Auction #103 Signed copy of How I Shot My Brother & Other Stories

This auction is for a copy of How I Shot My Brother & Other Stories signed by ALL the authors.

Book description:

Stories and poems of mischief and humour, revelation and loss, How I Shot My Brother & Other Stories takes you into the lives of twenty-one writers, for a journey you won’t soon forget.

Thanks so much to Prairie Dog Publishing for the donation: http://www.prairiedogpublishing.ca

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open to Canada.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #102 Signed copy of Cat City by Patti Larsen

I’m so excited about this auction guys! Up for grabs is a wonderful book by one of my writing buds, Patti Larsen!

Book description:

Ten-year-old Susan adopts Tucker, a butterscotch tabby, thinking he is just an ordinary cat. But when Tucker rescues her from the rats and brings her to his magical city deep underground, Susan literally falls head first into a war between the enchanted cats who live under her house and the evil rats who want to claim Cat City for their own.

Hugs and kisses to Patti for the donation: http://www.pattilarsenbooks.blogspot.com/

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #100 Signed books from The Workhorsery

This auction is for two signed books from The Workhorsery and a gorgeous, limited edition book cover.

The books:

Pitouie by Derek Winkler

The independent corporate freehold of Pitouie is a fleck of rock in the South Pacific. It has no industry, no economy and no natural resources. What it does have is a volcano, a glossy brochure and a list of industrial waste producers, whose executives are about to descend on the island’s pristine shores to bid for a hole in the ground.

Otis Wilson, associate editor of Waste Insight magazine, is also enroute to Pitouie. He thinks he’s going to watch an innocent nation reach for the soap in the prison shower of international commerce. What he’s going to find is much stranger and has something to do with events in an Inuit village in the Arctic 35 years ago. Sorting it out will be challenging, even without the distraction of the girl. 

You and the Pirates by Jocelyne Allen 

After witnessing a possible terrorist attack in Tokyo, you encounter an increasingly bizarre series of characters who may or may not be magic, gods or even really there. Only once you team up with a multinational team of marooned pirates does the enigma of what you’ve unwittingly stumbled into begin to unravel.

Thanks so  much to The Workhorsery for the donation: http://www.theworkhorsery.ca

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open to North America.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #98 Signed copy of Shipwrecks Off the East Coast by Carmel Vivier

Another delicious East Coast  read!

Book description:

Some ships, it seems, are ill-fated. Misfortune and disaster follow these unfortunate vessels wherever they go. The stories of nine such ships are told in this exciting collection of shipwreck tales, which feature hope and despair, triumph and catastrophe.

Thanks so much to Carmel for the donation: http://www.carmelvivier.com/

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #97 Signed copy of The Violin Lover By Susan Glickman

Another great Canadian novel that I have yet to read. This auction has made my must-have book list grow by the power of a zillion!

Book description:

Susan Glickman is well known for her lithe, rich poetry and brilliant literary criticism. Now she makes a sensational fiction debut with The Violin Lover, a novel set in Jewish London in the 1930s. Written against the backdrop of Hitler”s escalating campaign against the Jews, The Violin Lover tells the story of a secret love affair and its disastrous consequences. Ned Abraham, a successful doctor and amateur violinist, meets Clara Weiss and her son, Jacob. Persuaded to play a Mozart sonata with the gifted 11-year-old pianist, Ned gains Jacob”s confidence and affection. At the same time, he begins a clandestine affair with the boy”s mother and unexpectedly becomes a rival for her son”s attention. Infused with music, The Violin Lover is a moving story in three voices. Delicately evoking the sensations of performing and listening to music, Susan Glickman accomplishes the rare feat of recreating the experience of one art form in another.

Thanks lots and lots to Susan for the donation: http://www.susanglickman.com

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #96 A signed copy of The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

This auction is for  a 1998 edition, hardcover, brand new, and signed copy of  The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro (aprox value$50)

Book description:

All of these eight wonderful stories are about what people will do for love, and the unexpected routes their passion will force them to take.

An old landlady in Vancouver who alarms the just-married narrator with her prim advice about married life – and “the peculiar threat” of a china cabinet that must be washed once a month – is shown to have conspired when young in a crime of passion. A young mother, at the mercy of the “radiant explosion” that comes when she thinks of her secret life, abandons her baby and four-year old to be with her lover in the story “The Children Stay.” A gruff old country doctor in the 1960s is discovered by his daughter to be helping desperate women, his “special patients.” An impetuous young woman meets a visiting Indian student and conceives on a train from Vancouver to Toronto because of “the fact that you couldn’t get condoms around the Calgary station, not for love or money.” An Ontario farm wife’s affair drives her husband to commit a murder; its discovery, years later, will act as a negotiating point for a new, presumably satisfactory, marriage.

The book is clear-eyed about the imperfections of marriage, the clutter of our emotional lives, and the impermanence of love: “Not that that was the end. For we did make up. But we didn’t forgive each other.” Even the shared memories of earlier times prove to be a minefield, and many of the stories track the changes that time brings over generations to families, lovers, and even to friends who share old, intimate secrets about “the prostration of love.”

As always these stories by Alice Munro are shot through with humour, and are as rich as novels. As always the characters in the stories are easily, sometimes uncomfortably, recognizable as people like us. One quote summarizes the delightful surprises that await the reader: “Did you ever think that people’s lives could be like that and end up like this? Well, they can.”

Air kisses to Lynn for the donation: http://www.canadianauthors.net/

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #95 Signed copy of The Night the Aliens went on Strike (paperback) by Mark White

This novella sounds all kinds of funny AND scary ANd suspensfull. Three very good things. 🙂

Book description:

When noise abatement officers Colin and Tony investigate a complaint one wintry night, they little suspect the culprits are not of this Earth…

Now, drawn into an intergalactic employment dispute, they must fight to save the world – and sort out a barking dog or two 

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #92 Signed copy of Plain Kate by Erin Bow

If you have’t read this book YOU SHOULD. Trust me. Would I lead you astray?

Book description

In a market town by a looping river there lived an orphan girl called Plain Kate ….

Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden talismans are so fine that some even call her “witch-blade”: a dangerous nickname in a country where witches are hunted and burned in the square.

For Kate and her village have fallen on hard times. Kate’s father has died, leaving her alone in the world. And a mysterious fog now covers the countryside, ruining crops and spreading fear of hunger and sickness. The townspeople are looking for someone to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate.

Enter Linay, a stranger with a proposition: In exchange for her shadow, he’ll give Kate the means to escape the angry town, and what’s more, he’ll grant her heart’s wish. It’s a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a family, a place to belong. But Kate soon realizes she can’t live shadowless forever — and that Linay’s designs are darker than she ever dreamed.

Thanks bunches to Erin for the donation. http://erinbow.com/index.shtml

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 17th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #91 Signed copy of Little Synni’s Moonlight Mischief by Cheryl Schenk

This signed copy of Little Synni’s Moonlight Mischief  by author Cheryl Schenk also comes complete with an audio CD of the story. This Stibil Forest Adventure is Cheryl’s 1st book and her school/library readings have been enjoyed by children aged 5-11 yrs.

Book Description:

Stibilville is a happy, playful village, tucked away under the maple trees of  Stibil Forest, but when Synni ventures out alone at night she finds that her friendly forest has become a large and frightening place. 

It is a children’s storybook  about Synni and how her adventure teaches her that sharing is a good thing. This 40 page hardcover book has beautiful illustrations depicting scenes which have been sculpted in polymer clay. Approx. 600 books are in circulation already, mostly in Canada, but some in other countries as well (Spain, England, US, Norway and New Caledonia).

Join us for Little Synni’s Moonlight Mischief, a Stibil Forest Adventure. 

Please check out our website at http://www.thestibilforest.com

Thanks bunches to Cheryl for the donation. http://www.bittleberry.blogspot.com/

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 16th and is open internationally.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.

Auction #90 Signed copy of Left Neglected & Still Alice by Lisa Genova

As tempted as I was to keep these for myself (just kidding!) I thought maybe you guys would like the chance to read them.

Book description:

Still Alice

Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman”s sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer”s disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer”s disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what”s it”s like to literally lose your mind…

Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, Ordinary People and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Still Alice packs a powerful emotional punch and marks the arrival of a strong new voice in fiction.

Left Neglected

Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children-Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus. 

Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.

 A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.   

A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future. 

Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny-her new, true life-may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.

Thanks so much to Simon and Schuster Canada for the donation. http://www.simonandschuster.ca/

• This auction will run from today until 11:59 pm Est June 16th and is open to North America.
• All bids will be in Canadian funds.
• Bids must increase by at least a dollar.