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Join us April 22 for our lively program on Latin American and Latino Women Writers and Literature in Translation!

April 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Latin American and Latino Women Writers and Literature in Translation

Monday, April 22, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
at the office of Consolidated Planning
We’ll meet in one of the conference rooms
– follow our signs when you arrive.
4201 Congress Street, Suite 295,
Charlotte, NC 28209


Please note: The office building where we are meeting LOCKS its outside doors and elevators at 7 PM, so please be sure to arrive on time for our meeting!  If you find yourself locked out, please call Susan Walker at 612-382-5868 (cell), and someone will come to let you in. Thanks!

Latin American and Latina women writers — Julia Alvarez, Esmerelda Santiago, Sandra Cisneros, and many, many more — offer us a wide range of wonderful fiction, non-fiction and poetry in Spanish and in English translation. Join us for an exciting discussion of these writers with Magdalena Maiz-Peña, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Davidson College. A list of recommended books will be provided at the meeting, too.

Professor Magdalena Maiz-Peña specializes in twentieth-century Latin American Women Writers, Life-Writing and the Politics of representation, and Contemporary Latin American literary and cultural narratives. Her teaching interests include Basic and Intermediate language courses, Introduction to Hispanic literatures and cultures, Contemporary Latin American literatures, and The Latin American City and its historical and cultural representation.   She is the author of Identidad, nación y gesto autobiográfico, and co-editor of Modalidades de representación del sujeto auto/biográfico femenino. Her recent publications have appeared in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and the U.S. Maiz-Peña is presently working on a book project on Urban Spaces, Gender, and Cultural Production in Mexico 1920-1950.

 

At Davidson College she has been awarded The Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award (1995), the ODK Outstanding Teaching Award (1997), and the Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award (2006). She was recently recognized for her work on the Latino Community with the Latin American Coalition Award (2007).

Don’t miss this entertaining evening with Magdalena!  You’ll learn at lot, laugh a lot, and come away with a list of books you can’t wait to read!!

 
Filed Under: Fiction, Latest News, Non-Fiction, Upcoming Events

WNBA Charlotte’s Book Club meets next Tuesday, April 2!

March 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Our next book is
Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
Scribner, trade paperback, $17
[Additional info]

Discussion is on April 2, 7:00 PM, at the Panera at 5940 Fairview, right near SouthPark Mall. If you need more info, please contact Kristen Knox at whitreidsmama@yahoo.com .

 Legendary women—from Anne Boleyn to Queen Elizabeth I to Mary, Queen of Scots—changed the course of history in the royal courts of sixteenth-century England. They are celebrated in history books and novels, but few people know of the powerful women in the Muslim world, who formed alliances, served as key advisers to rulers, lobbied for power on behalf of their sons, and ruled in their own right. In Equal of the Sun, Anita Amirrezvani’s gorgeously crafted tale of power, loyalty, and love in the royal court of Iran, she brings one such woman to life, Princess Pari Khan Khanoom Safavi.

Iran in 1576 is a place of wealth and dazzling beauty. But when the Shah dies without having named an heir, the court is thrown into tumult. Princess Pari, the Shah’s daughter and protégé, knows more about the inner workings of the state than almost anyone, but the princess’s maneuvers to instill order after her father’s sudden death incite resentment and dissent. Pari and her closest adviser, Javaher, a eunuch able to navigate the harem as well as the world beyond the palace walls, are in possession of an incredible tapestry of secrets and information that reveals a power struggle of epic proportions.

Based loosely on the life of Princess Pari Khan Khanoom, Equal of the Sun is a riveting story of political intrigue and a moving portrait of the unlikely bond between a princess and a eunuch. Anita Amirrezvani is a master storyteller, and in her lustrous prose this rich and labyrinthine world comes to vivid life with a stunning cast of characters, passionate and brave men and women who defy or embrace their destiny in a Machiavellian game played by those who lust for power and will do anything to attain it.

___________________________

Our meetings take place on the first Tuesday of each month, 7 PM at the Panera on Fairview near SouthPark. We have chosen books to take us through to next October when there will be a new Great Group Reads list released.  Here’s what we’ve read and will be reading:

December 4:  I Married You For Happiness by Lily Tuck [click here for more info about our discussion]

January 8: The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin [click here for more info about our discussion]

February 5: Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepinstall

March 5: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

April 2: Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani

May 7: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeannette Winterson

June 4: An Age of Madness by David Maine

July 2: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

August 6: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

September 3: Boleto by Alison Hagy

October 1: In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

 

Filed Under: Fiction, Latest News, Upcoming Events, WNBA Charlotte Book Club

ARC Giveaway: THE OTHER TYPIST by Suzanne Rindell

March 20, 2013 By 3 Comments

THE OTHER TYPISTThis week, the Women’s National Book Association Charlotte is giving away an UNCORRECTED PROOF of THE OTHER TYPIST by Suzanne Rindell.

From Penguin.com:

The Other Typist

Suzanne Rindell – Author

Hardcover | $25.95 |
ISBN 9780399161469 | 368 pages | 07 May 2013 | Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam | 9.25 x 6.25in | 18 – AND UP

For fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Great Gatsby comes one of the most memorable unreliable narrators in years.

Rose Baker seals men’s fates. With a few strokes of the keys that sit before her, she can send a person away for life in prison. A typist in a New York City Police Department precinct, Rose is like a high priestess. Confessions are her job. It is 1923, and while she may hear every detail about shootings, knifings, and murders, as soon as she leaves the interrogation room she is once again the weaker sex, best suited for filing and making coffee.

This is a new era for women, and New York is a confusing place for Rose. Gone are the Victorian standards of what is acceptable. All around her women bob their hair, they smoke, they go to speakeasies. Yet prudish Rose is stuck in the fading light of yesteryear, searching for the nurturing companionship that eluded her childhood. When glamorous Odalie, a new girl, joins the typing pool, despite her best intentions Rose falls under Odalie’s spell. As the two women navigate between the sparkling underworld of speakeasies by night and their work at the station by day, Rose is drawn fully into Odalie’s high-stakes world. And soon her fascination with Odalie turns into an obsession from which she may never recover.

Advanced Reader Copies are pre-release copies, of no commercial value, and NOT FOR RESALE. Thank you to Park Road Books for providing this copy.

 

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Filed Under: ARC Giveaway, Fiction Tagged With: ,

TOPSY ARC Giveaway

March 12, 2013 By 4 Comments
TOPSY By Michael DalyThis week, the Women’s National Book Association Charlotte is giving away an UNCORRECTED PROOF of TOPSY by Michael Daly.

From Grove Atlantic:

The circus, performing elephants, Thomas Edison, and Coney Island all come together in this captivating popular history of Topsy, the famous elephant who met an unusual end.

Topsy

The Startling Story of the Crooked Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison
By Michael Daly
Atlantic Monthly Press
978-0-8021-1904-9 • $25.00 • Forthcoming in Cloth • July 2013
History
In 1903, on Coney Island, an elephant named Topsy was electrocuted, and ever since this bizarre execution has reverberated through popular culture with the whiff of urban legend. But it really happened, and many historical forces conspired to bring Topsy, Thomas Edison, and those 6,600 volts of alternating current together. In Topsy, Michael Daly weaves them together into a fascinating popular history.
The first elephant arrived in America in 1796, but it wasn’t until after the Civil War that the circus entered its golden age, thanks especially to P. T. Barnum and Adam Forepaugh (or 4-Paw). It was their War of the Elephants—with declarations of whose pachyderms were younger, bigger, or more “sacred”— that brought Topsy to America, fraudulently billed as the first native-born. With fantastic detail, Daly brings this world to life; caravans, crooks, and sideshows. And he captures the life of the animals, both the cruelties they suffered and, when treated with kindness, their remarkable feats. The War of the Currents—which pitted Edison against George Westinghouse— would also play a major role in the life of Topsy. Edison, hoping to have “westinghoused” enter the lexicon, maneuvered to have New York’s executions switched to electrocution. Daly expertly guides the reader through this peculiar and enduring story, as well as the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, and the development of Coney Island. Rich in period Americana, and full of larger than life characters— both human and elephant—Topsy is a touching, entertaining read.
The Women’s National Book Association Charlotte thanks PARK ROAD BOOKS for providing this copy.

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Filed Under: Fiction, Latest News, Member benefits & perks, WNBA-Writers

GREAT SUMMER READS!!

April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Monday, May 14, 7:00 – 9:00 PM. 
Join us at Park Road Books, Park Road Shopping Center, 4139 Park Road, Charlotte 28209…….

GREAT SUMMER READS is our annual favorite get-together, featuring book recommendations for summer reading from Sally Brewster, owner of Park Road Books. Sally will provide a list of books for us, and titles which are already published will be available for purchase, of course!

Refreshments will be served – please bring a contribution, if you wish.  Thanks!

Filed Under: Fiction, Latest News, Non-Fiction, Upcoming Events