January 15, 2019
 January 15, 2019 This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that releases this winter. Read more about it, and enter our Winter Reading Contest by Wednesday, January 16th at 11:59am ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE MILK LADY OF BANGALORE: An Unexpected Adventure by Shoba Narayan, which is now available in paperback. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!  Our First Featured Book and Contest:  The elevator door opens. A cow stands inside, angled diagonally to fit. It doesn’t look uncomfortable, merely impatient. “It is for the housewarming ceremony on the third floor,” explains the woman who stands behind the cow, holding it loosely with a rope. She has the sheepish look of a person caught in a strange situation who is trying to act as normal as possible. She introduces herself as Sarala and smiles reassuringly. The door closes. I shake my head and suppress a grin. It is good to be back. When Shoba Narayan --- who has just returned to India with her husband and two daughters after years in the United States --- asks whether said cow might bless her apartment next, it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between our author and Sarala, who also sells fresh milk right across the street from that thoroughly modern apartment building. The two women connect over not only cows but also family, food and life. When Shoba agrees to buy Sarala a new cow, they set off looking for just the right heifer, and what was at first a simple economic transaction becomes something much deeper, though never without a hint of slapstick. THE MILK LADY OF BANGALORE immerses us in the culture, customs, myths, religion, sights and sounds of a city in which the 21st century and the ancient past coexist like nowhere else in the world. It’s a true story of bridging divides, of understanding other ways of looking at the world, and of human connections and animal connections, and it’s an irresistible adventure of two strong women and the animals they love. - Click here to read an excerpt. Click here to enter the contest by 11:59am ET This is a special newsletter for our Winter Reading Contests, which will mail on select days between now and Thursday, February 14th. This newsletter is separate from our weekly Bookreporter.com newsletter, which mails every Friday. You can subscribe to that newsletter here. Please visit the other websites in TheBookReportNetwork.com: 20SomethingReads.com, ReadingGroupGuides.com, GraphicNovelReporter.com, Teenreads.com, Kidsreads.com and AuthorsOnTheWeb.com. |
