ransomed will shine/I want a gold one that's silver lined!  I've got a mansion just over the hilltop/In that bright land where we'll never grow old/And someday yonder we will nevermore wander/But walk the streets that are purest gold.)

What am I trying to do? 
& what am I praying about being able to do?

What happens when we don't have hope?
What happens when we don't think we have riches?
What happens when we think we're powerless?

We have RESOURCES AVAILABLE to us!
WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?



Courtney Denton on It Matters Who You Are (Eph 2:1-10)

The importance of BUT GOD.

We were dead, and the dead cannot save themselves.  BUT GOD!  A one-way love, that relentlessly pursues us, with a love we do not earn but we desperately need.

Words do not cause faith, but faith is manifested in good works, just as thunder contributes nothing to lightning but is a result of it.  

God could not make Stradivarius violins withiut Antonio Stradivari.  ~Antonio Stradivari
We get to be part of the process!



Karen Hodge on It Matters How You Walk (Eph 3:14-4:16)

We BECOME what we BEHOLD (worship), and we are continually BECOMING what we will BE (walk).

God's love surpasses knowledge, but I want to know all I can.
Magnitude, in all directions:
1) Wide enough for all nations
2) Long from eternity past to eternity future
3) Raise us to the heavenly places 
4) Deep to reach from heaven and reach us
5) Filled up to overflowing

There is no neutral in life, we're always moving on a trajectory. 

1) What are you beholding?
2) How are you growing? 
3) How are you going to step into worship this week?

So...

Again, the biggest collective takeaway seems to be that we need more women's events for us to get together and know each other better.  So here's my idea:

Girls' Night Out
for intergenerational ladies: Depression-era, Boomers, Gen X-ers, Millenials, and that weird micro-generation that I personally self-identify with, the Oregon Trail generation.  From let's say middle school age up thru "not dead yet".
Save the date: Friday, March 13, 6-8:30pm.  We'll get a table, maybe two or three, at Sing Into Spring, which I admit is also a benefit dinner for Heart of the Triad Choral Society.  Tickets are $20 (less for kids), and we will also have a silent auction which you are welcome to but not obliged to bid on things.  My goal with this is to get together with some of you and just share our lives together!  

What most impacted you?  And who wants to come to dinner?

Thursday, December 12, 2019

My Fave Reads - 2019



Here's my 2019 favorites -- not necessarily titles published this year, although most are, but my favorite things I read this year.  I love that at Bookmarks everyone on staff, booksellers, store managers, and operations alike, gets a year-end endcap to group our staff picks.  I am not likely to hit my Goodreads challenge this year, but I did complete 44 books, not including rereads, and I might get a few more in before the ball drops to ring in 2020.  Curiously, this year was an exceptional year for me in audio -- five of my nine top picks I did on audiobook via libro.fm, which is an audio subscription that allows you to support your local indie bookstore with your audiobook purchases.  (I know there are only eight books on my endcap.  There is a separate libro.fm endcap in the store that we all got to contribute to.)


The Sentence is Death

by Anthony Horowitz

Mystery/Thriller

(Self-proclaimed) brilliant private investigator.

Screenwriter/middle grade author.

And a bloody, wine-covered corpse.

What could go wrong?


Me

by Elton John

Arts - Music

What’s your favorite Elton John song? 
I can’t pick just one!  But it might be Goodbye Yellow Brick Road… or Candle in the Wind 1997… or I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues...



The Parker Inheritance

by Varian Johnson

Middle Grade

White letters on black pages

Black letters on white pages

Black letters on grey pages

Different voices, different times, and a treasure to be found.  An intriguing take on the Civil Rights Movement


Over the Moon

by Natalie Lloyd

Middle Grade

also audiobook thru libro.fm -- the only audiobook I’ve ever know where they hired a composer!
Are you brave enough to dream?

WANTED

Brave and wiry young fellers (orphans preferred)

Unafraid to ride and race and fly in the fear of certain death!

Great riches await!


The Huntress 

by Kate Quinn

Historical Fiction

also audiobook thru libro.fm

I want to be Nina when I grow up.

She’s the last eyewitness to what The Huntress did when the Nazis set her on their prey.

And she’s one of Die Nachthexen, the Night Witches, the Russian female fighter pilots.


Every Tool’s a Hammer 

by Adam Savage

Science & Technology

also audiobook thru libro.fm; read by the author

Let’s hear it for the Makers!

Success principles work here too?  It’s not just business and self help books that have success principles.  Memoir by Mythbusters’ and Tested’s Adam Savage.


Tiger vs Nightmare 

by Emily Tetri

Middle Grade Graphic Novel

You can do it!! 

The Monster under the bed keeps away Nightmare, but what to do when the Monster needs Tiger’s help?  


A Place to Land 

by Barry Wittenstein, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

Who inspires the inspirations?  


Mythos 

by Stephen Fry

audiobook thru Libro.fm; read by the author

We’ve all had a prof who was just exuberant about their favorite topic and excited to tell you *every*thing about it.  Even better if they have a great voice, or a British accent, or both.


Stephen Fry talks thru an enormous breadth of Greek mythology with all the delight of a child and the word nerdery of a gleeful etymologist, drawing sometimes-ridiculous links between the stories and word origins and English cognates.  It doesn’t make sense that it would work, but it is a joy.






Monday, September 9, 2019

A New Day

This is the beginning of a new day. 
God has given me this day to use as I will. 
I can waste it or use it for good.

What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. 

When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, 

leaving something in its place I have traded for it. 


I want it to be a gain, not a loss; good not evil; 

success, not failure, 

in order that I shall not regret 

the price I paid for it.” 


– Dr W Heartsill Wilson

written in 1954

original title "A Salesman's Prayer"

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Best dessert

<I take a passing glance at the dessert menu (just one for the table) and pass it to my niece and her bf>

<They glance at the menu and exchange an extended significant glance that almost looks like an exchange of Ha (breath) and also almost looks like a head-to-head>

me: Ummm... that looks like a "you know what I'm going to say but I'm waiting for you to say it to see if you really know what I want."

niece: What I want and what he will want are not the same thing. 

me: You can each get something...

bf: We can get yours and share it.

me: So... which is it?

niece: The creme brulée.  

me: Of COURSE the creme brulée!

<discussion continues and I make Big Frog tell his story about Mexican food>

me, in passing: I wonder what creme brulée is in Spanish.  ¿Como se dice creme brulée?

<niece types>

me: Are you Yelping already?  <knows that usually would be me typing>

niece: I'm Google translating.  <pause>  Flan.  Of course it's flan.



This weekend I discovered the joy of having an adult niece, from drinking (responsibly!) together, to my positively pressuring her to get Fairy Hair (she did, in a very professional matches-and-shines, flashes-in-the-sunlight color, whereas I put Easter-egg-colored sparkles in mine), to late-night tabletop gaming.  And Biltmore.  You've met me; you don't even have to ask.  Better believe we went to Biltmore.  Getting to walk around downtown Kernersville this morning on a sunny, 60F+ day?  Love it.  C'mon... move South!