Fantasic Firsts Ladies Lunch and Literacy

Ladies, Lunch & Literacy began in 2008 as a program that introduced debut authors to readers over lunch at independent restaurants and venues in Los Angeles and San Diego. Not every worthy debut author can come to lunch. Subscribe to this book club and be the first to know about an upcoming writer of merit.

• Sign up for one year and get 10 to 12 books we highly recommend and believe are likely to be collectible ... books you’ll value having on your shelves. There is no fee to join.
• Subscribers receive 20% off cover price of selected titles with one-year subscription. To qualify for this discount, you are agreeing to purchase all of our club selections.
• We will keep your credit card information on file in a secure location and charge you each month as titles are available.
• You may pick up your new book at either Mysterious Galaxy location.
• Standard shipping rates apply for shipped titles. Titles held for pick up in store will be billed and shipped if not picked up within two weeks of notification.
• This is a great gift-giving opportunity. We are happy to send our selections each month as a gift to the book lover of your choice.
• Many, but not all selections will be signed.

To sign up, or for more information, contact the staff in San Diego (858-268-4747). Club membership lists will be maintained by the San Diego location, but all fantastic titles can be picked up in either store, or shipped to you!

A new title will be revealed each month!

May Fantastic First Pick:

The Golem and the Jinni (Hardcover)

By Helene Wecker

$26.99

ISBN-13: 9780062110831
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper, 4/2013

Other Editions of this Title

Description

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A marvelous and absorbing debut novel, an enchanting combination of vivid historical fiction and magical fable about two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York.

Praise for The Golem and the Jinni…

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“With a delightful blend of the prosaic and the fanciful, THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI explores what it means to be human as Chava and Ahmad struggle to live and find love while overcoming the powerful adversary who threatens to destroy them.”
-Deborah Harkness, author of A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES

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A Tale for the Time Being (Hardcover)

By Ruth Ozeki

$28.95

ISBN-13: 9780670026630
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Viking Adult, 3/2013

Other Editions of this Title

Signed First Editions available.

Description

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A brilliant, unforgettable, and long-awaited novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki

“A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.

Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.

Full of Ozeki’s signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.  

About the Author

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Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the award-winning author of three novels, My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, and A Tale for the Time Being. Her critically acclaimed independent films, including Halving the Bones, have been screened at Sundance and aired on PBS. She is affiliated with the Brooklyn Zen Center and the Everyday Zen Foundation. She lives in British Columbia and New York City.

Visit www.ruthozeki.com and follow @ozekiland on Twitter.

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Hikikomori and the Rental Sister (Hardcover)

By Jeff Backhaus

$23.95

ISBN-13: 9781616201371
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1/2013

Other Editions of this Title

Backhaus’ debut is one of the most original novels I have ever read. It is at once suspenseful and titillating and takes you to places you have never been. Thomas Tessler has locked himself into one room in his apartment for 3 years in response to the grief and responsibility he feels for the death of his son. His wife, Silke, lives in the room next door and still loves him, but is beyond frustrated with this behavior, having not set eyes on him for this entire period. She hires a “rental sister” to visit the house to persuade Thomas to come out of the room and enter back into life. Told alternatively from his point of view and the point of view of the Megumi, a Japanese-born young woman with a background and lifestyle that will alternately fascinate you and confound you. I was mesmerized by this novel from the first page to the satisfying end.

– Terry

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