Friday, February 1, 2013

ARE YOU LISTENING? THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE: A REVIEW AND AUDIO BOOK GIVEAWAY

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S" 
ARE YOU LISTENING? DAY"
I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE TODAY'S
AUDIO BOOK CHOICE....
 GIVEAWAY ENDED 
THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE
BY AYANA MATHIS

ABOUT THE BOOK:
The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family.

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing novel, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her first novel.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE:
Ruthie
1951

Lawrence had just given the last of his money to the numbers man when Hattie called him from a public telephone a few blocks from her house on Wayne Street. Her voice was just audible over the street traffic and the baby’s high wail. “It’s Hattie,” she said, as though he would not recognize her voice. And then, “Ruthie and I left home.” Lawrence thought for a moment that she meant she had a free hour unexpectedly, and he might come and meet them at the park where they usually saw each other.

“No,” she’d said. “I packed my things. We can’t . . . we’re not going back.”

They met an hour later at a diner on Germantown Avenue. The lunch rush was over, and Hattie was the lone customer. She sat with Ruthie propped in her lap, a menu closed on the table in front of her. Hattie did not look up as Lawrence approached. He had the impression that she’d seen him walk in and had turned her head so as not to appear to be looking for him. A cloth satchel sat on the floor next to her: embroidered, somber hued, faded. A bit of white fabric stuck up through the latch. He felt a rush of tenderness at the sight of the bag flopping on the linoleum.

Lawrence lifted the satchel onto the seat as he slid into the booth. He reached across and tickled Ruthie’s cheek with his finger. He and Hattie had never discussed a future seriously. Oh, there had been plenty of sighs and wishes in the afternoon hours after they made love: they had invented an entire life out of what-ifs and wouldn’t-it-be-nices. He looked at her now and realized their daydreams were more real to him than he’d allowed himself to believe.
To finish reading this excerpt, visit the Random House website HERE. 

PRAISE FOR THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE:
The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection.
“The opening pages of Ayana’s debut took my breath away. I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me in quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.”
            —Oprah Winfrey

 “Lush yet deliberate…elegant and sure…a complex and deeply humane story of a mother’s ferocious love and failures at loving…In the vivid specificity of Mathis’s tale, she is telling a universal story, and it is profoundly consoling.”
            —Laura Collins-Hughes, The Boston Globe
 
 “Mathis never loses touch with the geography and the changing national culture through which her characters move. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is infused with African Americans’ conflicted attitudes about the North and the South during the Great Migration…In the long family arc that Mathis describes, the painful life of one remarkably resilient woman is placed against the hopes and struggles of millions of African Americans who held this nation to its promise…One of the best [novels] of 2012.”
            —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
 
“Raw and intimate…a brutal and poetic allegory of a family beset by tribulations…Mathis tempers the more operatic elements with tenderness and knowing glimpses into the human heart struggling to love…deeply felt.”
            —Isabel Wilkerson, The New York Times Book Review
 
 “A triumph…a stone-cold stunner of a novel…magnificently structured, and a sentence-by-sentence treasure – lyric, direct, and true.”
            —David Daley, Salon

“The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a vibrant and compassionate portrait of a family hardened and scattered by circumstance and yet deeply a family. Its language is elegant in its purity and rigor. The characters are full of life, mingled thing that it is, and dignified by the writer’s judicious tenderness towards them. This first novel is a work of rare maturity.”
            —Marilynne Robinson  

MY THOUGHTS/"REVIEW":
THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE is a book I was rather unsure of when I received it. However, as Oprah Winfrey and her book club have given me so many novels I have enjoyed, including one that is in my top five all-time favorite list (SHE'S COME UNDONE by Wally Lamb), I had to give it a try. I am not sorry I did! 

I must admit I feel it presumptuous of me to "review" this book after all that has been written and said about it by so many more experienced people, as you can see above. But for me, an ordinary reader who tends toward certain genres more than others, I share with you my feelings. This book has been a delightful surprise! 

Ayana Mathis drew me into Hattie's life from the first few pages and never let me go. I will admit that I have to pay close attention as I listen so that I can keep all of the characters straight at times. I am just finishing it and have to say that I have greatly enjoyed it. I think the best part for me is the realism and fully developed characters. Mathis made me feel like I may have known these people in some other life or time. I was swept away by their emotions and the lives they lived. Hattie is a unique, compassionate character and I know that although I am still one hour from the end of listening, I won't regret this premature "review". I did find myself emotionally drained in many parts but also lifted up in so many other ways. I hope you all will get a chance to experience this fascinating work of Ayana Mathis. THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE has not disappointed me and I hope you find it to be the same.

GIVEAWAY
THANKS TO RICHARD AND THE GOOD PEOPLE
AT RANDOM HOUSE AUDIO BOOKS, I HAVE ONE
COPY OF THIS FASCINATING AUDIO BOOK,
THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE,
TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY FOLLOWER 

  
--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES, PLEASE
--INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE IN
 

ORDER TO COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE ENTRY

 
HOW TO ENTER:



+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE THAT WOULD MAKE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS AUDIO BOOK

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND LEAVE A LINK I CAN FOLLOW IN THE ENTRY


+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT HERE IF YOU HAVE READ ANY OF THE BOOKS FROM OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB AND IF SO WHICH ONE DID YOU LIKE THE BEST?


+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU CAN COMMENT ON EACH ON SEPARATELY AND GAIN MORE ENTRIES THAT WAY 

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY
 
GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
 6 PM, EST, FEBRUARY 20
GOOD LUCK!
        

80 comments:

debbie said...

The characters actually remind me of my father's family. I would love to read what happens to them all.
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debbie said...

I am a email subscriber.
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traveler said...

A compelling novel which interests me. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

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traveler said...

I read A Tale of Two Cities. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

Carol N Wong said...

I have had this on my wishlist for a while and I am really interested in it. Oprah compared it to Toni Morrison's writings and I am a big fan of Toni Morrison.

CarolNWong(at)aol(dot)com

Carol N Wong said...

I tweeted:

http://t.co/o8yPb1h5

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(LOL, Twitter is now taking to my last tweet to Bookn' with Bingo each time I open it so I guess that Twitter loves this blog too!)\

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Carol N Wong said...

Looking the site, I see immediately, I have read Charles Dicken's 'A Tale of Two Cities' and "Great Expectations. I love Charles Dickens's books. I would like to read Ken Follett's book,
'The Pillars of the Earth'. It is on my TBR shelf but I have been shying away from it because it is 1,000 pages. I loved "The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison".

Gee I could go on an on. I think her list includes many of the books already on my wishlist!

CarolNWong(at)aol(dot)com

Carol N Wong said...

I entered the giveaway for 'What a Ghoul Wants.


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I entered the giveaway for "Struck By Lightning".


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I entered the giveaway for" The Fifth Assassin (audio).


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I entered the giveaway for
'To Brie ot Not to Brie".


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Carol N Wong said...

I entered the giveaway for " Town in a Pumpkin Bash".


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I follow your blog with an e-mail subscription.


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I follow your blog with Facebook.


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+5 February Facebook Bonus Entry

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Pamela Keener said...

I, too, have been enlightened by new to me authors picked for Oprah's book club. This book sounds heartbreaking and real in that the mother restricts compassion towards her children and hoping it would make them stronger. I am not convinced that this is a valid parenting tool and would love to read on.
Thanks for the giveaway.
pk4290 (at) comcast (dot) net

Steve Capell said...

I've read several of Oprah's recommended books. Some I've loved and others ... well, they were awful. The one book that Oprah recommended and is still a favorite of mine is The Story of Edger Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. This book is awesome from cover to cover. Your review of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie has me intrigued so thanks for the opportunity.

steven.capell@gmail.com

Tina said...

This one has been on my radar for awhile. I'd love to have it in audio because I think the story would be even better listening to the different perspectives.
tbranco24@gmail.com

Tina said...

I've read over 20 on Oprah's list...she usually picks some wonderful ones. A quick glimpse has "Mother of Pearl" popping up as one of the ones I liked the best.
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Tina said...

Entered giveaway for To brie or not To Brie
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petite said...

A novel that is impressive. elliotbencan(at)hotmail(dot)com

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Unknown said...

I am a follower and email subscriber. I would love to read this. I would love to find out what happens. Tore923@aol.com

Sue Farrell said...

I would like to more fully understand the African American experience and I think this book would help me do that.
suefarrell.farrell@gmail.com

Sue Farrell said...

I am an email subscriber.
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I follow on GFC as Suekey.
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I follow on twitter as @Suekey12.
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Margie said...

This sounds like an excellent family drama. Thanks for the giveaway.
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entered To Brie or Not to Brie
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Linda Kish said...

The last paragraph of your review sealed it for me and made me want to read this book. I liked the excerpt, too, but your review did it.

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Linda Kish said...

I think Night was my favorite

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Misusedinnocence said...

I have always been fascinated by the 20's and this sounds like a great read.

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Misusedinnocence said...

I subscribe via email.

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I follow on gfc.

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Margie said...

Entered Oodles of Poodles
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Margie said...

entered Twelve Tribes of Hattie
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Entered Out of Circulation
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