Book Blogger Appreciation Week - Giveaway Number Two from Book Club Girl

One of the wonderful authors I was able to visit with at Sunday's Brooklyn Book Festival was Alice Mattison, author of The Book Borrower and the new novel, Nothing is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn. In her newest book, Mattison tells the story of Constance Tepper.

One quiet spring day in 1989, Constance Tepper arrives from Philadelphia to watch over her mother's Brooklyn apartment and her orange cat. Con's mother, Gert, has left town to visit her old friend Marlene Silverman in Rochester. Marlene has always seemed alluring and powerful to Con, and ever since Con was a little girl, the long-standing bond between Gert and Marlene has piqued her curiosity. Now she finds herself wondering again what keeps them together.

Con's week in Brooklyn will take a surprising turn when she wakes to find that someone has entered her mother's apartment and her own purse is missing. Stranded, with no money, she begins to phone family and friends. By the end of that week, she will experience a series of troubling discoveries about her marriage, her job, and her family's history, and much of her life will be changed forever.

In the fall of 2003, now living in Brooklyn and working as a lawyer, Con has almost forgotten that strange and shattering week. But a series of unsettling reminders and surprising discoveries—including traces of a lost elevated train line through Brooklyn—will lead to grief, love, and more questions. At last, a confrontation between Marlene and Con's daughter will unravel some of the mysteries of the past.

In honor of my recent foray to Brooklyn and the book's official on-sale date, today's giveaway is the Book Club Girl mousepad plus a copy of Nothing is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn. All you have to do is tell me about a book you've read where the location becomes a character itself. Blog about this contest somewhere else and post the link and you'll get two entries into the drawing. Check out the reading group guide to NIQFIB here and see if you can catch Alice on her tour here.

Comments

[Amanda]

Oh nice review! I'm going to have the check this book out. I actually just read a Checkov story called The Steppe about a boy's few days traveling through the steppe in Russia on his way to school. The steppe and its people, weather, climate, etc actually becomes an important part of this boy's travels on his way to "growing up". I just loved it.

[LaShaunda]

I’m part of the Book Blogger Appreciation week and I wanted to thank you for all you do to help promote books.

[Ruby]

I think of Gone With The Wind and the plantation, Tera. Scarlett loves her home and always says how it is the only place she belongs.

[Lauren]

I read Memoirs of a Geisha while studying abroad in San Jose, Costa Rica. It was an interesting process... here I was in a foreign country, totally transported to another time and a different place (Kyoto, Japan) because of the book. It was magical.

[anne]

War and Peace is a huge example of what you're discussing. All of Russia is a character! Come to think of it, the story is really a metaphor for Russia in all its vastness and passion.

I blogged about it in item 4 of this post: http://yarnsandyarns.blogspot.com/2008/09/lit-ficks-challenge.html.

[Nicol]

The first book that comes to mind is The Enchanted April. Excellent book, a slow read, but excellent. We read it a few months ago for our book group and loved it!

Please enter me!

nicolmontero at gmail dot com

[Anna]

Great question! I'd say "Going Down South" by Bonnie Glover. The setting is so integral to the plot.

[Melanie]

I am reading the Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle for my f2f book club. it certainly wouldn't be the effective book it is if it was set someplace other than California. Very intesne book.

[Michelle B]

How my book club chooses it's books:

We have 12 members - perfect for the 12 months of the year. We each sign up to host a meeting a year. When it is your turn to host, you get to choose the book. I really like the way your group chooses its books. I'll have to bring up tomorrow at our meeting to see if everyone would like to change.

Thanks for the GREAT contests this week!

[RebekahC]

Ooh, this is a tough question indeed. I'd say for me one of the first books that comes to mind would be The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Maybe I'm way off on this, but that's just the first thing that popped in to my mind when I read your question.

Thanks for the entry. I'd love to read the book up for grabs.

RebekahC
littleminx@cox.net

[Ruth]

Girl with the Pearl Earring. I felt like I spent the afternoon in 17th century Holland when I read it.

[Jenne]

One book where the location became a character in the book was Quakertown by Lee Martin. It is a fictionalized story about a real event that took place years ago in the town where my book club members have lived and worked in for many years. We had a lot of fun trying to figure out what fictional house was based on what real house and going to the memorial plaque that our city (Denton, Texas) put up to let people know what had happened (the town made the entire black population move out of a very desirable part of town into a less desirable part because tensions between the white and black citizens had risen. It was a sad part of our town's history and we appreciated having it fictionalized so people could be more aware of the history involved.

[Alyce]

The first thing that came to mind were sci-fi books, in particular, Sheri S. Tepper's Six Moon Dance. The planet and the moon play such a large part in this book. Granted that is not a location like a city, but nonetheless, they have a large role in determining the plot.

[Ti]

My book club meets once a year and we pick all the books for the upcoming year. This works extremely well for us. We make a BIG deal out of it and it is something we all look forward to.

All we do is come with two choices and make our pitch. At the end, we take a vote and the list is made for the year.

[RaynedancerGirl]

Oh, good question.

Season of Passage by Christopher Pike. When astronauts from Earth finally land on Mars, the planet wakes up and infects them. Not only is the planet itself a character but once the astronauts are infected, they become an extenstion of the planet in some ways, at least of those that used to live on it.

[raych]

In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, the African village the characters live in totally becomes a seperate (quite malevolent) character.

[Sandy]

I agree with Ruth,I like Girl with the Pearl Earring. I felt like I spent the afternoon in 17th century Holland when I read it.

[Kori]

This is a great question! Two books come to mind:

1) Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte...the haunting, morose location definitely added to Heathcliff and Catherine's tortured, tragic love.

2)Time and Again- Jack Finney...In this story about time traveling, New York in the 1800's was a central character.

[Cindi]

Hello, What an interesting question!
Henry David Thoreau's book "Walden" is one book I have read where the place or location becomes a character itself. Thanks, Cindi

[Karen @ Planet Books]

In Ruth Reichl's GARLIC & SAPPHIRES, NYC and it's many restaurants became major characters. Reading this book made me want to buy a plane tix and fly to NYC ASAP and try out all of the restaurants that Reichl (then the Restaurant Critic for the NY Times and now the Editor of Gourmet Mag) reviewed.