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Editorial Content for Wingwalkers

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jana Siciliano

Wing-walking as a daredevil activity is the stuff of American dreams. Humans trying to overcome gravity has been a fascinating pastime since the advent of the flying machine. The earliest known instance of someone standing on the wing of a powered aircraft occurred on a biplane in 1911. An Englishman named Samuel Franklin Cody took his two stepsons for a flight, and the boys balanced themselves on the lower wing. In August 1913, Commandant Félix locked the controls of his "Nieuport-Dunne" biplane over France and climbed out along the lower wing. Read More

Teaser

WINGWALKERS follows the adventures of Della and Zeno Marigold, a pair of Great Depression barnstormers who are funding their journey west by performing death-defying aerial stunts from town to town, and braids them with the real-life exploits of author (and thwarted fighter pilot) William Faulkner. When their paths cross during a dramatic air show, there will be unexpected consequences for all.

Promo

WINGWALKERS follows the adventures of Della and Zeno Marigold, a pair of Great Depression barnstormers who are funding their journey west by performing death-defying aerial stunts from town to town, and braids them with the real-life exploits of author (and thwarted fighter pilot) William Faulkner. When their paths cross during a dramatic air show, there will be unexpected consequences for all.

About the Book

A former WWI ace pilot and his wingwalker wife barnstorm across Depression-era America, performing acts of aerial daring.

“They were over Georgia somewhere, another nameless hamlet whose dusty streets lay flocked and trembling with the pink handbills they’d rained from the sky that morning, the ones that announced the coming of DELLA THE DARING DEVILETTE, who would DEFY THE HEAVENS, shining like a DAYTIME STAR, a WING-WALKING WONDER borne upon the wings of CAPTAIN ZENO MARIGOLD, a DOUBLE ACE of the GREAT WAR, who had ELEVEN AERIAL VICTORIES over the TRENCHES OF FRANCE.”

Wingwalkers is one-part epic adventure, one-part love story and, as is the signature for critically acclaimed author Taylor Brown, one large part American history. The novel follows the adventures of Della and Zeno Marigold, a pair of Great Depression barnstormers who are funding their journey west by performing death-defying aerial stunts from town to town, and braids them with the real-life exploits of author (and thwarted fighter pilot) William Faulkner. When their paths cross during a dramatic air show, there will be unexpected consequences for all.

Brown has taken a tantalizing tidbit from Faulkner’s real life --- an evening's chance encounter with two daredevils in New Orleans --- and set it aloft in this fabulous novel. With scintillating prose and an action-packed plot, he has captured the true essence of a bygone era and shed a new light on the heart and motivations of one of America's greatest authors.

Audiobook available, read by Mark Bramhall

Editorial Content for Little Foxes Took Up Matches

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

When he was two years old, Mitya Noskov --- who was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in Russia --- swallowed a needle. At least according to family lore. This needle never exited and thus conferred upon him either a fragility (from his family’s perspective) or (in his own mind) a shield from harm. This mode of survival, teetering between danger and toughness, comes to characterize Mitya in Katya Kazbek’s LITTLE FOXES TOOK UP MATCHES. Read More

Teaser

When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: Is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels? After suffering horrific abuse from his cousin, Vovka, who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong.

Promo

When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: Is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels? After suffering horrific abuse from his cousin, Vovka, who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong.

About the Book

An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a powerful portrait of a family --- Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch.

When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: Is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels?

After suffering horrific abuse from his cousin, Vovka, who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong. His experiences are interlaced with a retelling of a foundational Russian fairy tale, Koschei the Deathless, offering an element of fantasy to the brutal realities of Mitya’s everyday life.

Told with deep empathy, humor and a bit of surreality, LITTLE FOXES TOOK UP MATCHES is a revelation about the life of one community in a country of turmoil and upheaval, glimpsed through the eyes of a precocious and empathetic child, whose heart and mind understand that there are often more than two choices. 

Audiobook available, read by Jefferson Mays

Editorial Content for On the Bus with Bill Monroe: My Five-Year Ride with the Father of Blue Grass

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

Mark Hembree had long hair when he first decided to try out as a bass player for Bill Monroe’s band. That would have to go, along with many preconceptions and a lot of sleep. What would fill his world for the next five years (1979-84) was the golden opportunity to travel and perform with the acknowledged “Father of Blue Grass.” Read More

Teaser

A backstage audition led Mark Hembree into a five-year stint (1979–1984) as the bassist for Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. Hembree’s journey included playing at the White House and on the acclaimed album Master of Bluegrass. But it also put him on a collision course with the rigors of touring, the mysteries of Southern culture, and the complex personality of bandleader legend Bill Monroe. Whether it’s figuring out the best time for breakfast (early) or for beating the boss at poker (never), Hembree gives readers an up-close look at the occasionally exalting, often unglamorous life of a touring musician in the sometimes baffling, always colorful company of a bluegrass icon.

Promo

A backstage audition led Mark Hembree into a five-year stint (1979–1984) as the bassist for Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. Hembree’s journey included playing at the White House and on the acclaimed album Master of Bluegrass. But it also put him on a collision course with the rigors of touring, the mysteries of Southern culture, and the complex personality of bandleader legend Bill Monroe. Whether it’s figuring out the best time for breakfast (early) or for beating the boss at poker (never), Hembree gives readers an up-close look at the occasionally exalting, often unglamorous life of a touring musician in the sometimes baffling, always colorful company of a bluegrass icon.

About the Book

A backstage audition led Mark Hembree into a five-year stint (1979–1984) as the bassist for Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. Hembree’s journey included playing at the White House and on the acclaimed album Master of Bluegrass. But it also put him on a collision course with the rigors of touring, the mysteries of Southern culture, and the complex personality of bandleader legend Bill Monroe. Whether it’s figuring out the best time for breakfast (early) or for beating the boss at poker (never), Hembree gives readers an up-close look at the occasionally exalting, often unglamorous life of a touring musician in the sometimes baffling, always colorful company of a bluegrass icon.

The amusing story of a Yankee fish out of water, ON THE BUS WITH BILL MONROE mixes memoir with storytelling to recount the adventures of a Northerner learning new ways and the Old South.

April 29, 2022

Yesterday I drove to Watchung Booksellers to see Theresa Brown talk about her book, HEALING: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient. It was my first in-store book event since February 2020. HEALING looks at Theresa’s life both as a nurse and as a breast cancer patient. She alternates talking about her own experience as a patient with chapters about her caregiving, and she shares brilliant insight into both sides of the world of medicine. She was interviewed brilliantly by N. West Moss, the author of FLESH & BLOOD: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life. You can see me with Theresa above. It’s nice to see live book events coming back. I love this bookstore, which is near my hometown, and I was so happy to get to say hi to one of the store’s owners, Margot Sage-EL, who has co-owned the store for as long as Bookreporter has been around.

Which of the following fiction titles releasing in May do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.

April 29, 2022, 623 voters

April 29, 2022 - May 13, 2022

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of April 29 - May 13.

We are kicking off this year’s Mother’s Day Author Blog series with Kimberly Belle, the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of seven novels, including her recently released psychological thriller, MY DARLING HUSBAND. When Kimberly’s children were young, life in the Belle household was routinely chaotic. Although there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get everything done, she would always find time each night to read books to her kids. As Kimberly so eloquently puts it, “these little moments make the biggest memories, and some of the most precious.”

Summer Reading 2022

All summer long, we at Bookreporter.com have been sharing some great summer book picks with our Summer Reading Feature. While our series of 24-hour contests have ended, we encourage you to take a look at our featured titles for some sizzling summer reading ideas.

» Click here to see the winners of this year's Summer Reading contests.

Edgar Allan Poe Awards 2022

The Mystery Writers of America has announced the winners for the 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television published or produced in 2021.

Los Angeles Times Book Prizes 2021

The 42nd annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded on April 22nd. The best books of 2021 were recognized in 12 categories, along with the winners of the Robert Kirsch and Innovator’s awards.