daughter, puffballs, and truth in advertising
posted by soe 11:38 pm
It’s been a chilly week here in D.C., where a near complete lack of snow made us an anomaly on the East Coast. (We did get a measly inch, so it wasn’t a total loss.)
Before we head into a long weekend, though, let’s look back at three beautiful things from the past week:
1. Karen (my best friend) and Michael’s baby girl was born during Wednesday morning’s snowstorm (as totally predicted by Karen on Tuesday). Mother and daughter, a delightful looking baby from the tiny picture Michael was so kind as to send to my phone, are doing fine and should be home by the weekend.
2. Although the snow didn’t end up staying, while it was coming down it looked very pretty. I left work at the height of the evening’s storm and so was able to appreciate the mini snowballs that caught on all the branches and in all the bushes and the coating of white along all the railings.
3. Sarah, Rudi, and I met up tonight for a last-minute dinner excursion to H Street N.E.’s Dangerously Delicious Pies where we ate … pie. We each stuffed ourselves with a savory slice for dinner and a sweet slice for dessert and sodas in glass bottles (we only consumed the drinks and not the containers) and then, when the total for the evening came to less than the gift certificate I had, Rudi and I added a slice of blueberry pie to bring home (for tomorrow’s breakfast, perhaps?) to bring our non-tip grand total to $3.
What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
win a free book: the metropolis case
posted by soe 12:21 am
I’m a GoodReads user and periodically enter to win free books. Last month, I learned I’d won an advance reader copy of Matthew Gallaway’s debut novel, The Metropolis Case, which was released Dec. 28. Crown Publishing sent me a review copy at the end of December. And then they sent me a second copy last week. Their confusion is your benefit because I’m hoping to share the redundant book with one of you.
Leave me a comment telling me either what your favorite book of 2010 was or what you’re most looking forward to reading in 2011 by Monday evening, Jan. 17, at 9 p.m. EST. I’ll randomly select one commenter and send The Metropolis Case off to you next week.
Crown’s summary of the book:
From the smoky music halls of 1860s Paris to the tumbling skyscrapers of twenty-first-century New York, a sweeping tale of passion, music, and the human heart’s yearning for connection
Martin is a forty-year-old lawyer who, despite his success, feels disoriented and disconnected from his life in post-9/11 Manhattan. But even as he comes to terms with the missteps of his past, he questions whether his life will feel more genuine going forward.
Decades earlier, in the New York of the 1960s, Anna is destined to be a grande dame of the international stage. As she steps into the spotlight, however, she realizes that the harsh glare of fame may be more than she bargained for.
Maria is a tall, awkward, ostracized teenager desperate to break free from the doldrums of 1970s Pittsburgh. When the operatic power of her extraordinary voice leads Maria to Juilliard, New York seems to hold possibilities that are both exhilarating and uncertain.
Lucien is a young Parisian at the birth of the modern era, racing through the streets of Europe in an exuberant bid to become a singer for the ages. When tragedy leads him to a magical discovery, Lucien embarks on a journey that will help him—and Martin, Maria, and Anna—learn that it’s not how many breaths you take, it’s what you do with those you’re given.
This unlikely quartet is bound together across centuries and continents by the strange and spectacular history of Richard Wagner’s masterpiece opera Tristan and Isolde. Grandly operatic in scale, their story is one of music and magic, love and death, betrayal and fate. Matthew Gallaway’s riveting debut will have readers spellbound from the opening page to its breathtaking conclusion.