Announcing the winner of this book giveaway: Megan from Exile in Kidville.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned here that the author Darin Strauss was doing a bit of high-profile book touring. You have to love this next part. He noticed what I said and he sent me his book, More Than It Hurts You. I’m offering it as a giveaway this week, as I like to do, and here’s why you should ask for it.
I thought it was just a few years ago, but turns out it was more like six (!), that I read something that left me weak and weepy to the point of exhaustion. It wasn’t as though I loved the book, or even liked it. Some of my very smart and well-read friends disagreed, but I thought the author Jonathan Franzen, in The Corrections, had nailed the whole of our unsayable lives. The ignorance and cynicism, the glib cleverness, the buried sorrow and habitual self-deception, and at the barren bottom of all our failings, the love. Still, the love.
More Than It Hurts You is that kind of ride. An ambitious and frantic story about how none of us – not one of us – is honest or fair or true or what we appear, even to ourselves, to be. It’s a story about the strivings of love, marriage and motherhood, but I don’t read stories for the stories. I read to be awed and lost and left to fend for myself on a far shore. I only have so much time, you see, and I don’t want to finish a book in the same place I started.
I’ve heard it called “a beach read.” This is no beach read. Oh sure you could read it on the beach, and when you finished, you would sit and stare a long time at the convulsing waves, at the mysteries that combine and divide us. It is a difficult book, an uncomfortable reveal. It cuts close, and it hurts. In a very safe way.
I recommend it. Because good work, and the writers who enslave themselves to it, are so blasted hard to find. When they find you, it makes things better.
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Leave a comment anytime before next Friday, July 25 to enter.
Great giveaway, thanks so much!
Comment by Mary512 — July 23, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
I (heart) to read new authors and appriciate the chance to get turned on to Darin Strauss.
I loved The Corrections…
Comment by becky — July 23, 2008 @ 11:34 pm
i’ve been wanting to comment for a long time and haven’t until now. thanks for sharing… and for sharing your freebies. marg
Comment by margaret — July 24, 2008 @ 2:31 am
Marg, make sure you send me a way to reach you if you win. Thanks, KMM
Comment by Karen Maezen Miller — July 24, 2008 @ 2:37 am
sounds like exactly the kind of book I need to read, being that I am in a place of discovering all the ways I am different than I recently appeared…
Comment by Meg Casey — July 24, 2008 @ 2:57 am
Sounds like a good one. Thanks, kristie2 (at) comcast.net
Comment by Sunshine Mama — July 24, 2008 @ 4:45 am
I’m always up for a new book!
Comment by Tara — July 24, 2008 @ 5:55 am
good books are hard to find. here’s crossing my fingers.
Comment by Tiffany — July 24, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
What a great read.
Comment by Sarina — July 24, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
Your review has intrigued me. Hop I get lucky.
Comment by Anne — July 24, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
Very interesting title and I would love to read this intriguing book.
Comment by calgirl — July 24, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
me, me, pick me!
Comment by jen lemen — July 24, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
I’m always looking for books that pry me open a little bit more.
Comment by Valerie Willman — July 24, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
Your review got me hooked, I would love to be entered for this book.
Comment by sweetsue — July 24, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
Book sounds great to me and I would love to read it. Please count me in.
Comment by judybrittle — July 24, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
I love a good book for its power to transport me. Unfortunately, they all too often transport me to the land of little sleep, as night time is almost the only time I won’t be interrupted. Hung over the next day from a good story and no sleep, I still usually find it worthwhile.
Comment by RocketMom Cheryl — July 25, 2008 @ 12:30 am
I just read the summary and reviews at Amazon. Wow. Sounds like an incredible and powerful journey. Sign me up!
Comment by Just.Me — July 25, 2008 @ 10:36 am
This book sounds very intriguing; I would love to win it:)
jceko77@yahoo.com
Comment by jceko77 — July 25, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
I would love to win it!!!
Eileen-Lilly(at)hotmail(dot)com
Comment by Eileen — July 25, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
I’m a little scared, but my curiosity is getting the best of me! Please enter me.
Comment by frugallm — July 25, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
I love books. i would love to try this book! thanks!
mesargent813@yahoo.com
Comment by MaryBeth — July 25, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
please enter me 🙂
Comment by klp1965 — July 25, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
I love to read these kind of books.
Those where you have to look at
yourself and ask is that me?
Hard to read at first,but after
it feels great.Please enter me
and thanks.
CharlieGurl57@aol.com
Comment by Swtlilchick — July 26, 2008 @ 3:13 am
Sounds like a great read!
jasonncaryn at yahoo dot com
Comment by Rockin' Mama — July 26, 2008 @ 3:34 am
The book arrived a couple of days ago. Thanks again, Karen.
–megan
Comment by megan — August 15, 2008 @ 10:36 pm