Paperback: 250 pages

Publisher: Tatra Press (October 16, 2010)

Muggings on Avenue C, punk bands at CBGB, youthful romance in Greenwich Village, parties in a nascent SoHo, dropping out from the famous Music & Art High School.  In this episodic, coming of age memoir, Josh Karlen chronicles growing up in New York’s Greenwich Village, East Village, and crime-ridden Alphabet City in the 70s and early 80s.  Lost Lustre recaptures a downtown Manhattan at a pivotal time of the city’s history, when New York was suffering its gravest financial crisis and soaring crime, yet also was home for a spectacular resurgence of the arts.  Karlen shares a fascinating personal history of the punk rock scene through a prism of The Lustres, a band that played venues such as CBGB a few years after its stage had held the Talking Heads, Patti Smith and the Ramones.  In the title chapter, Karlen poignantly pays homage ot the band’s charismatic and talented lead singer, whose life in many ways seemed to mirror his times in both its shining creativity and nihilistically destructive force.

“A window into a darker, grittier version of the city…[Karlen's] memories of living in the rough neighborhood known as Alphabet City are vibrant…”–Publishers Weekly

“Lost Lustre is a reverberant, strata-rich memoir, written with a relaxed and endearing fluency and modesty. I was engrossed.”–Edward Hoagland, author of NOTES FROM THE CENTURY BEFORE

Listen to basement tapes of The Lustres, circa 1980!

Eggshells

Running My Way

Take the Bus

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For more information about Lost Lustre, check out the publisher’s website, TatraPress.com.

About Josh Karlen:

Josh Karlen, a native New Yorker, grew up on the Lower East Side and in Greenwich Village.  A former journalist, he was a correspondent in the Baltics for United Press International, Radio Free Europe, and other news organizations.

Josh lives in New York City with his wife and two children and is a media relations specialist.

family secrets..

Here’s one to get your club talking!

Register your book club with TLC Book Tours by September 30th and you could win up to 10 copies of How to Be An American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway for your book club!  Margaret will also be happy to schedule a phone call or Skype conversation with the winning club in September’s Book Club of the Month Contest!

A lively and surprising novel about a Japanese woman with a closely guarded secret, the American daughter who strives to live up to her mother’s standards, and the rejuvenating power of forgiveness.

How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters, and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn’t been what she’d expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways. Offering an entertaining glimpse into American and Japanese family lives and their potent aspirations, this is a warm and engaging novel full of unexpected insight.

Congrats to Margaret for the excellent 4 star review of How to Be An American Housewife in People Magazine!

A reading group guide for How to Be An American Housewife can be found HERE.

Connect with Margaret on Facebook!

Please fill out our super-short registration form HERE and register to win by September 30th!  We will randomly choose a winner at the end of the month.  This contest is open to clubs in the US and Canada only (our apologies to friends in other countries).

Best of luck!

We LOVE Book Clubs!

Monday, August 30th: Bran Apétit!

Tuesday, August 31st: Meet Me In the Kitchen

Wednesday, September 1st: Prudence Pennywise

Thursday, September 2nd: Cooking With Amy

Friday, September 3rd: Celebrations at Home

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Monday, August 30th: A Bookworm’s World

Tuesday, August 31st: Thoughts From an Evil Overlord

Thursday, September 2nd: Bibliofreak

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Ashes to Water by Irene Ziegler

Monday, August 30th: Jen’s Book Thoughts

Tuesday, August 31st: My Random Acts of Reading

Wednesday, September 1st: Helen’s Book Blog

Thursday, September 2nd: Life In Review

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Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin

Monday, August 30th: The Gods Are Bored

Tuesday, August 31st: Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Wednesday, September 1st: Adventurous Kate

Thursday, September 2nd: Bloomingwriter

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The Miracles of Prato by L. Albanese and L. Morowitz

Monday, August 30th: Rundpinne

Tuesday, August 31st: Drey’s Library

Thursday, September 2nd: The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

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Finny by Justin Kramon

Monday, August 30th: Dolce Bellezza

Wednesday, September 1st: Jenny Loves to Read

Friday, September 3rd: Raging Bibliomania

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Teen-authored memoir series LOUDER THAN WORDS

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Monday, August 30th:  The Compulsive Reader (HANNAH)

Tuesday, August 31st:  Peeking Between the Pages (RAE)

Friday, September 3rd:  The Book Scout (RAE)

Home Again by Mariah Stewart

Monday, August 30th:  Heart 2 Heart

Wednesday, September 1st:  Reading at the Beach

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Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis

Monday, August 30th: All About {n}

Wednesday, September 1st: In the Next Room

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Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Monday, August 30th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, September 1st:  The Cajun Book Lady

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The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle

Monday, August 30th: Café of Dreams

Wednesday, September 1st: Take Me Away

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Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell

Monday, August 30th: The Lost Entwife

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by W. Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Monday, August 30th: Nonsuch Book

Thursday, September 2nd: Bookfoolery and Babble

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What We Have by Amy Boesky

Tuesday, August 31st:  Cozy Little House

Wednesday, September 1st:  Silver and Grace

Thursday, September 2nd:  BookNAround

Friday, September 3rd:  Peeking Between the Pages

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The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon

Tuesday, August 31st:  The Brain Lair (Outlander)

Wednesday, September 1st:  My Two Blessings (Outlander)

Thursday, September 2nd:  Life in the Thumb (An Echo in the Bone)

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Leaving Before It’s Over by Jean Reynolds Page

Tuesday, August 31st: Rundpinne

Thursday, September 2nd: Colloquium

Friday, September 3rd: Reading at the Beach

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The Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle

Wednesday, September 1st: Rundpinne

Thursday, September 2nd: Helen’s Book Blog

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Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones

Thursday, September 2nd: Eleanor’s Trousers

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• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Mira; Original edition (July 27, 2010)

Sylvia Sandon is at a crossroads in her life. A wife and mother of two daughters, she and her city-planner husband are grappling with the escalating renovation of their antique farmhouse—a situation that mirrors the disarray in Sylvia’s life. Facing a failing marriage and a stalled career as an art teacher, Sylvia finds herself suddenly powerless to the allure of Tai Rosen, the father of her most challenging art student. As their passion ignites, Sylvia is forced to examine her past, and the seeds of betrayal that were sown decades earlier by her mother’s secret life.

Eloquently written and deeply thought-provoking, Ostermiller’s OUTSIDE THE ORDINARY WORLD crosses many years and miles—from the California brushfires in the 1970s to New England during the first half of this decade. Raised Seventh Day Adventist, Sylvia must reconcile the conflicting values exhibited by her parents—a mother involved in an extramarital affair and a father who was emotionally distant and abusive—while coming to terms with her own troubling role in her family’s dissolution and father’s tragic death.

While infidelity is a subject often explored in fiction, Ostermiller shines a razor-sharp lens on the gray areas surrounding betrayal, the interplay of religion, and the legacy passed down from one generation to the next. At the same time, she reveals the redemptive power of the human spirit to love, grow, and change despite family history.

View the Reader’s Group Guide HERE.

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About Dori

Dori Ostermiller was born in Los Angeles, a fifth-generation Californian. In her early 20′s, she abandoned her path as a pre-med student to pursue an MFA in writing at the University of Massachusetts. Since then, her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Bellingham Review, Roanoke Review, Alligator Juniper, Chautauqua Literary Journal and the Massachusetts Review. She is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist’s Grant and a Tobias Wolf Fiction award, and is the founder of Writers in Progress, a literary arts center in Western Massachusetts.

Her debut novel, Outside the Ordinary World, was released by MIRA in August, 2010.  She lives in Northampton, with her husband and two daughters, and is at work on her second novel.

Connect with Dori on her website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Dori Ostermiller’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, November 1st:  Book Club Classics!

Tuesday, November 2nd:  Rundpinne

Wednesday, November 3rd:  Cozy Little House

Thursday, November 4th:  Lit and Life

Monday, November 8th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, November 9th:  I’m Booking It

Wednesday, November 10th:  The 3 R’s Blog

Thursday, November 11th:  Dolce Bellezza

Monday, November 15th:  Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Tuesday, November 16th:  Reviews from the Heart

Wednesday, November 17th:  Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Thursday, November 18th:  Starting Fresh

Friday, November 19th:  Diary of an Eccentric

Monday, November 22nd:  Along the Way

Wednesday, November 24th:  In the Next Room

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (October 5, 2010)

With the new millennium approaching, the eccentric town of Thebes grows even stranger. Mrs. Leontina Scales begins speaking in tongues after being clocked by a Catholic statuette. Her daughter, Tabitha, and her sons scheme to save their mother or surrender her to Jesus—whatever comes first. Meanwhile, choir director Jeremy Carr, caught between lust and ambition, fumbles his way toward Y2K. The ancient Sisters of the Sorrowful Mysteries join with a gay singing group. The Radical Radiants battle the Catholics. A Christmas pageant goes horribly awry. And a child is born.

Only a modern master like Gregory Maguire could spin a tale as frantic, funny, and farcical as The Next Queen of Heaven.

About Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror, Mirror, Matchless, Making Mischief, and the Wicked Years series that includes A Lion Among Men, Son of a Witch, and Wicked, now a beloved classic and the basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Maguire has lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

Visit Maguire at his website.

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (September 21, 2010)

Loyalty, loss, and the ties that bind: These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a “novel cookbook” that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than eighty delicious recipes.

Lifelong friends Lilly and Val are united as much by their differences as by their similarities. In childhood, “LillyPad” and “ValPal” form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets . . . and recipes—from Lilly’s “Lovelorn Lasagna” to Valerie’s “Forgiveness Tapenade.” The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val’s bond across the decades: through the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred—until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

ANDREA ISRAEL (left) is a producer/writer for ABC’s Focus Earth. She was a producer/writer for Anderson Cooper 360, Dateline, and Good Morning America (which garnered her an Emmy Award). Her story, “In Donald’s Eyes,” was optioned for a film. She is the author of Taking Tea, a guide to the history and ceremony of the drink. Her writing has appeared in many publications.

NANCY GARFINKEL (right) is co-author of The Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country: The Best of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino. A writer, design consultant, creative strategist, and editor for a wide range of magazine, corporate, and non-profit clients, she has won a host of graphic arts and editorial merit awards. She has written extensively about food and graphic arts.

Have fun at their website, www.therecipeclubbook.com.

Monday, August 23rd:  The Missive Maven

Tuesday, August 24th:  Snail Mail Afficionado

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Ashes to Water by Irene Ziegler

Monday, August 23rd: Lesa’s Book Critiques

Tuesday, August 24th: My Reading Room

Wednesday, August 25th: Booksie’s Blog

Thursday, August 26th: Café of Dreams

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What We Have by Amy Boesky

Monday, August 23rd: A Nut in a Nutshell

Tuesday, August 24th:  Amy’s Creative Side

Wednesday, August 25th:  Overstuffed

Thursday, August 26th:  Rundpinne

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Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge

Tuesday, August 24th:  Chick Lit is Not Dead

Wednesday, August 25th:  Book Club Classics

Thursday, August 26th:  Book Addiction

Friday, August 27th:  Ask Miss A

Friday, August 27th:  Bellas Novella

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The Keys to Good Cooking by Harold McGee

Monday, August 23rd: Scraps of Life

Tuesday, August 24th: Anne Strawberry

Wednesday, August 25th: A Southern Grace

Thursday, August 26th: Big Black Dog

Friday, August 27th: Hangry Pants

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Waxed by Robert Rave

Monday, August 23rd:  Pop Culture Junkie

Tuesday, August 24th:  Starting Fresh

Thursday, August 26th:  Ask Miss A

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The Louder Than Words series

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Monday, August 23rd:  Frenetic Reader (HANNAH)

Monday, August 23rd:  Shooting Stars Mag (ALEXIS)

Tuesday, August 24th:  Peeking Between the Pages (HANNAH)

Thursday, August 25th:  Ticket to Anywhere (ALEXIS)

Thursday, August 26th:  WORD for Teens (RAE)

Friday, August 27th:  Rundpinne (ALEXIS)

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Leaving Before It’s Over by Jean Reynolds Page

Monday, August 23rd: Books in the City

Wednesday, August 25th: Scraps of Life

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The Last War by Ana Menendez

Monday, August 23rd: Dreadlock Girl Reads

Wednesday, August 25th: Rundpinne

Thursday, August 26th: Booksie’s Blog

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Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Monday, August 23rd:  Rundpinne

Wednesday, August 25th:  Tynga’s Reviews

Thursday, August 26th:  Savvy Verse and Wit

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The Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle

Monday, August 23rd: Lisa’s Yarns

Thursday, August 26th: The Book Faery Reviews

Thursday, August 26th: Reading at the Beach

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Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones

Monday, August 23rd: The Dumbest Smart Girl You Know

Thursday, August 26th: Cozy Little House

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Finny by Justin Kramon

Tuesday, August 24th: Rundpinne

Wednesday, August 25th: Tales of a Capricious Reader

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Tuesday, August 24th: Age 30+…A Lifetime of Books

Wednesday, August 25th: Bookfoolery and Babble RESCHEDULED

Thursday, August 26th: The Road to Here

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The Miracles of Prato by Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz

Tuesday, August 24th: Passages to the Past

Wednesday, August 25th: Lit and Life

Thursday, August 26th: Life in the Thumb

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The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle

Tuesday, August 24th: The Little Reader

Wednesday, August 25th: Take Me Away RESCHEDULED

Thursday, August 26th: Books and Things

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I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Tuesday, August 24th: red headed book child

Wednesday, August 25th: Shhh I’m Reading

Thursday, August 26th: Staircase Wit

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Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell

Tuesday, August 24th: Til We Read Again

Thursday, August 26th: Bibliofreak RESCHEDULED

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Vanishing by Deborah Willis

Tuesday, August 24th: The Lost Entwife

Thursday, August 26th: Raging Bibliomania

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Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin

Tuesday, August 24th: garden bliss

Thursday, August 26th: A Homesteading Neophyte

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An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

Wednesday, August 25th:  MoonCat Farms Meanderings (An Echo in the Bone)

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I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway by Tracy McMillan

Thursday, August 26th: The Little Reader

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• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (September 21, 2010)

Tillie Harris’s life is in disarray—her husband is away on business, the boxes in her new home aren’t unpacked, and the telephone isn’t even connected yet. Though she’s not due for another month, sudden labor pains force Tillie to reach out to her estranged father for help, a choice that means facing the painful memories she’s been running from since she was a little girl.

An extraordinary debut from a talented new voice, Up from the Blue untangles the year in Tillie’s life that changed everything: 1975, the year her mother disappeared.

Praise for Up From the Blue:

“Up From the Blue deftly portrays a family with contradictions we can all relate to—it’s beautiful and maddening, hopeful and condemning, simple, yet like a knot that takes a lifetime to untangle. You will love it completely, even as it hurts you…it’s a heartbreaking, rewarding story that still haunts me.”
   — Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“A haunting tale of the terrible ways in which we fail each other; of the whys, the what ifs, and the what nows. This is not a book you’ll soon forget.”
   — Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants

“Henderson beautifully portrays this family in crisis through its most voluble and consistent member. Rapturous prose reveals young Tillie’s heart as she yearns for the mother who will make her world better but who can’t seem to mend her own tortured soul. A triumphant debut.”
   — Library Journal

“Henderson shows remarkable compassion in her debut novel, an affecting portrait of depression through a child’s eyes.”
   — Booklist

“A rare literary page-turner full of shocking discoveries and twists. Susan Henderson has created a remarkable narrator—as memorable for her feistiness as for her tenderness. Up From the Blue is going to be one of this year’s major debuts.”
   — Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of I Am Not Myself These Days

About Susan Henderson

Susan Henderson is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the founder of the literary blog LitPark: Where Writers Come to Play (www.litpark.com). Her work has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, the Pittsburgh Quarterly, North Atlantic Review, Opium, and many other publications. Henderson lives in New York, and Up from the Blue is her first novel.

Connect with Susan:

• On the LitPark blog
• On Facebook
• On Twitter: @litpark

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (September 21, 2010)

In this riveting novel, beloved international bestselling author Deepak Chopra captures the spellbinding life story of the great and often misunderstood Prophet.

Islam was born in a cradle of tribal turmoil, and the arrival of one God who vanquished hundreds of ancient Arabian gods changed the world forever. God reached down into the life of Muhammad, a settled husband and father, and spoke through him. Muhammad’s divine and dangerous task was to convince his people to renounce their ancestral idols and superstitious veneration of multiple gods. From the first encounter, God did not leave Muhammad alone, his life was no longer his own, and with each revelation the creation of a new way of life formed and a religion was born.

Muhammad didn’t see himself as the son of God or as one who achieved cosmic enlightenment. His relatives and neighbors didn’t part the way when he walked down the parched dirt streets of Mecca. There was no mark of divinity. Orphaned by age six, Muhammad grew up surrounded by dozens of cousins and extended family to become a trusted merchant. Muhammad saw himself as an ordinary man and that is why what happened to him is so extraordinary.

Rooted in historical detail, Muhammad brings the Prophet to life through the eyes of those around him. A Christian hermit mystic foretells a special destiny, a pugnacious Bedouin wet nurse raises him in the desert, and a religious rebel in Mecca secretly takes the young orphan under his spiritual wing. Each voice, each chapter brings Muhammad and the creation of Islam into a new light. The angel Gabriel demands Muhammad to recite, the first convert risks his life to protect his newfound faith, and Muhammad’s life is not a myth but an incredible true and surprisingly unknown story of a man and a moment that sparked a worldwide transformation.

About Deepak Chopra

Dr. Deepak Chopra is the founder of The Chopra Center for well-being in Carlsbad, California, and New York City, and cofounder and president of the Alliance for a New Humanity. Chopra’s Wellness Radio airs weekly on Sirius/XM Stars, Channels 102 and 55, and focuses on the areas of success, love, sexuality and relationships, well-being, and spirituality. The June 1999 issue of Time magazine heralded Dr. Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century, and called him as “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.”

Dr. Chopra is a prolific author of over 55 books, with 14 bestsellers on mind-body health, quantum mechanics, spirituality, and peace. A global force in the field of human empowerment, his books—both fiction and nonfiction—have been published in more than 35 languages. His New York Times bestsellers include Peace is the Way, which won the Quill Award; The Book of Secrets, which was awarded the grand prize at the 2005 Nautilus Book Awards; and his bestselling novel, Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment, which was released in November 2008. He is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section, and he contributes regularly online to Intent: My Path to Wellness and The Huffington Post.

Dr. Chopra’s popularity as an international presenter and keynote speaker is exemplified in an impressive list of honorariums. Since 1997, he has been participating annually as a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine event, sponsored by Harvard Medical School, Department of Continuing Education, and the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Chopra is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, an Adjunct Professor at the Kellogg School of Management, and a Senior Scientist with the Gallup Organization.

Find out more about Muhammad and Dr. Chopra here.

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (September 21, 2010)

The pilgrims quoted his story. Franklin and Jefferson proposed he appear on the U.S. seal. Washington and Lincoln were called his incarnations. The Statue of Liberty and Superman were molded in his image. Martin Luther King Jr. invoked him the night before he died. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama cited him as inspiration. For four hundred years, one figure has inspired more Americans than any other. His name is Moses.

Traveling through touchstones in American history, bestselling author Bruce Feiler traces the biblical prophet’s influence from the Mayflower through today. Meticulously researched and highly readable, America’s Prophet is a thrilling, original work of history that will forever change how we view America, our faith, and our future.

About Bruce Feiler

Bruce Feiler is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books, including Walking the Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born, an award-winning journalist, and the writer-presenter of the PBS miniseries Walking the Bible.

Bruce has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Gourmet, where he won three James Beard Awards. He is also a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, CNN, and Fox News. He has been the subject of Jay Leno joke and a Jeopardy! question, and his face appears on a postage stamp in the Grenadines.

A native of Savannah, Georgia, he lives in New York with wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their twin daughters. His book about fatherhood, The Council of Dads, was published in May, 2010.

Connect with Bruce:

• On his website
• On Twitter: @brucefeiler
• On Facebook