In My Mailbox (3.28.10)

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. Head over there to see what everyone else received this week!

I've put myself on library probation, and actually ended up returning a couple of  books unread this week, which I hate to do but feel like is necessary. Regardless, a few books arrived in my mailbox this week, all of which I'm really excited to get to.

I won a copy of Still Alice by Lisa Genova from Kay at My Random Acts of Reading. Thanks so much Kay!! Here's the blurb from the back of the book:

Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty years old, she's a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned expert in linguistics with a successful husband and three grown children. When she becomes increasingly disoriented and forgetful, a tragic diagnosis changes her life--and her relationship with her family and the world--forever.

At once beautiful and terrifying, Still Alice is a moving and vivid depiction of life with early onset Alzheimer's disease that is as compelling as A Beautiful Mind and as unforgettable as Ordinary People.

Having had a family member die of Alzheimer's, this is a book that I think is really important for me to read and I'm glad to finally get my hands on a copy! 

Keeping the Feast by Paula Butterini arrived this week from Bookmooch. I've been wanting to read this one since the first reviews came out - I'm really developing a taste for foodie memoirs, and this one sounds like a really inspiring read! Here's a summary from Goodreads:

A story of food and love, injury and healing, Keeping the Feast is the triumphant memoir of one couple's nourishment and restoration in Italy after a period of tragedy, and the extraordinary sustaining powers of food, family, and friendship.

Paula and John met in Italy, fell in love, and four years later, married in Rome. But less than a month after the wedding, tragedy struck. They had transferred from their Italian paradise to Warsaw and while reporting on an uprising in Romania, John was shot and nearly killed by sniper fire. Although he recovered from his physical wounds in less than a year, the process of healing had just begun. Unable to regain his equilibrium, he sank into a deep sadness that reverberated throughout their relationship. It was the abrupt end of what they'd known together, and the beginning of a new phase of life neither had planned for. All of a sudden, Paula was forced to reexamine her marriage, her husband, and herself.

I also received a copy Guest House by Barbara K. Richardson for review from Anne Staszalek at The Book Report Network. The first chapter is available online at the author's website, and after reading that I decided this was a book I definitely want to read. Here's the blurb from the back cover:

Driving home from work on a summer afternoon, Melba Burns witnesses a nightmare collision. She abandons her car, quits her job, and stops driving. The wreck ends Melba's desire for success at any cost; she retreats into her beloved old farmhouse yearning for a simpler peace. But peace has never met Melba's stunning to roommate JoLee Garry, a magnet for messes and trouble. JoLee brings a series of unexpected guests who transform Melba's solo life into something different, darker, and richer.

Finally, I also received a copy of Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden for review from the author. I heard great things about her previous novel, Sugar, so I'm looking forward to reading her latest novel. Here's the blurb from the back cover:

Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era. Blending fact and fiction, Glorious is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and ultimately revival offers a candid and true portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.

It is a novel informed by the question that is the title of Langston Hughes's famous poem:  What happens to a dream deferred? Based on years of research, this heart-wrenching fictional account is given added resonance by factual events coupled with real and imagined larger-than-life characters. Glorious is an audacious exploration into the nature of self-hatred, love, possession, ego, betrayal, and, finally, redemption.