April 23rd is World Book Night in the United State. This annual celebration spreads the love of reading from person to person. Tens of thousands of people go out into their communities and give half a million free paperbacks to light and non-readers. It’s more than giving free books to those who don’t regularly read. It’s about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest way – sharing a story.
World Book Night began in the UK in 2011 and launched in the US in 2012. This year Swenson Book Development LLC will be giving books away in the Brooktondale area again. Last year we enjoyed sharing the story of a small town EMT in Population 485 by Michael Perry with the guys working at the Caroline Town Barns, patrons of the Post Office in Brooktondale, and the clerks at the Dandy Mart in Slaterville Springs.
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is the book Swenson Book Development will distribute on April 23rd. A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France with two women, a pilot and her passenger. Maddie is left in the wrecked fuselage of their plane and ‘Verity’ is arrested by the Gestapo. A secret agent captured behind enemy lines, ‘Verity’ must reveal her mission or face execution. Though it is often billed as a Young Adult historical novel, it’s a very grown up story. I loved this book, and I think you will, too.
If you’d like to get involved in World Book Night, you learn more here.
Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel
As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…
My Mother is suffering (and so is the family!) from dementia. She is not a happy person, very difficult to be around her!!
I am a caregiver. My mom is 84 years old – we are in year six of our journey into Alzheimer’s World – I love to read. It is my goal one day to write a book about our adventures and such.
Would love to read another –
Would love any info on Alzheimer’s/dementia that could help in dealing with this horrible disease. Some of the antics performed by those afflicted can be hilarious while at the same time pull on your heart strings.
I’ll be giving out copies of “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” by Maria Semple. This book had me rolling in laughter while caught up in the mysterious disappearance of the main character, an eccentric and sometimes anti-social groundbreaking architect, Bernadette. The setting in Washington state is so close to Ithaca culture I couldn’t resist choosing it for my WBN giveaway.