Used Book Giveaway

I'm still planning on hosting a book swap if I can wrap my mind around how to make it all work. But, in the meantime, I am hosting a Used Book Giveaway.

I love to read a variety of books and most of them that I buy, are used. I have such a huge collection of books that I normally keep for re-reading but honestly, unless it is a really good book, I won't re-read it. There's too many other books on my "to read" list.

So, I've decided in fulfilling my reading two books a month goal, I'll be giving two books a month, away.

I have four books and out of the four, the first and second names that I pull will have an opportunity to choose a book out of the pile of four. The first one that responds to their name being called by commenting, will have first pick. The second name pulled will be able to choose from the three that are left.

Here are the books:





In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke

Editorial Review courtesy of Amazon:

From Publishers Weekly
Poet and novelist Kasischke finds beauty amid the apocalypse in her timely seventh novel. The Phoenix flu is sweeping the world, causing mass hysteria, arousing profound paranoia and inciting anti-American hatred worldwide. Jiselle, 32, is a jaded flight attendant and perpetual bridesmaid who says, I do, when handsome pilot Capt. Mark Dorn, a widower, offers her a vision of a perfect Midwestern family life far from her humdrum job and the dangers of the pandemic. The glitch is Mark's three minor children, who view Jiselle with derision, pity or outright hostility despite her best efforts to mother them. After the flu threat detains Mark overseas for months and then strikes close to home, Jiselle and her stepchildren must redefine their idea of family, community and their understanding of perfection and happiness. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.



Suddenly by Barbara Delinsky

From Amazon and Publisher's Weekly:

When pediatrician Mara O'Neill is found drugged with Valium and dead of carbon monoxide poisoning--an apparent suicide--it sets off crises in the lives of the three pediatricians who were in practice with her in a small Vermont town. For Angie Bigelow, dealing with Mara's death becomes the final straw in the disintegration of her once-well-organized--and ostensibly happy--home and marriage. Peter Grace, whose involvement with Mara was more complex than he admits publicly, must resolve a sense of discontent rooted in his youth. Paige Pfeiffer, who was Mara's friend since college, copes with her deep sense of loss by caring for the infant from India that Mara had arranged to adopt. Paige's life is further complicated by the attentions of Noah Perrine, acting head of the posh but troubled private school where Paige coaches girls' athletics.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.



The Help by Kathryn Stockett

From Amazon and Publisher's Weekly:

Starred Review. What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.



Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Amazon and Weekly Publisher's:

Jordan's beautiful debut (winner of the 2006 Bellwether Prize for literature of social responsibility) carries echoes of As I Lay Dying, complete with shifts in narrative voice, a body needing burial, flood and more. In 1946, Laura McAllan, a college-educated Memphis schoolteacher, becomes a reluctant farmer's wife when her husband, Henry, buys a farm on the Mississippi Delta, a farm she aptly nicknames Mudbound. Laura has difficulty adjusting to life without electricity, indoor plumbing, readily accessible medical care for her two children and, worst of all, life with her live-in misogynous, racist, father-in-law. Her days become easier after Florence, the wife of Hap Jackson, one of their black tenants, becomes more important to Laura as companion than as hired help. Catastrophe is inevitable when two young WWII veterans, Henry's brother, Jamie, and the Jacksons' son, Ronsel, arrive, both battling nightmares from horrors they've seen, and both unable to bow to Mississippi rules after eye-opening years in Europe. Jordan convincingly inhabits each of her narrators, though some descriptive passages can be overly florid, and the denouement is a bit maudlin. But these are minor blemishes on a superbly rendered depiction of the fury and terror wrought by racism. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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TO ENTER:

NOTE: This contest is for those that live in the U.S. and Canada

Another giveaway will be coming soon which will include every blog follower from around the world.

1) Become a follower of the blog. (If you already are a follower, let me know) - 1 entry

2) Leave a comment on this post telling me which book you'd like if you win. - 1 entry
If your email address is not available through your blog, then leave it along with your comment.

CONTEST ENDS: Thursday, February 18, 2010. Winners will be announced in Things I've Learned Tbursday blogpost.