In My Mailbox (44)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme run by The Story Siren which explores the books that have been delivered to our mailbox. Let us know what looks good to you and leave us a link so we can check out what you got over the week.

For Review
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life by Sandra Beasley

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs


The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly

Jamrach's Menagerie: A Novel by Carol Birch

French Lessons: A Novel by Ellen Sussman

Fanfareby Renee Ahdieh

Hotwire: A Maggie O'Dell Novel by Alex Kava

In Transit by Kathleen Gerard

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

Her Dear and Loving Husband by Meredith Allard

Very Bad Men by Harry Dolan

Blood & Spirits: Book One Of The Coming Storm Trilogy (Volume 1) by Dennis Sharpe


Any of these on your TBR list?  Leave us a link to your IMM, we'd love to drool over your reads!

Winners of Art & Madness!

Congrats to both winners that will receive a copy of Art and Madness: A Memoir of Lust Without Reason by Anne Roiphe.

The winners are 

Michelle at The True Book Addict

and

Laura P.

Thanks to everyone for entering!

Waiting on Wednesday (61): Hypnotist by Lars Kepler

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The Hypnotist: A Novel by Lars Kepler.  Out June 21, 2011 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Book Description

In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the murders. The killer is still at large, and there’s only one surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes wanted this boy to die: he’s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. Desperate for information, Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes.

It’s the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again—ethically dubious and psychically scarring. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl.

An international sensation, The Hypnotist is set to appear in thirty-seven countries, and it has landed at the top of bestseller lists wherever it’s been published—in France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark. Now it’s America’s turn. Combining the addictive power of the Stieg Larsson trilogy with the storytelling drive of The Silence of the Lambs, this adrenaline-drenched thriller is spellbinding from its very first page.

---Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

Review: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

Publish Date: May 12, 2011

Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Book Description
In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them.

The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath.

Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges



Book Review
I was most interested in reading this book because I am a nursing student who has thoroughly enjoyed her Mental Health clinicals. The human brain is interesting and complex. Much of what Ronson covers is what I was taught in my Mental Health class at school, so there was a lot of familiarity to me. For the person who hasn’t been through that class, there will be a lot of new information available. Ronson applies The Psychopath Test to himself throughout the book and it’s easy to see how any one of us can be deemed mad at times. Some of the stories that Ronson tells go on for a bit too long and can be boring and dry, but there is also a lot of humor within the book. A few things that said psychopaths said or did were definitely cringe worthy and I quickly read on just to get to something that would make me laugh instead. It’s an insightful read into just how screwed up we people can be. That might be a tad insensitive, but it’s just because we all have a lil psychopath in us.

Book Rating: 3/5
Book Received From: Penguin for Review
Reviewer: Jessica

Waiting on Wednesday (60): Wolfsbane: A Nightshade Novel

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Wolfsbane (Nightshade, Book 2) by Angela Cremer due out July 26, 2011 from Philomel.

Book Description

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything--including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

---Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

In My Mailbox (43)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme run by The Story Siren which explores the books that have been delivered to our mailbox. Let us know what looks good to you and leave us a link so we can check out what you got over the week.

For Review

The Greatest Music Stories Never Told: 100 Tales from Music History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy by Rick Beyer.  Publisher: Harper.  Publish Date: June 7, 2011.

Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel by S.J. Watson.  Publisher: Harper.  Publish Date: June 14, 2011.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You: A Novel by Louisa Young. Publisher: Harper.  Publish Date: May 31, 2011.

So Shelly by Ty Roth.  Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers.  Publish Date: February 8, 2011.

The Hunt of the Unicorn by C.C. Humphreys.  Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers.  Publish Date: March 8, 2011.

The Fallen Star: Fallen Star Series (Volume 1) by Jessica Sorensen.  Publisher: Createspace.  Publish Date: April 11, 2011.

We, Robots (Conversation Pieces, Volume 16) by Sue Lange.  Publisher: Aqueduct Press. Publish Date: February 28, 2007.

This Burns My Heart: A Novel by Samuel Park.  Publisher: Simon & Schuster.  Publish Date: July 12, 2011.

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens.  Publisher: St. Martin's Press.  Publish Date: July 5, 2011.

Any of these look like something you want to read?  Leave us a link to what you got over the week, we'd love to check your post out!