Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Piano Teacher

I started reading this book while babysitting miss Ellie and just had to finish it. It was written by Janice Y. K. Lee, the former editor at Elle and Mirabella magazines. She was born and raised in Hong Kong (the setting of the book) and now lives there with her husband and children. "In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls passionately in love with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their affair is threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their lives. Ten years later, Clair Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughters piano teacher. Seduced by the colony's heady social life, she soon begins an affair...only to discover that her lover is hiding a devastating past. As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine, impossible choices emerge-- between love and safety, corage and survival, the present, and, above all, the past."
I really couldn't think of anything to say about this book, so I decided to post the review that's on the back cover. I thought the story line was very clever, and the intertwining of the two stories was well thought out. However, perhaps miss Lee should stick with her job as editor...

SwapTree

I honestly think SwapTree is one of the best things I've ever discovered on the internet. It is a book/music/dvd trading site that is actually easy to use! There is no charge and, out of my four trades, I have never been let down! This week I shipped out my Vanessa Hudgens cd (which I am very embarrassed to have owned) and am receiving the book Post Secrets by Frank Warren. They website finds all the trades for you, based on the the items you want, and your user ratings. They've recently added a new feature that lets you do three way trades.
www.swaptree.com