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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 to read and rest!

In This Newsletter
Tuesday Night: 13 Hours Advance Movie Screening
Tuesday Night: Alexandra Fuller will discuss Leaving Before The Rains Come
Helen Simonson at a Book Club Event!
Literary Tour of Scotland in the Summer of 2016
Great New Books arrive each Week!
HERE THEY COME!
Our World-Famous Author Events Calendar!

Alexandra Fuller, Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Ian Rankin, Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Gretchen Rubin, Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Melanie Benjamin, Thursday, February 11, 2016

Helen Simonson, Thursday, April 07, 2016
Volume 777                            January 11, 2016
 , 

We are updating our Author Events Calendar for our 2016 Series! 
 
________________________________________________________
 
Read our Weekly Author Events Newsletters!
We work smart & hard to create exciting and unique opportunities as we celebrate the beginning of 41 Years of bringing Author, Books and Customers together for memorable experiences!
Tuesday Night: Advance Movie Screening!
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
13 Hours_ The Secret Soldier of Benghazi Advance Movie Screening 01122016

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi by Michael Bay
is based on True Story and
The New York Times Bestselling Book
13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened
by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team

13 Hours_ The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff and Members of the Annex Security Team 01082016

Limited Advance Screening Passes are available at
Advance Screening
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 7:00 PM
Cinemark Palace at The Plaza
526 Nichols Road
Kansas City, Missouri 64112

Have Your Pass ready to show at the Door.

Opening Theatrical Date:  Friday, January 15, 2016
Official Website:  ThirteenHoursMovie.com
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/13HoursMovie
Twitter:  @13hours #13Hours

Rating: Rated R for strong combat violence throughout, bloody images, and language.
 
Synopsis:
From Director Michael Bay, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is the gripping True Story of six elite ex-military operators assigned to protect the CIA who fought back against overwhelming odds when terrorists attacked a U.S. diplomatic compound on September 11, 2012.  When everything went wrong, six men had the courage to do what was right.  Based on the Nonfiction Book 13 Hours by New York Times Bestselling Author Mitchell Zuckoff and Members of the Annex Security Team.
Tuesday Night:  Alexandra Fuller
will discuss her New Bestselling Softcover Memoir
Leaving Before The Rains Come
Alexandra Fuller for Leaving Before The Rains Come 01092016

Alexandra Fuller, The New York Times Bestselling Author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, will discuss her New Bestselling Softcover Memoir Leaving Before The Rains Come.
 
This is a Complimentary OPEN House Event on Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 6:30 PM at Kansas City Public Library, Plaza Branch, Truman Forum, 4801 Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112.

Helen Simonson will Present her New Novel
The Summer Before the War at a Book Club Event! 

 
Helen Simonson, Internationally Bestselling Author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, will Present her New Novel The Summer Before the War at a Book Club Event!
 
This Event is Thursday, April 07, 2016 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112.
 
Literary Tour of Scotland in the Summer of 2016 
Literary Tour of Scotland with Rainy Day Books _ Lisa Ball Travel Design June 19 to July 02_ 2016
Photo Credit � Roger Doeren in June 2009
 
Rainy Day Books & Lisa Ball Travel Design
Present a
Literary Tour of Scotland! 

Sunday, June 19 through Saturday, July 02, 2016 

Castles, Lochs, Highlands, Whiskey Distilleries, Pilgrimages to Authors of the past such as Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott and visits to Scotland's great cities: Glasgow and Edinburgh where you will meet today's Authors!  And, during the Tour we will stay in a fabulous Castle Hotel!
  
You are Invited to our Multimedia Presentation on Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 7:00 PM at Rainy Day Books in The Fairway Shops, 2706 W 53rd Street, Fairway, Kansas 66205.  For more Tour details, please send your inquiries to Lisa@LisaBallTravelDesign.com
and Tour her Website at 
Great New Books arrive on our shelves each Week! 

Leaving Before the Rains Come

Leaving Before The Rains Come

Alexandra Fuller

Penguin Books

 

Alexandra Fuller will discuss her New Memoir at an Open House Event this Tuesday evening!

  

A child of the Rhodesian wars and of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller's own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she confronts tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the family she left behind in Africa. Fuller soon realizes that what is missing from her life is something that was always there: the brash and uncompromising ways of her father. Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode familiar to readers from Alexandra Fuller's New York Times bestselling memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight was a man who regretted nothing and wanted less, even after fighting harder and losing more than most men could bear. Leaving Before the Rains Come showcases Fuller at the peak of her abilities, threading panoramic vistas with her deepest revelations as a fully grown woman and mother. Fuller reveals how after spending a lifetime fearfully waiting for someone to show up and save her she discovered that, in the end, we all simply have to save ourselves.

 

My Name Is Lucy Barton

Elizabeth Strout

Random House

 

A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all the one between mother and daughter. Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.

 

Fallen Land

Fallen Land

Taylor Brown

St. Martin's Press

 

Fallen Land is Taylor Brown's debut novel set in the final year of the Civil War, as a young couple on horseback flees a dangerous band of marauders who seek a bounty reward. Callum, a seasoned horse thief at fifteen years old, came to America from his native Ireland as an orphan. Ava, her father and brother lost to the war, hides in her crumbling home until Callum determines to rescue her from the bands of hungry soldiers pillaging the land, leaving destruction in their wake. Ava and Callum have only each other in the world and their remarkable horse, Reiver, who carries them through the destruction that is the South. Pursued relentlessly by a murderous slave hunter, tracking dogs, and ruthless ex-partisan rangers, the couple race through a beautiful but ruined land, surviving on food they glean from abandoned farms and the occasional kindness of strangers. In the end, as they intersect with the scorching destruction of Sherman's March, the couple seek a safe haven where they can make a home and begin to rebuild their lives. Dramatic and thrillingly written with an uncanny eye for glimpses of beauty in a ravaged landscape, Fallen Land is a love story at its core, and an unusually assured first novel by award-winning young author Taylor Brown.

 

What She Left

What She Left

T. R. Richmond

Simon and Schuster

 

On a snowy February morning, the body of twenty-five-year-old journalist Alice Salmon washes up on a riverbank south of London. The sudden, shocking death of this beloved local girl becomes a media sensation, and those who knew her struggle to understand what happened to lively, smart, and savvy Alice Salmon. Was it suicide? A tragic accident? Or murder? Professor Jeremy Cooke, known around campus as Old Cookie, is an anthropologist nearing the end of his unremarkable academic career. Alice is his former student, and the object of his unhealthy obsession. After her death, he embarks on a final project a book documenting Alice's life through the digital and paper trails that survive her: her diaries, letters, Facebook posts, Tweets, and text messages. He collects news articles by and about her; he transcribes old voicemails; he interviews her friends, family, and boyfriends. Bit by bit, the real Alice a complicated and vulnerable young woman springs fully formed from the pages of Cookie's book along with a labyrinth of misunderstandings, lies, and secrets that cast suspicion on everyone in her circle including Jeremy himself.

 

The Expatriates

The Expatriates

Janice Y. K. Lee

Viking

 

Janice Y. K. Lee's blockbuster hit debut, The Piano Teacher, was called immensely satisfying by People,  intensely readable by O, The Oprah Magazine, and a rare and exquisite story by Elizabeth Gilbert. Now, in her long-awaited new novel, Lee explores with devastating poignancy the emotions, identities, and relationships of three very different American women living in the same small expat community in Hong Kong. Mercy, a young Korean American and recent Columbia graduate, is adrift, undone by a terrible incident in her recent past. Hilary, a wealthy housewife, is haunted by her struggle to have a child, something she believes could save her foundering marriage. Meanwhile, Margaret, once a happily married mother of three, questions her maternal identity in the wake of a shattering loss. As each woman struggles with her own demons, their lives collide in ways that have irreversible consequences for them all.

 

Travelers Rest

Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel

Benjamin Black

Henry Holt

 

A suspicious death, a pregnant woman suddenly gone missing: Quirke's latest case leads him inexorably toward the dark machinations of an old foe Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Irish pathologist has suffered hallucinations and blackouts, and he fears the cause is a brain tumor. A specialist diagnoses an old head injury caused by a savage beating; all that's needed, the doctor declares, is an extended rest. But Quirke, ever intent on finding his place among the living, is not about to retire. One night during a June heat wave, a car crashes into a tree in central Dublin and bursts into flames. The police assume the driver's death was either an accident or a suicide, but Quirke's examination of the body leads him to believe otherwise. Then his daughter Phoebe gets a mysterious visit from an acquaintance: the woman, who admits to being pregnant, says she fears for her life, though she won't say why. When the woman later disappears, Phoebe asks her father for help, and Quirke in turn seeks the assistance of his old friend Inspector Hackett. Before long the two men find themselves untangling a twisted string of events that takes them deep into a shadowy world where one of the city's most powerful men uses the cover of politics and religion to make obscene profits.

 

The Dressmaker's War

The Dressmaker's War

Mary Chamberlain

Random House

 

London, 1939. Ada Vaughan is a young working-class woman with an unusual skill for dressmaking who dreams of opening her own atelier. When she meets Stanislaus von Lieben, a Hungarian aristocrat, a new, better life seems to arrive. Stanislaus sweeps Ada off her feet and brings her to Paris. But when war breaks out and Stanislaus vanishes, Ada is abandoned and alone, trapped on an increasingly dangerous continent. Taken prisoner by the Germans, Ada does everything she can to survive. In the bleak horror of wartime Germany, Ada's skill for creating beauty and glamour is the one thing that keeps her safe. But after the war, attempting to rebuild her life in London, Ada finds that no one is interested in the messy truths of what happened to women like her. And though Ada thought she had left the war behind, her past eventually comes to light, with devastating consequences.

 

And Again

And Again

Jessica Chiarella

Touchstone Books

 

Would you live your life differently if you were given a second chance? Hannah, David, Connie, and Linda four terminally ill patients have been selected for the SUBlife pilot program, which will grant them brand-new, genetically perfect bodies that are exact copies of their former selves without a single imperfection. Blemishes, scars, freckles, and wrinkles have all disappeared, their fingerprints are different, their vision is impeccable, and most importantly, their illnesses have been cured. But the fresh start they ve been given is anything but perfect. Without their old bodies, their new physical identities have been lost. Hannah, an artistic prodigy, has to relearn how to hold a brush; David, a Congressman, grapples with his old habits; Connie, an actress whose stunning looks are restored after a protracted illness, tries to navigate an industry obsessed with physical beauty; and Linda, who spent eight years paralyzed after a car accident, now struggles to reconnect with a family that seems to have built a new life without her. As each tries to re-enter their previous lives and relationships they are faced with the question: how much of your identity rests not just in your mind, but in your heart, your body?

 

A God in Ruins

A God in Ruins

Kate Atkinson

Back Bay Books

 

Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances and the power of choices, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century over and over again. A GOD IN RUINS tells the dramatic story of the 20th Century through Ursula's beloved younger brother Teddy--would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather-as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have. An ingenious and moving exploration of one ordinary man's path through extraordinary times, A GOD IN RUINS proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age.

 

 Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

Sunil Yapa

Lee Boudreaux Books

 

An electrifying debut novel set amid the heated conflict of Seattle's 1999 WTO protests. On a rainy, cold day in November, young Victor--a nomadic, scrappy teenager who's run away from home--sets out to sell as much marijuana as possible to the throng of WTO demonstrators determined to shut down the city. With the proceeds, he plans to buy a plane ticket and leave Seattle forever, but it quickly becomes clear that the history-making 50,000 anti-globalization protestors--from anarchists to environmentalists to teamsters--are testing the patience of the police, and what started out as a peaceful protest is threatening to erupt into violence. Over the course of one life-altering afternoon, the fates of seven people will change forever: foremost among them police Chief Bishop, the estranged father Victor hasn't seen in three years, two protesters struggling to stay true to their non-violent principles as the day descends into chaos, two police officers in the street, and the coolly elegant financial minister from Sri Lanka whose life, as well as his country's fate, hinges on getting through the angry crowd, out of jail, and to his meeting with the President of the United States. When Chief Bishop reluctantly unleashes tear gas on the unsuspecting crowd, it seems his hopes for reconciliation with his son, as well as the future of his city, are in serious peril. In this raw and breathtaking

 

Once a Crooked Man

Once a Crooked Man

David McCallum

Minotaur Books

 

Crime pays. And pays well. Sal, Max and Enzo Bruschetti have proved this over a lifetime of nefarious activity that they have kept hidden from law enforcement. Nowhere in any file, on any computer is there a record of anything illegal from which they have profited. But Max has a problem. His body is getting old and his doctor has told him to take it easy. Max has decided that the time has come for the family to retire. But when young actor Harry Murphy overhears the Bruschetti brothers planning changes to their organization, including the murder of a man in London who knows t0o much, the Bruschetti's plans begin to unravel. After Harry makes the well-intentioned if egregious mistake of trying to warn the Bruchetti's intended victim he finds himself alone in a foreign country, on the wrong side of the law, with a suitcase full of cash and a dangerous man on his trail. And while his good looks, charm and cheerful persistence may prove assets in the turbulent events that follow, none of Harry's past roles have prepared him for what happens next.

 

The Drifter

The Drifter

Nicholas Petrie

G.P. Putnam's Sons

 

Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls his white static, the buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming in nature, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man's widow with some home repairs. Under her dilapidated porch, he finds more than he bargained for: the largest, ugliest, meanest dog he's ever encountered . . . and a Samsonite suitcase stuffed with cash and explosives. As Ash begins to investigate this unexpected discovery, he finds himself at the center of a plot that is far larger than he could have imagined . . . and it may lead straight back to the world he thought he d left for good.

 

This Census-Taker

This Census-Taker

China Mieville

Del Rey Books

 

In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He tries and fails to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape. When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over. But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether? Filled with beauty, terror, and strangeness, "This Census-Taker" is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity.

 

George Washington's Journey: The President Forges a New Nation

George Washington's Journey: The President Forges a New Nation

T.H. Breen

Simon and Schuster

 

T.H. Breen introduces us to a George Washington we rarely meet. During his first term as president, he decided that the only way to fulfill the Revolution was to take the new federal government directly to the people. He organized an extraordinary journey carrying him to all thirteen states. It transformed American political culture. For Washington, the stakes were high. If the nation fragmented, as it had almost done after the war, it could never become the strong, independent nation for which he had fought. In scores of communities, he communicated a powerful and enduring message that America was now a nation, not a loose collection of states. And the people responded to his invitation in ways that he could never have predicted.

 

When Breath Becomes Air

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi

Random House

 

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naive medical student possessed, as he wrote, by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

 

The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time

The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time

Maria Konnikova

Viking

 

While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen the Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs are elegant, outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her mesmerizing new book. From multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes to small-time frauds, Konnikova pulls together a selection of fascinating stories to demonstrate what all cons share in common, drawing on scientific, dramatic, and psychological perspectives. Insightful and gripping, the book brings readers into the world of the con, examining the relationship between artist and victim. The Confidence Game asks not only why we believe con artists, but also examines the very act of believing and how our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us.

Thank You for Supporting Your Community Bookseller, Rainy Day Books, Since 1975!

Since November 04, 1975, we have pursued our Legacy of Literacy:  40 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 Northwest corner of the intersection of Shawnee Mission Parkway and Belinder Road.  Our address is 2706 W 53rd Street, Fairway, Kansas (KS) 66205.  Our Phone Number is 913-384-3126. 
 
Get Directions to Rainy Day Books and our Author Event venues by Clicking Here.
 
Store Hours: 
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays: 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM; Saturdays: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM; and Sundays we read, rest and enjoy time with 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 Reading Recommendations and priceless Author Event experiences, all at a fair price.  To our faithful loyal Customers, we say Thank You for your Support!  We look forward to seeing again you soon!
 

We look forward to seeing you soon!

 

Roger & Vivien at Home with their Books

 

Life is Good and it just keeps getting Better, 

 

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