Friday Finds – November 1, 2013

Friday Finds is a weekly event hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can discuss books that you’ve discovered over the course of the week and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list. They can be books that are new or used.  They can be ones that you’ve borrowed (library or friend), found online, heard about from a friend, etc.

Check out these new reads that have found their way to me!

From Goodreads:  Have you ever felt that your presence at a sporting event influenced the result? Are you certain your team could not possibly succeed without you at the game? Do you believe your adherence to a precise routine on game day, whether at the stadium or in your own home, is the key to winning or losing? And if you don’t hold to these rituals exactly, do you believe in your heart that your team is doomed? If you are a sports fan, you know about superstitions, curses and hexes. The sporting world is littered with these legends. Some, like the Curse of the Bambino, the Curse of the Billy Goat, or being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, are well known and documented. More recently, there has been a rising swell of evidence supporting the Madden Curse. But there are other stories similar to these that have never been told. This is one of those stories. It is the story of a boy named Mark O’Bern.

From Goodreads:  Morehead is an explicitly adult novel, about Dave Morehead, a young man living in San Francisco during the height of the sexual revolution, in the late 1970’s to mid-1980’s. It was a time of sexual, evolutionary, and political change, with both glorious and nearly catastrophic consequences. San Francisco was teeming with diversity, and an evolving political base that forever changed the landscape of what had always been a progressive city. Harvey Milk, Halloween in the Castro, college classes where heterosexuals are in the minority, the first Gay Games, and spiritual cults comprise just part of the terrain Dave must traverse in order to get from where he was, to what he will become. Along the way, he is challenged, assaulted, and forced to defend himself, while relying on an expanding and surprising variety of friends. At the same time, a mysterious “gay cancer” is beginning to afflict some of his new friends and the community at large. Dave has to grow up, and he has to make choices. Will he be there for his friends, or will he let them go? Morehead is a coming of age story in the first person. It is told from the perspective of journals, classroom assignments, and transcribed audio recordings. Morehead comically, bluntly, graphically, and poignantly tells the tale of a straight young man living in a gay old city.

From Goodreads:  What would you do if the person you loved suddenly vanished into thin air?Catherine’s cosy life as a housewife and mum-of-three is quickly thrown into disarray when husband Simon disappears without explanation. She is convinced he hasn’t left by choice as confusion and spiraling debts threaten to tear her family apart.

Meanwhile Simon has begun a carefree new life travelling the world. And he’s determined not to disclose his past to all he meets, even if it means resorting to extreme and violent measures.

But why did he leave?

Catherine only gets her answer 25 years later when Simon suddenly reappears on her doorstep.

During their furious final confrontation, they discover the secrets, lies and misunderstandings that tore them apart, then brought them face-to-face one last time.