Fiction Addiction’s Blog

Fiction Addiction’s business bookclub met tonight to discuss our June pick, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill (S&S, paperback, $15.00).

The book started off a little slowly, but had captured everyone in the group’s attention by the end. We were a bit amazed at how much time and money large retailers and manufacturers spend to research consumer behavior, but we enjoyed learning the results of that effort. Some of the lessons (female shoppers don’t like to get bumped into while they are browsing) were pretty obvious but others were very anti-intuitive. Overall, it was a fascinating read for either a retail business owner or a consumer.

For a book written over 10 years ago, it did not feel dated and many of Underhill’s recommendations for the future are commonplace today.

Join us for our next business book club meeting on July 24th at 6:30 pm at Thai Top Restaurant to discuss The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word-of-Mouth Marketing by Emanuel Rosen (Doubleday, paperback, $15.95.

Oprah spoke at Stanford University’s graduation on Sunday and came bearing gifts: Each of the 2600 grads received a copy of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink and Oprah’s current bookclub pick, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle.

A Whole New Mind is an excellent book that the Fiction Addiction Business Book Club read for it’s first pick. A New Earth has been one of Oprah’s bestselling bookclub picks.

In Ann Aguirre’s debut novel, Grimspace (Ace, paperback, $7.99), Sirantha Jax has the rare genetic ability to jump a ship through grimspace, a talent that makes her a prized navigator for the Corp. Then a crash landing kills everyone else on board, including her partner, and lands Sirantha in a jail cell with no memory of the crash. A group of rebels frees her in exchange for her help overthrowing the Corp’s monopoly on space travel.

Sirantha is a wonderfully feisty, smart-aleck of a heroine and this romantic space opera was one of the best I’ve read this year. I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel.

Recommended for fans of Catherine Asaro, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, and Patricia Briggs.

Check availability of Ann Aguirre books at Fiction Addiction.

Sarah Beth Durst’s debut novel, Into the Wild by (Razorbill, papberback, $7.99), is a delightful fractured fairy tale for young adults.

Before she was born, Julie’s mother, Rapunzel, and other fairy-tale characters escaped their stories and entered the real world. The enchanted forest they fled, known as The Wild, is currently stored under 12-year-old Julie’s bed.

But then someone wishes The Wild free and it soon subsumes the town, trapping Julie’s mom and grandmother. Will Julie be able to survive the Wild and rescue her family?

Check availability of Sarah Beth Durst books at Fiction Addiction.

Draw One in the Dark by Sarah A. Hoyt (Baen, paperback, $7.99) is a welcome addition to the field of urban fantasy. Hoyt’s first novel introduces us to Kyrie Smith and Tom Ormson, nightshift co-workers at a Colorado diner who are both shapeshifters.

Kyrie was convinced that her jaguar shape was simply a hallucination or symptom of schizophrenia, but when she goes out the back door of the diner and encounters a blood-spattered dragon who shifts back into a dazed and confused Tom, she can no longer deny the truth.

In order to keep Tom alive long enough to learn more about shifters, Kylie must help him deal with a Chinese triad of shapeshifting dragons desperate to recover the relic he has stolen.

Fans of Wen Spencer’s Tinker and Emma Bull’s Finder should enjoy this urban coming-of-age tale.

Check availability of Sarah Hoyt books at Fiction Addiction.

Fiction Addiction’s business book club met last night to discuss the modern business classic The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The club unanimously liked the book and found it’s theories on social epidemics fascinating.

The one downside to the book from our point of view is that it is mainly a theory book, with some fascinating examples, but not very much practical advice as to how to apply the lessons learned. However, many of the business books written since The Tipping Point was published, including our March pick Made to Stick, have made it their mission to take up where Gladwell left off and provide concrete steps for implementing his theories.

Our mext meeting will be on June 26th at 6:30 pm at Thai Top Restaurant. We will be discussing Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill. Receive a 15% discount off this title if purchased from us prior to the meeting.

Mary Alice Monroe leaves the beach and heads for the mountains in her new novel, Time Is a River. Charleston native Mia Landan, 38,  decides to spend the summer in a mountain cabin near Asheville and re-evaluate her life after her desperate struggle with breast cancer. Mia discovers the journal of Kate Watkins, a female fly fisher from the 1920s, and adopts Kate as her mentor. As Mia’s fly-fishing skills improve so does her interest in Kate and she begins an investigation into Kate’s notorious past.

Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial, hardcover, $16.99) is an enjoyable fantasy novel for preteens.

Our heroine, Mibs Beaumont comes from a family where each child discovers her “savvy” (magical ability) on her 13th birthday. But just before her big day, Mibs father is in a terrible accident. Mibs is convinced that her new savvy will allow her to heal her father so she sneaks a ride to the hospital on a rickety bus, but things soon go astray: her siblings and two of their preacher’s kids insist on going along, the bus starts heading in the wrong direction, and her savvy isn’t turning out like she hoped.

Check the availability of Savvy at Fiction Addiction.

Mystery phenom Robert Paker has written a pitch-perfect book with his second young adult novel, The Boxer and the Spy, which combines mystery, sports, and a teenage romance. 

When a classmate turns up dead, 15-year-old boxer-in-training Terry Novak doesn’t believe the story his high school principal is spinning about steroid use leading to suicide. Instead Terry and his girlfriend, Abby, decide to look into the matter themselves and Abby creates a teenage cell-phone spy network to track the movement of their suspects.

As Terry and Abby get closer to the truth, Terry finds that the advice his trainer, George, has been giving him applies to much more than just boxing.

The Boxer and the Spy is a wonderfully empowering coming of age story about what it means to be a man and how to stand up for what you believe in when threatened with harassment and intimidation.

Check availability of The Boxer and the Spy at Fiction Addiction.

Joan Bauer’s new book, Peeled (Putnam, hardcover, $16.99), features Hildy Biddle, ace high school reporter. Hildy lives in Upstate New York in the normally quiet, peaceful town of Banesville, where life centers around the apple orchards and other agricultural pursuits. When the new owner of the town’s only paper begins playing up rumors of a violent ghost haunting an abandoned farm, Hildy learns an important lesson about journalistic ethics.  Bauer, a Newbery Honor author, is known for creating strong, independent, witty, female teenaged characters such as Hildy.

Check availability of Joan Bauer books at Fiction Addiction.