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Rainy Day Books
Rainy Day Books is located in
The Fairway Shops
2706 W 53rd Street
Fairway, Kansas 66205-1705
Phone: 913-384-3126

Store Hours:
Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri 10 to 6 and Saturdays 10 to 5
Sundays we are Home with our families and friends when we read and rest!

In This Newsletter
TONIGHT: Susan Branch
Tuesday Night: Maggie Stiefvater
Wednesday Night: Mark Lee Gardner
Wednesday Night: Tracey Garvis Graves
Thursday Night: Michael Chabon
Great New Books arrive this Week!
HERE THEY COME!
Our World-Famous Author Events Calendar!

 

Susan Branch, Monday, September 16

 

Maggie Stiefvater, Tuesday, September 17

 

Mark Lee Gardner, Wednesday, September 18

 

Tracey Garvis Graves, Wednesday, September 18

 

Michael Chabon, Thursday, September 19

 

Kate White, Monday, September 23

 

Sheila Kemper Dietrich, Wednesday, September 25

 

Margaret Peterson Haddix, Thursday, September 26 

 

Thomas Keneally, Thursday, September 26

 

Emily Miller, Thursday, September 26

 

Bill McKibben, Friday, September 27

 

Hannah Kent, Saturday, September 28

 

Anna Dewdney, Tuesday, October 1

 

Terry McMillan, Thursday, October 3

 

Loren Cordain,

Monday, October 7

 

Garrison Keillor, Tuesday, October 8

 

Nicholas Sparks, Thursday, October 10

 

Stephen Jimenez, Thursday, October 17

 

W. Bruce Cameron, Saturday, October 19

 

Robert Sabuda, Wednesday, October 23

 

Fierce Reads 2013, featuring Gennifer Albin, Leigh Bardugo, Jessica Brody, Ann Aguirre, Tuesday, November 5

 

Jared Diamond,

Wednesday, November 13

 

Pat Conroy, Thursday, November 14

 

Jan Brett, Sunday, November 17

 

Jon Agee and Loren Long, Tuesday, November 19

Volume 653               September 16, 2013

Greetings! ,

 

Rainy Day Books and RareWire are both Hometown Companies that are collaborating on a New Writer's & Reader's App that is titled Spine: The Social Story Writing App

  

Rainy Day Books is the Exclusive Sponsor of Spine.

 

Roger Doeren highly recommends that you Download Spine from the App Store and start enjoying creating Writing & Reading as this App goes viral in the Literary Community.

 

Click on the Spine Icon to go to the App Store. 

 

 Spine Color Icon Logo 

 

Spine Logo 

RareWire creates highly successful Apps and Web Content.

RareWire Color Logo 

  

Roger Doeren's Apple App Store Customer Review is included below:

  

 

Spine is the backbone for creative Writing & Reading.  
by Roger Doeren

 

 

Spine is a New App from RareWire in Kansas City that is a creative Writer's & Reader's dream come true.  The challenge and the reward are to creatively write and read a Short Story within a maximum of five 100 character sentences.  Short Stories can be read and Rated with 1 to 5 Stars.  Spine is a brilliant App that Debut Authors as well as Bestselling Authors, Journalists, Publishers, Writers and readers will embrace and will enthusiastically interact within an inspirational Social Media.  Spine is excellent for character development and improving creative storytelling skills.  Spine is an incubator to hatch a story idea, a series, and can lead to writing an Article or a Book.  Spine is ideal for Authors to sample their storytelling style to attract new readers as well as stimulate faithful loyal readers and fans.  Publishers can scout Spine for Debut Authors.  Interact with Spine and become a Goodwill Ambassador of Literacy.  Your family & friends will Thank You for connecting them with Spine.  Rainy Day Books in Kansas City is a believer and a Sponsor of Spine.

  

Let's help get the Spine out, 

 

Vivien & Roger 

TONIGHT!  Monday, September 16:  Susan Branch will celebrate her New Book A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside

SusanBranch 
Susan Branch will Meet & Greet her readers & fans at a Celebration of her New Book A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside.
 

Light Refreshments will be served.  

 

This Event is Monday, September 16, 2013 at 7:00 PM at Rainy Day Books in The Fairway Shops.

 
Tuesday Night, September 17:  Maggie Stiefvater will celebrate her New Book The Dream Thieves

Maggie Stiefvater 2013 
Maggie Stiefvater, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy will discuss her New Book The Dream Thieves, the sequel to her Bestselling Book The Scorpio Races.

Watch Maggie Stiefvater show on YouTube "How to Graffiti a Car (In Just Under 3.5 Minutes)

Maggie is bringing her "Muscle Car" tomorrow evening to park in front of Unity Temple on The Plaza, and our Guests will be invited to help Graffiti the Car prior to the Event.  Bring your artistic spirit!

This Event is Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112.

 
Wednesday, September 18:  Mark Lee Gardner will discuss his New Book Shot All To Hell: Jesse James, The Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape

MarkLeeGardner 
Mark Lee Gardner will discuss his New Book Shot All To Hell: Jesse James, The Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape.

 

This Event is Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 7:00 PM at Johnson County Library, Central Resource Library, 9875 W 87th Street, Overland Park, Kansas 66212.

 
Wednesday, September 18:  Tracey Garvis Graves will celebrate the Publication of her New Novel Covet

TraceyGraves 
Tracey Garvis Graves will celebrate the Publication of her New Novel Covet.
  

This Event is Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 7:00 PM at Rainy Day Books in The Fairway Shops.

 
Thursday, September 19:  Michael Chabon will present his New Novel Telegraph Avenue

MichaelChabon 
Michael Chabon the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, will present his New Novel Telegraph Avenue.

This Event is Thursday, September 19, 2013 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112.

 
Great New Books arrive on our shelves every Tuesday!  Be the first to discover something New and Wonderful!

Dexter's Final Cut

Dexter's Final Cut

Jeff Lindsay

Doubleday

 

Hollywood gets more than it bargained for when television's hottest star arrives at the Miami Police Department and develops an intense, professional interest in a camera-shy blood spatter analyst named Dexter Morgan. Mega-star Robert Chase is famous for losing himself in his characters. When he and a group of actors descend on the Miami Police Department for "research," Chase becomes fixated on Dexter Morgan, the blood spatter analyst with a sweet tooth for doughnuts and a seemingly average life. To perfect his role, Chase is obsessed with shadowing Dexter's every move and learning what really makes him tick. There is just one tiny problem . . . Dexter's favorite hobby involves hunting down the worst killers to escape legal justice, and introducing them to his special brand of playtime. It's a secret best kept out of the spotlight and away from the prying eyes of bloated Hollywood egos if Dexter wants to stay out of the electric chair. The last thing he needs is bright lights and the paparazzi. . . but even Dexter isn't immune to the call of fame.

 

The Longest Ride

The Longest Ride

Nicholas Sparks

Grand Central Publishing

 

Ira Levinson is in trouble. At ninety-one years old, in poor health and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: his beloved wife Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together - how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families. Ira knows that Ruth can't possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving the sorrows and everyday joys that defined their marriage. A few miles away, at a local bull-riding event, a Wake Forest College senior's life is about to change. Recovering from a recent break-up, Sophia Danko meets a young cowboy named Luke, who bears little resemblance to the privileged frat boys she has encountered at school. Through Luke, Sophia is introduced to a world in which the stakes of survival and success, ruin and reward -- even life and death - loom large in everyday life. As she and Luke fall in love, Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans -- a future that Luke has the power to rewrite if the secret he's keeping doesn't destroy it first. Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common, and who are separated by years and experience. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.

 

Who Asked You?

Who Asked You?

Terry McMillan

Viking Adult

 

With her wise, wry, and poignant novels of families and friendships-Waiting to Exhale, Getting to Happy, and A Day Late and a Dollar Short among them-Terry McMillan has touched millions of readers. Now, in her eighth novel, McMillan gives exuberant voice to characters who reveal how we live now-at least as lived in a racially diverse Los Angeles neighborhood. Kaleidoscopic, fast-paced, and filled with McMillan's inimitable humor, Who Asked You? opens as Trinetta leaves her two young sons with her mother, Betty Jean, and promptly disappears. BJ, a trademark McMillan heroine, already has her hands full dealing with her other adult children, two opinionated sisters, an ill husband, and her own postponed dreams-all while holding down a job delivering room service at a hotel. Her son Dexter is about to be paroled from prison; Quentin, the family success, can't be bothered to lend a hand; and taking care of two lively grandsons is the last thing BJ thinks she needs. The drama unfolds through the perspectives of a rotating cast of characters, pitch-perfect, each playing a part, and full of surprises.

 

Bleeding Edge

Bleeding Edge

Thomas Pynchon

Penguin Press

 

It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there's no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what's left. Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics-carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts-without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom-two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood-till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler's aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course. With occasional excursions into the DeepWeb and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we've journeyed to since. Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?

 

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir

Linda Ronstadt

Simon and Schuster

 

Tracing the timeline of her remarkable life, Linda Ronstadt, whose forty-five year career has encompassed a wide array of musical styles, weaves together a captivating story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the 1960s and '70s. Linda Ronstadt was born into a musical family, and her childhood was filled with everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Mexican folk music to jazz and opera. Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, in this beautifully crafted memoir, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey. Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folkrock movement was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the famed Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style that dominated American music in the 1970s. One of her early backup bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda went on to become the most successful female artist of the decade. In Simple Dreams, Ronstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success, including stories behind many of her beloved songs. And she describes it all in a voice as beautiful as the one that sang "Heart Like a Wheel"-longing, graceful, and authentic.

 

Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life

Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life

Graham Nash

Crown Archetype

 

Graham Nash's songs defined a generation and helped shape the history of rock and roll-he's written over 200 songs, including such classic hits as "Carrie Anne," "On A Carousel," "Simple Man," "Our House," "Marrakesh Express," and "Teach Your Children." From the opening salvos of the British Rock Revolution to the last shudders of Woodstock, he has rocked and rolled wherever music mattered. Now Graham is ready to tell his story: his lower-class childhood in post-war England, his early days in the British Invasion group The Hollies; becoming the lover and muse of Joni Mitchell during the halcyon years, when both produced their most introspective and important work; meeting Stephen Stills and David Crosby and reaching superstardom with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and his enduring career as a solo musician and political activist. Nash has valuable insights into a world and time many think they know from the outside but few have experienced at its epicenter, and equally wonderful anecdotes about the people around him: the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Dylan, and other rock luminaries. From London to Laurel Canyon and beyond, Wild Tales is a revealing look back at an extraordinary life-with all the highs and the lows; the love, the sex, and the jealousy; the politics; the drugs; the insanity-and the sanity-of a magical era of music.

 

Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist

Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist

Bill McKibben

Times Books

 

Bill McKibben is not a person you'd expect to find handcuffed and behind bars, but that's where he found himself in the summer of 2011 after leading the largest civil disobedience in thirty years, protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House. With the Arctic melting, the Midwest in drought, and Irene scouring the Atlantic, McKibben recognized that action was needed if solutions were to be found. Some of those would come at the local level, where McKibben joins forces with a Vermont beekeeper raising his hives as part of the growing trend toward local food. Other solutions would come from a much larger fight against the fossil-fuel industry as a whole. Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of these two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight-from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels, telling the story of raising one year's honey crop and building a social movement that's still cresting.

 

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Eric Schlosser

Penguin Press

 

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A ground-breaking account of accidents, near-misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: how do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved--and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policymakers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can't be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.

 

The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild

The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild

Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Little, Borwn and Company

 

In The Urban Bestiary, acclaimed nature writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt journeys into the heart of the everyday wild, where coyotes, raccoons, chickens, hawks, and humans live in closer proximity than ever before. Haupt's observations bring compelling new questions to light: Whose "home" is this? Where does the wild end and the city begin? And what difference does it make to us as humans living our everyday lives? In this wholly original blend of science, story, myth, and memoir, Haupt draws us into the secret world of the wild creatures that dwell among us in our urban neighborhoods, whether we are aware of them or not. With beautiful illustrations and practical sidebars on everything from animal tracking to opossum removal, The Urban Bestiary is a lyrical book that awakens wonder, delight, and respect for the urban wild, and our place within it.

 

Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection

Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection

Debora Spar

Sarah Crichton Books

 

Debora L. Spar never thought of herself as a feminist. Raised after the tumult of the 1960s, she presumed the gender war was over. As one of the youngest female professors to be tenured at Harvard Business School and a mother of three, she swore to young women that they could have it all. "We thought we could just glide into the new era of equality, with babies, board seats, and husbands in tow," she writes. "We were wrong." Now she is the president of Barnard College, arguably the most important all-women's college in the United States. And in Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection-a fresh, wise, original book- she asks why, a half century after the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, do women still feel stuck. In this groundbreaking and compulsively readable book, Spar explores how American women's lives have-and have not-changed over the past fifty years. Armed with reams of new research, she details how women struggled for power and instead got stuck in an endless quest for perfection. The challenges confronting women are more complex than ever, and they are challenges that come inherently and inevitably from being female. Spar is acutely aware that it's time to change course.

 

QB 1

QB 1

Mike Lupica

Philomel

 

Jake Cullen is a freshman quarterback playing high school football in the high-pressure land of Friday Night Lights (Texas). He is also the brother of Wyatt Cullen, who quarterbacked his team to the Texas State Championship last season--not to mention the son of former NFL quarterback and local legend, Troy Cullen. To be a Cullen in Texas is to be royalty . . . and a quarterback. All of which leaves 14-year-old Jake in a Texas-sized shadow, a tall order for any boy, especially one who's merely a freshman. While his teammates assume the starting job will be handed to Jake on a silver platter, the truth is that he has to fight for every snap and every ounce of respect. Jake may be a Cullen and he may play quarterback, but he is not his brother or his father. Being a good teammate comes naturally to Jake; being a winner and a celebrity does not. He's just like every other boy--awkward around a pretty girl, in awe of his famous family, and desperate to simultaneously blend in and cast his own shadow.

 

United We Spy

United We Spy

Ally Carter

Disney-Hyperion

 

Cammie Morgan has lost her father and her memory, but in the heart-pounding conclusion to the best-selling Gallagher Girls series, she finds her greatest mission yet. Cammie and her friends finally know why the terrorist organization called the Circle of Cavan has been hunting her. Now the spy girls and Zach must track down the Circle's elite members to stop them before they implement a master plan that will change Cammie-and her country-forever.

 

Ladybug Girl and the Big Snow

Ladybug Girl and the Big Snow

David Soman, Jacky Davis

Dial Press

 

Lulu and her dog Bingo wake up to a snow-covered yard and decide to have the best snow day ever. They make penguin tracks and taste the frosting-like snow. But the snow is deep and cold, and when Lulu tries to build a fort or make a snowball, her mittens are too wet and snow falls down the back of her neck. This is not the day she planned. And then Lulu remembers that she is Ladybug Girl and Ladybug Girl can do anything! With another determined look at the snow, Ladybug Girl overcomes her frustration and sees the yard in a whole new light. She and Bingo are now ready to use their imaginations to create their own snow games, snow animals, and snow adventures!

 


Thank You for supporting Your Community Bookseller, Rainy Day Books!

Since 1975, we have pursued our Legacy of Literacy: 38 years of helping match readers to great books, bringing famous and soon-to-be-famous names to Kansas City, and enjoying the excitement of sharing so many experiences.

 

Take the time to tell someone new about Rainy Day Books.  Each book that you purchase at Rainy Day Books makes Rainy Day Books a place authors ask to visit, a vibrant part of Kansas City's arts community, and a bookstore where people love books enough to talk about them all day long.  Please encourage your fellow readers to sign up for this E-Newsletter.  We have an exciting schedule of upcoming Author Events, and this is the first place to hear about them!  We also take Orders for Author Autographed Books, so your friends far and wide can share in the experience.

 

Rainy Day Books is located in The Fairway Shops, at the intersection of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Belinder Road.  Our address is 2706 W 53rd Street, Fairway, Kansas (KS) 66205.

 

Get directions to Rainy Day Books and our Event venues by clicking here. 

 

Store Hours:  Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri 10 AM to 6 PM, Sat 10 AM to 5 PM, and Sundays we read, rest and enjoy our families and friends.

 

When you shop at Rainy Day Books you're a part of our Legacy of Literacy for Kansas City.  We provide full service, knowledgeable recommendations and priceless Author Event experiences, all at a fair price.  To our customers, 

thank you for your support. 

 

We look forward to seeing you soon!

 

Vivien Jennings & Roger Doeren  


Vivien, Roger, and all of your friends at Rainy Day Books