Joy For Beginners: Amazon.ca: Erica Bauermeister: Books

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Book Description

Release Date: Jun 14 2011

"Moving, touching, wonderfully written, inspiring to read." -Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

At an intimate, festive dinner party in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate's recovery from cancer. Wineglass in hand, Kate strikes a bargain with them. To celebrate her new lease on life, she'll do the one thing that's always terrified her: white-water rafting. But if she goes, all of them will also do something they always swore they'd never do-and Kate is going to choose their adventures.

Shimmering with warmth, wit, and insight, Joy for Beginners is a celebration of life: unexpected, lyrical, and deeply satisfying.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (Jun 14 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157123
ISBN-13: 978-0399157127
Product Dimensions: 21 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 399 g

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #208,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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“A joy to read. Bauermeister gives us characters who revel in the best of what life has to offer—loving relationships, fine food, good books, and travel—and she writes with keen observance and wry wit…Readers will be inspired to leap into their own lives with renewed gusto.”- Stephanie Kallos, author of Sing Them Home

“Joy for Beginners takes us on the emotional journeys of seven women seeking to transform their lives, and proves that sometimes what we really need to inspire us to change is a good, firm shove. Erica Bauermeister’s prose is evocative and compelling.” –Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Bauermeister has created a cast of textured and nuanced characters who individually and as a group speak to what makes women interesting and enigmatic. Her prose is velvety smooth, revealing life at once mournful and auspicious. Joyful, indeed.”

–Library Journal (starred review)

“How transporting to live, even briefly, inside these women’s lives.”

—Laura Hansen, Bookin’ it

“Sensual…evocative…A book designed to fill you up and make you hungry for life.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Joy for Beginners is ultimately a celebration of life; a literary confirmation of the power of friendship.”

—Carol Cassella, author of Oxygen

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Erica Bauermeister’s love of slow food and slow life was cemented by her two years living in northern Italy with her husband and children. She has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Washington and currently lives in Seattle with her family. The School of Essential Ingredients is her first novel.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Delight!! Sep 23 2012

By Louise Jolly TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Story Description:

Berkley Trade|June 5, 2012|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-425-24742-6

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year

What would you do with a second chance at life?

Having survived a life-threatening illness, Kate celebrates by gathering with six close friends. At an intimate outdoor dinner on a warm September evening, the women challenge Kate to start her new lease on life by going white-water rafting down the Grand Canyon with her daughter. But Kate is reluctant to take the risk.

That is, until her friend Marion proposes a pact: if Kate will face the rapids, each woman will do one thing in the next year that scares her. Kate agrees, with one provision - she didn't get to choose her challenge, so she gets to choose theirs. Whether it's learning to let go of the past or getting a tattoo, each woman's story interweaves with the others, forming a seamless portrait of the power of female friendships. From the author of The School of Essential Ingredients comes a beautifully crafted novel about daring to experience true joy, starting with one small step at a time.

My Review:

Kate is home again after just surviving breast cancer. To celebrate she invites six of her closest friends to come and share in an intimate dinner. Kate was hit very hard when she discovered she had breast cancer.

The evening of the dinner arrived and each friend: Daria, Ava, Sara, Marion, Caroline, and Hadley each arrived at Kate's door with some part of the meal. While in the kitchen, one of her friends sees a pamphlet on the fridge about white-water rafting in the Grand Canyon. She brings it to the table with her and asks Kate to explain. Kate tells the group that her adult daughter is going on the trip. The women all agree that it's a fabulous opportunity and think that Kate should go with her to celebrate her second chance at life. It takes a little bit of convincing but Kate finally relents and agrees to go with her only after Marion declares that if Kate is going to be brave enough to white-water raft, then each of the six of them will do one thing in the next year that scares her. Of course, Kate thinks this is a marvelous idea and adds that since she didn't get to choose her challenge, she herself will pick everyone else's challenge.

I found I could relate better to some characters better than others. My favourite challenge was Sara's trip to Italy as I've learned a lot about that country, love Italian food, have a long-standing pen pal there, and would love to visit someday myself.

Joy for Beginners is a great representation of being able to find joy and learning to feel and embrace that joy. It's a story of love, friendship, heartbreak, hope, and remembering that life is for living especially if given a second chance.

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Amazon.com: 4.2 out of 5 stars 73 reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 stars -- lyrical lovely just-right prose Jun 9 2011

By Jennifer Donovan - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Hardcover

Kate challenges a group of her friends to pursue their own joy in ways that each of them need.

The women are a loosely connected group who were first put together by Marion to be a "baby-holding" help to help Sara out with her newborn twins (and preschooler son). When Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer, Marion thought it only made sense for the group to morph from helping out Sara to being there for Kate, a divorced empty-nester, in her time of need.

When Kate beat breast cancer, she did something that she never thought she would. She agreed to accompany her adult daughter on a raft trip through the Grand Canyon. She figured that she had cheated death once -- why not expand her boundaries while pushing her luck a second time? At her celebration dinner, Marion thinks that each of them should make a pact to do something that is "scary or difficult or that we've always said we were going to do but haven't" (ARC page 8). Kate thought it was a great idea but added "I didn't get to choose mine, so I get to choose yours."

These women were all so different, and so readers will each relate to a different woman's struggles, which would probably make for a good book club chat.

I loved each of them in different ways:

*Hadley, a young widow, trying to push through her grief and figure out life on her own
*Caroline, bookstore owner (love her already!)recovering from a divorce and navigating life as an empty-nester
*Marion, the glue of the group, who needs to be pushed to do something just for her
*Daria, Marion's younger sister, an independent, artistic, free-spirit
*Sara, a good mom, wrapped up in the needs of her family, who is challenged to forget all of them for a while
*Ava, a friend of Kate's who couldn't be there for Kate during her illness and feels like she's being punished
*and Kate, the survivor, brave but not maudlin

This book reminded me a great deal of Erica Bauermeister's first novel The School of Essential Ingredients. The characters and the plot are entirely different, but the beautiful, lyrical language that jumps off the page is the same, and each book looks at a loosely connected group of people, and devotes a section to each character.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Comfort Stories July 19 2011

By litaddiction - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Hardcover

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" -- Mary Oliver

That question from the epigraph is pertinent to Kate, who was hit hard by breast cancer and, now recovered, is reluctant to accept her daughter's celebratory challenge to go white-water rafting. But it's also pertinent to Kate's circle of close friends, who support her by agreeing that she also issue a challenge to each of them -- something that will ease a fear and increase the joy and living in their own lives.

I loved Bauermeister's debut novel (The School of Essential Ingredients, a collection of linked stories about the students in a series of cooking classes) and remember ending my review by wishing I could read another set of stories about the next year's class. Happily, JOY FOR BEGINNERS is nearly that, with writing as sensual and lush and stories as tender and hopeful. But here they're even sweeter, gentle to the point of lacking narrative tension, and they lack SCHOOL's sympathetic lead character and unifying story premise. Recommended for readers in the mood for comforting stories about women's friendships.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Identity: Lost and Found July 15 2011

By Beth E. Settje - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Hardcover

My book club chose Joy for Beginners (well named title, by the way) for our next selection. As I had not read her earlier book yet, I went and got that one first. (It is excellent.) I could not wait to read this book after finishing the first. Though completely different premises, the writing style was very similar, as well as the way the characters are presented. The author writes in a way that can best be described as lyrical. The prose flows and the conversations seem very real.

In this book, the reader is introduced to a number of women, friends for various periods of time (some just with one other woman) but all connected to one woman, Kate, who has survived breast cancer. Kate is a major common thread throughout the story, though each chapter focuses on an individual woman, one at a time.

I liked how the author made Kate very human, with both flaws and attributes that are easy to relate to. Though I have not had to deal with cancer personally, I could still connect to Kate's fears and concerns. The other women are also easy to consider as people we know on a daily basis. Each woman had a situation in her life that she needs to overcome and Kate is able to hone in on that one area in the form of a personal challenge. The only aspect of the book I did not like was that, for the most part, once a chapter was over, the other characters were not reintroduced. I happen to like closure and that lack of knowing what would happen next was difficult for me. However, that is a personal preference and many readers will likely enjoy the possibilities. I could see a sequel from this book, especially with the women whose stories were left hanging, such as Ava, Caroine, Hadley and Robin.

Overall, I expect our book club will have a rich conversation about women, choices, life and death, friendship and more. I am excited to have discovered this author and hope she continues to write more books.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 73 reviews 4.2 out of 5 stars

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