Events

« Tuesday July 27, 2010 »
Tue
07.27.10: Melanie Sumner - The Ghost of Milagro Creek
Start: 7:00 pm

Melanie Sumner discusses and signs her new novel The Ghost of Milagro Creek (Algonquin, $13.95), a convincing, despairing portrait of Taos, NM that is reminiscent of Rudolfo Anaya'sBless Me, Ultima.

The story of Ignacia Vigil Romero, a full Jacarilla Apache, and the two boys she raised to adulthood, Mister and Tomas, unfolds in a barrio of Taos, NM - a mixed community of Native Americans, Hispanics, and whites.  Now deceased, Ignacia, a curandera - a medicine woman - begins this tale of starcrossed lovers.  Sumner's cast and a strong sense of Native American and Latino spirituality create a fascinating portrait of a community, wrapping issues of alcoholism, friendship, parental neglect, and conflicted identity around a miltidimensional tragedy, and Sumner captures the pain - and the humor - of a particular hardscrabble life and the voices of people who do not ordinarily frequent the pages of American fiction.

Sumner received an NEA grant this year and her short stories have appeared in the New Yorker and Harper's.  Her previous books include The School of Beauty and Charm, a novel, andPolite Society, stories.  In 1995 she received a Whiting award for fiction, and she teaches creative writing at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.  On writing The Ghost of Milagro Creek, she says:
Add to iCalendar
Syndicate content

New Releases This Month

Crashers (Hardcover)

By Dana Haynes
$24.99

Haynes's compelling first thriller takes familiar elements—a mysterious airplane crash, a bent FBI agent, a deadly female spy—and mixes them with the world of National Transportation Safety Board aviation disaster investigations. When pathologist Leonard Tommy Tomzak, sees a TV report of a nearby jetliner crash, he rushes to the site via helicopter. As other NTSB personnel make their way to the crash scene from around the country, Tommy and his local crew secure the site. The forensic details fascinate but aren't for the weak of stomach. Haynes nicely integrates several subplots involving terrorism. The slam-bang crash landing of a conclusion will leave readers anxiously awaiting the promised sequel
See more New Releases!

Indie Next List Great Reads - in eBooks

The Staff Recommends:

Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America (Paperback)

By Thomas L. Friedman
$16.00
Now in paperback, my 'Book of the Year' in 2008.

Friedman argues for the US to adopt, as national policy, the green revolution. It will, he says, cause a renewal of American ingenuity, creativity & spirit, and put us again in the forefront of the technology developers. If you think global warming is going away, stick your head in the sand and don't read this. If y ou think the future can be changed, here's a blueprint.

Recommended by Joe.
See more recommendations!