Some Ideas for Holiday Gifts

Holiday season is just around the corner, so it's time for Literature Chick's picks for great holiday gifts for those important folks in your family.

Wouldn't we all love to look ten pounds lighter, ten years younger and ten times better? Pick up a copy of Charla Krupp's How Not to Look Old (Springboard, 2008) for the women in your life who need some helpful tips (or should we say hints?).

The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters

You can't help falling in love with the crazy, gifted Gabaldon Sisters. After their beloved Pueblo Indian caretaker, Fermina, dies, the four sisters are left with special gifts. Slowly, and with remarkable ease, these gifts (abilities, really) show themselves - healing hands, ability to make others laugh, skill in telling stories and power to curse others. Ultimately, it is not the skills that Fermina has left behind but something much more personal and intimate...a truth that will help the girls define family and love.

To Hell and Back

In this heartbreaking memoir, Samira Bellil relates the world of an immigrant living in the surburban ghettos outside of Paris. Leaving no stone or fact unturned, Bellil tells a tale of male dominance, an imposed code of silence where no woman discusses their abuse and a world of terror and imprisonment. Gang-raped at a young age by a group of young men outside the housing project, Bellil lives a life on the streets after being thrown out by her Algerian father. With difficulty, she ultimately faces her rapists and turns her life around. An astonishing story of immigrant life in France today, this book leaves a lasting impression.

Defenders of the Heart

In their first book, Defenders of the Heart: Managing the Habits and Attitudes That Block You from a Richer, More Satisfying Life (Hay House, November 4, 2008), psychotherapists and authors Marilyn Kagan, LCSW, and Neil Einbund, Ph.D., tackle the ten most common defense mechanisms and offer advice on how to protect your heart and lead a richer and more satisfying life.

In this transformative book, Kagan and Einbund, well-known therapists in the Los Angeles area, help readers discover the frequent habits and attitudes (denial, procrastination, passive-aggressive, projection, rationalization, intellectualization, humor, displacement, sublimation, and altruism) that are used to guard our hearts against being hurt. Over time, these mechanisms, which the authors have coined “Defenders of the Heart,” can become habitual and overly entrenched. In one way or another, they are at the base of nearly all of our bouts with dissatisfaction and depression. Defenders of the Heart delivers a strong basic understanding of these ten defenders, and shows how to recognize which ones are sabotaging your life, and offers a comprehensive tool set to break free of their life-limiting powers.

Each chapter is devoted to a specific Defender and opens with a clear definition, what the authors label as a “DEFENDAPEDIA,” followed with a succinct explanation that demystifies the clinical terminology. Included are numerous examples of the personal struggles and victories of a variety of people that illustrate these points. Kagan and Einbund write about the process that they usually follow when patients come to them for therapy. In their clinical work with patients, they help them to the events and interactions that might have triggered a specific Defender.

Kagan and Einbund devote an entire chapter to the personal stories of celebrities (Ryan Seacrest, Wendi Jo Sperber, Patrick Dempsey) who went through their own Defender trials and tribulations. These narratives are in their own words, which Kagan and Einbund label as "Talk Stories," after the Hawaiian tradition of oral story-telling. Here, readers will learn how these celebrities reached into themselves to make peace with their own Defenders and transform their specific habits and attitudes into a resource that worked for them rather than against them.
The book also includes a bibliography and recommended resources for readers who want further information. Visit http://www.defendersoftheheart.com/ for more information

Need to Read!

What's a busy book-loving gal to do when her book pile takes over her house? Read, of course!

Here's a list of some of the must read books for fall:

Cleaning Up by Tania Glyde. Serpent's Tail, 2008
Tania Glyde delivers an honest, painful look at her 23 year love of alcohol in this searing memoir. Told in short, easy to digest chapters, Glyde takes a hard look at why women drink, the pain behind the glass and her own difficult journey to sobriety.

The Road Home by Rose Tremain. Little, Brown 2008
A beautiful, prosaic novel of an immigrant living in London and dreaming of his homeland in Eastern Europe. Tremain writes with imagery and empathy as she tells the tale of Lev, a man lost in the world of the migrant laborer.

The Shiniest Jewel by Mariam Henley. Springboard, 2008A heartwarming illustrated novel that tells the story of one middle aged woman's search for a child and realization that with life brings death.

The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik. 5 Spot, 2008In this "chick-lit" story of two sisters with very different personalities, Claire LaZebnik creates a funny and true look at the sibling relationship. Ava, the smart sister, and Lauren, the pretty sister, are forced to reconnect when their mother is diagnossed with breast cancer. Their past relationship has been rocky, to say the least, but they must learn to love one another's traits in order to become family once again.

Small Crimes by Dave Zeltserman. Serpent's Tail, 2008
A crooked cop just out of prison must make amends to all those he has left behind - his ex-wife, his parents and his former co-workers - in order to survive on the outside and overcome the local mafia don who is out for his head.

Feather Man

Marion Boyars, 2008

Australian author Rhyll McMaster, in her debut work, tells the tale of Sooky, a young girl growing up in Brisbane. Ignored by her parents, Sooky is pushed into the arms of a pedophilic neighbor whose actions will change her view of life and love forever. As Sooky grows into womanhood, she moves to London where she becomes a part of the art world. Soon her past, in the person of Redmond (her neighbor's son), confronts her in unexpected ways.
McMaster writes descriptively; her lyrical prose sets the scene for this story of a young girl moving towards adulthood. An interesting and moving story that is reminiscent of works by Margaret Atwood and Harper Lee.

Derek Raymond

I Was Dora Suarez (Serpent's Tail, 2008)

Legendary noir author Derek Raymond delivers another horrific tale of brutality set in London's West End. An unnamed narrator, a police sergeant, is obsessed with Dora Suarez, a murder victim with a secret past. The fourth book in Raymond's Factory Series, this is a harrowing tale of murder and mystery which leaves the reader mesmerized and bewildered.