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Editorial Content for The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

At just about two-and-a-half-feet tall, Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump Stratton nevertheless seemed, in her career as a performer, larger than life. Discovered by P.T. Barnum after she had left home at 17 to entertain on a riverboat, "Vinnie" spent the rest of her years in the public eye. While the basic outline of her life is well known, her motivations and emotions have remained a mystery since her death in 1919. But in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. Read More

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Melanie Benjamin, author of ALICE I HAVE BEEN, shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a 19th-century icon and inspiration --- and whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength.

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Melanie Benjamin, author of ALICE I HAVE BEEN, shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a 19th-century icon and inspiration --- and whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength.

About the Book

In her national bestseller Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin imagined the life of the woman who inspired Alice in Wonderland. Now, in this jubilant new novel, Benjamin shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a nineteenth century icon and inspiration—and whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength.
 
“Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it.”
 
She was only two-foot eight-inches tall, but her legend reaches out to us more than a century later. As a child, Mercy Lavinia “Vinnie” Bump was encouraged to live a life hidden away from the public. Instead, she reached out to the immortal impresario P. T. Barnum, married the tiny superstar General Tom Thumb in the wedding of the century, and transformed into the world’s most unexpected celebrity.

Here, in Vinnie’s singular and spirited voice, is her amazing adventure—from a showboat “freak” revue where she endured jeering mobs to her fateful meeting with the two men who would change her life: P. T. Barnum and Charles Stratton, AKA Tom Thumb. Their wedding would captivate the nation, preempt coverage of the Civil War, and usher them into the White House and the company of presidents and queens. But Vinnie’s fame would also endanger the person she prized most: her similarly-sized sister, Minnie, a gentle soul unable to escape the glare of Vinnie’s spotlight.

A barnstorming novel of the Gilded Age, and of a woman’s public triumphs and personal tragedies, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb is the irresistible epic of a heroine who conquered the country with a heart as big as her dreams—and whose story will surely win over yours.

Content for Dick Francis's Gamble

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jennifer McCord

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Nicholas "Foxy" Foxton, a former jockey, is out for a day at the Grand National races when his friend and co-worker Herb Kovak is murdered, execution style, right in front of him --- and 60,000 other potential witnesses. As he struggles to come to terms with Kovak's seemingly inexplicable death, Foxton begins to question everything, from how well he knew his friend to how much he understands his employer.

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Nicholas "Foxy" Foxton, a former jockey, is out for a day at the Grand National races when his friend and co-worker Herb Kovak is murdered, execution style, right in front of him --- and 60,000 other potential witnesses. As he struggles to come to terms with Kovak's seemingly inexplicable death, Foxton begins to question everything, from how well he knew his friend to how much he understands his employer.

About the Book

Felix Francis continues his father's New York Times bestselling legacy with another edge-of-your-seat read that's classic Francis.

Nicholas "Foxy" Foxton, a former jockey who suffered a career- ending injury, is out for a day at the Grand National races when his friend and coworker Herb Kovak is murdered, execution style, right in front of him-and 60,000 other potential witnesses. Foxton and Kovak were both independent financial advisers at Lyall & Black, a firm specializing in extreme-risk investments.

As he struggles to come to terms with Kovak's seemingly inexplicable death, Foxton begins to question everything, from how well he knew his friend to how much he understands about his employer. Was Kovak's murder a case of mistaken identity...or something more sinister?

Editorial content for It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Maggie Harding

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Everyone’s favorite Idiot Girl, Laurie Notaro, is just trying to find the right fit, whether it’s in the adorable blouse that looks charming on the mannequin but leaves her in a literal bind or in her neighborhood after she’s shamefully exposed at a holiday party by delivering a low-quality rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Promo

Laurie Notaro is just trying to find the right fit --- whether it's in the blouse that looks charming on the mannequin but leaves her in a literal bind, or in her neighborhood after she's shamefully exposed at a holiday party. Notaro makes misstep after riotous misstep as she shares tales of marriage and family.

About the Book

Everyone’s favorite Idiot Girl, Laurie Notaro, is just trying to find the right fit, whether it’s in the adorable blouse that looks charming on the mannequin but leaves her in a literal bind or in her neighborhood after she’s shamefully exposed at a holiday party by delivering a low-quality rendition of “Jingle Bells.” Notaro makes misstep after riotous misstep as she shares tales of marriage and family, including stories about the dog-bark translator that deciphers Notaro’s and her husband’s own “woofs” a little too accurately, the emails from her mother with “FWD” in the subject line (“which in email code means Forecasting World Destruction”), and the dead-of-night shopping sprees and Devil Dog–devouring monkeyshines of a creature known as “Ambien Laurie.” At every turn, Notaro’s pluck and irresistible candor set the New York Times bestselling author on a journey that’s laugh-out-loud funny and utterly unforgettable.

July 2011

Can you believe it’s nearly August already? It’s time to pull out those reads that you’ve been meaning to get to! The extreme heat sweeping the country gives you a great excuse to stay indoors. I am contemplating putting my head in the freezer. Don’t forget to bring a book with you while chillin’ by the fridge (it’s the coolest place in town --- literally), and then if you get too cold (well, it IS the refrigerator for crying out loud), you can heat up with one of the summer's steamiest picks.

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July 26, 2011

The following are lists of books releasing the weeks of July 25th and August 1st that we think will be of interest to Teenreads.com readers.

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July 26, 2011

The following are lists of books releasing the weeks of July 25th and August 1st that we think will be of interest to Teenreads.com readers.

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July 25, 2011

Margaret Leroy: THE SOLDIER'S WIFE -- Part II

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July 25, 2011

The following are lists of books releasing the weeks of July 25th and August 1st that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers.

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Editorial Content for Among the Missing

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

I will confess to being unfamiliar with Morag Joss's novels. The author of a number of critically recognized works, she crossed my desk with AMONG THE MISSING, a book that defies easy categorization but that demands the attention of anyone interested in general fiction. It takes place in the Highlands of Joss's native Scotland, using the sudden occurrence of a tragedy to bring three disparate individuals together, for better or for ill.

"Whether you read it now or save it for a cold December night, its considerable merits will shine through."

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Award-winning author Morag Joss spins a spellbinding psychological thriller of three lost souls brought together by disaster, haunted by tragedy, connected by their most shattering secrets.