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May - Book of the Month
Joan Anderson will discuss her new book, “The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself”(Hyperion; 2008) at Borders in Birmingham, Tuesday, May 13th at 7p.m. at Borders Birmingham. There will be a meet and greet, and fans will be able to have their books autographed.
“The Second Journey” is a true coming-of-age story for every woman who has asked herself, “Now what?”
Nearly a decade after the debut of her bestselling classic “A Year By the Sea,” Joan Anderson is busy. When she is not on the road helping groups of women search for their true selves, she’s working on her latest book. And when she is not “working,” she’s taking care of her husband, her grown children, her grandchildren, and her ninety-one-year-old mother. Joan is so stretched thin from being all things to all people that she doesn’t even realize how out of control her life has become. Ironically, she finds she needs to listen to her own advice more than anyone else does. It takes a serious intervention – from her best friends, her doctor, and her husband – before she finally wakes up.
“The Second Journey” chronicles Joan’s quest to restore her own equilibrium and find herself again. Her warmth and humor is mixed in throughout making it a book for any woman who wants to know how to awaken her own independent spirit and set herself on a new path. Joan shares her musings on love, marriage, growing older, family, aging parents, and spirituality as she casts a watchful eye on her own life and helps readers find peace and inspiration within their own lives. She offers reassurance that the best is yet to come, and empowers other women to come of age in the middle of life.
The call to a second journey usually commences when unexpected change is thrust upon you, causing a crisis of feelings so great that you are stopped in your tracks. Personal events such as a betrayal, a diagnosis of serious illness, the death of a loved one, loss of self-esteem, a fall from power are only a few of the catalysts. A woman caught in these situations needs to pause, isolate, even relocate until she can reevaluate the direction in which she should head. Should she stay the course, or choose another path? The goal is to come of age in the middle of life rather than live out our days lacking purpose and energy. It’s all about rearranging our lives in our own image.
Don't Miss These May Titles!
Boots on the Ground by Duskby Mary Tillman
Mary Tillman is the mother of Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals football player who became an Army Ranger and then was killed in Iraq. This is the story about his life, his death, and Mary's search for the truth as to what happened to her son.
Discussion and Book Signing
Thursday, May 8 at 7:00 pm – BIRMINGHAM, 34300 Woodward Avenue (248) 203.0005
Phantom Prey by John Sanford
Lucas Davenport has had disturbing cases before – but never one quite like this, in the shocking new Prey novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author. John Sandford's most recent Davenport novel, Invisible Prey, was hailed as "one of his best books in recent memory" (Washington Post); "as fresh and entertaining as ever" (Chicago Sun-Times); "rivetingly readable" (Richmond Times-Dispatch). But this time, he's got something quite special in store.
A widow comes home to her large house in a wealthy, exclusive suburb to find blood on the walls, no body – and her college-age daughter missing. She's always known that her daughter ran with a bad bunch. What did she call them – Goths? Freaks is more like it, running around with all that makeup and black clothing, listening to that awful music, so attracted to death. And now this.
But the police can't find the girl, alive or dead, and the widow truly panics. There's someone she knows, a surgeon named Weather Davenport, whose husband is a big deal with the police, and she implores Weather to get her husband directly involved. Lucas gets in only reluctantly – but then when a second Goth is slashed to death in Minneapolis, he starts working it hard. The clues don't seem to add up, though. And then there's the young Goth who keeps appearing and disappearing: Who is she? Where does she come from and, more important, where does she vanish to? And why does Lucas keep getting the sneaking suspicion that there is something else going on here... something very, very bad indeed?
Filled with his brilliant trademark suspense and some of the most interesting characters in thriller fiction, Phantom Prey is further proof that "Sandford is in a class of his own" (Orlando Sentinel).
Discussion and Book Signing
Sunday, May 11 at 2 pm – BIRMINGHAM, 34300 Woodward Avenue
(248) 203.0005
Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
In this smart, delicious novel by the bestselling author of The Friday Night Knitting Club, a celebrity chef shows her friends and family the joy of fulfillment— and manages to spice up her own life at the same time.
Shortly before turning the big 5-0, boisterous party planner and Cooking with Gusto! personality Augusta “Gus” Simpson finds herself planning a birthday party she’d rather not—her own. She’s getting tired of being the hostess, the mother hen, the woman who has to plan her own birthday party. What she needs is time on her own with enough distance to give her loved ones the ingredients to put together successful lives without her.
Assisted by a handsome up-and-coming chef, Oliver, Gus invites a select group to take an on-air cooking class. But instead of just preaching to the foodie masses, she will teach regular people how to make rich, sensuous meals—real people making real food. Gus decides to bring a vibrant cast of friends and family on the program: Sabrina, her fickle daughter; Troy, Sabrina’s ex-husband; Anna, Gus’s timid neighbor; and Carmen, Gus’s pompous and beautiful competitor at the Cooking Channel. And when she begins to have more than collegial feelings for her sous-chef, Gus realizes that she might be able to rejuvenate not just her professional life, but her personal life as well. . .
Discussion and Book Signing
Wednesday, May 14 at 7 pm – BIRMINGHAM, 34300 Woodward Avenue
(248) 203.0005
The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
At a very young age, Elizabeth is keenly aware that people in the court of her father, King Henry VIII, have stopped referring to her as “Lady Princess” and now call her “the Lady Elizabeth.” Before long, she learns of the tragic fate that has befallen her mother, the enigmatic and seductive Anne Boleyn, and that she herself has been declared illegitimate, an injustice that will haunt her.
What comes next is a succession of stepmothers, bringing with them glimpses of love, fleeting security, tempestuous conflict, and tragedy. The death of her father puts the teenaged Elizabeth in greater peril, leaving her at the mercy of ambitious and unscrupulous men. Like her mother two decades earlier, she is imprisoned in the Tower of London—and fears she will also meet her mother’s grisly end. Power-driven politics, private scandal and public gossip, a disputed succession, and the grievous example of her sister, “Bloody” Queen Mary, all cement Elizabeth’s resolve in matters of statecraft and love, and set the stage for her transformation into the iconic Virgin Queen.
Joan Anderson will discuss her new book, 
Boots on the Ground by Dusk by Mary Tillman
Phantom Prey by John Sanford
Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
The Lady Elizabeth by 
