Mailbox Monday -- November 28th

Welcome to the post-Thanksgiving Mailbox Monday edition. I hope everyone had a great break!

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by founding meme blogger: Marcia at the Mailbox Monday Blog. Below are the books that I received this week:

1) PostSecret by Frank Warren. Publisher's Summary: The project that captured a nation's imagination.

The instructions were simple, but the results were extraordinary.

"You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything -- as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before. Be brief. Be legible. Be creative."

It all began with an idea Frank Warren had for a community art project. He began handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places -- asking people to write down a secret they had never told anyone and mail it to him, anonymously.

The response was overwhelming. The secrets were both provocative and profound, and the cards themselves were works of art -- carefully and creatively constructed by hand. Addictively compelling, the cards reveal our deepest fears, desires, regrets, and obsessions. Frank calls them "graphic haiku," beautiful, elegant, and small in structure but powerfully emotional.

As Frank began posting the cards on his website, PostSecret took on a life of its own, becoming much more than a simple art project. It has grown into a global phenomenon, exposing our individual aspirations, fantasies, and frailties -- our common humanity.

Every day dozens of postcards still make their way to Frank, with postmarks from around the world, touching on every aspect of human experience. This extraordinary collection brings together the most powerful, personal, and beautifully intimate secrets Frank Warren has received -- and brilliantly illuminates that human emotions can be unique and universal at the same time.

Thanks to Paperback Swap!

2) Carry the One by Carol Anshaw. Publisher's Summary. Carry the One begins in the hours following Carmen's wedding reception, when a car filled with stoned, drunk, and sleepy guests accidently hits and kills a girl on a dark, country road. For the next twenty-five years, those involved, including Carmen and her brother and sister, connect and disconnect and reconnect with each other and their victim. As one character says, "When you add us up, you always have to carry the one."

Through friendships and love affairs; marriage and divorce; parenthood, holidays, and the modest tragedies and joys of ordinary days, Carry the One shows how one life affects another and how those who thrive and those who self-destruct are closer to each other than we'd expect. Deceptively short and simple in its premise, this novel derives its power and appeal from the author's beautifully precise use of language; her sympathy for her very recognizable, flawed characters; and her persuasive belief in the transforming forces of time and love.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster!

3) Arcadia by Lauren Groff. Publisher's Summary. In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, a few dozen idealists set out
to live off the land, founding what would become a commune centered on the
grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. Arcadia follows this rollicking,tragic dream from its hopeful start through its heyday and beyond. What unfolds is an astonishingly beautiful novel about happiness and the impossible dream of perfection.

Arcadia’s inhabitants include Handy, a musician and the group’s charismatic leader; Astrid, a midwife; Abe, a master carpenter; Hannah, a baker and historian; and Abe and Hannah’s only child, the book’s protagonist, known as Bit, who is born soon after the commune is created.

While Arcadia rises and falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. If he remains in love withthe peaceful agrarian life in Arcadia and deeply attached to its residents, including Handy and Astrid’s lithe and deeply troubled daughter Helle, how can Bit become his own man? How does he, a sensitive person, make his way through life and through the world outside of Arcadia where he must eventually live?

Thanks to Voice!