Hi all!
Today was a very special day. My dear friend and fellow book blogger, Planet Books, whisked me away on a fun-filled birthday date about town. The highlights- mozzarella tasting, gourmet dinner, cupcakes, and Politics & Prose for Sarah Blake’s book signing!
What an amazing privilege to listen to fDC native, Blake, read in her gentle soft tone, from The Postmistress. Even more amazing? Getting to hear (from where else but the front row of course) about the almost decade long journey to completing this amazing work and the impetus behind it. Like Stockett’s The Help, Blake’s Postmistress was also inspired by events of September 11th, 2001. Blake explained how moved she was by a 9/11 photo. She yearned to know more about what was going on “to the left and to the right” of that particular photo depicting a man and son, who were killed on that fateful day. Directly from Blake’s website, here’s a quick description of the book in case you’ve lived under a rock for the last two weeks and didn’t see it in People Magazine, The NY Times Best Seller List or all the other publications she’s been praised in:
Iris James is the Postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts a small town at the end of Cape Cod. She firmly believes her job is to deliver and keep people’s secrets, to pass along the news of love and sorrow that letters carry. Faithfully she stamps and sends the letters between people such as the newlyweds Emma and Will Fitch, who has gone to London to help out during the Blitz. But one day she slips a letter into her pocket, and leaves it there.
Meanwhile, seemingly fearless radio gal, Frankie Bard is reporting the Blitz from London, her dispatches crinkling across the Atlantic, imploring listeners to pay attention. Then in the last desperate days of the summer of 1941, she rides the trains out of Germany, reporting on what is happening to the refugees there.
Alternating between an America on the eve of entering into World War II, still safe and snug in its inability to grasp the danger at hand, an a Europe being torn apart by war, the two stories collide in a letter, bringing the war finally home to Franklin.
It was also fun getting to meet fellow book bloggers, S. Krishna’s Books & The Book Lady’s Blog, who shared our front row experience. Thanks to Planet Books, I cannot wait to read my very own autographed copy! Stay tuned for my review in the next few weeks! I will be circulating this book around to my network and can’t wait to hear what they and my book club babes think of this amazing novel. If you can, I urge you to attend one of Blake’s book tour dates. Grab your copy asap!
Xoxo, Library Love
Year of the Bookwormz: 2011 
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