In My Mailbox #4

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren. Book bloggers share what books came into their house that week by mail or from a bookstore or the library.

Last week, I didn't participate because I didn't get any new books! That was a first for me. I think it was because of our long weekend and the library being closed for two days that none of the books came in time for my Tuesday visit. That's okay though, it gave me time to work through my pile!

Here is what I got from the library this week:

A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit

What most people believe and what actually happens in the aftermath of a disaster are two different things. The movies, the media, and the authorities have too often insisted that we are a chaotic, selfish species and ought to fear each other. Yet in the wake of almost every major disaster a wave of altruistic and brave improvisation saves lives, forms communities, and shapes many survivors' experiences. The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit in her new book A Paradise Built in Hell, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy.

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin

Tessa Russo is the mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Despite her own misgivings, Tessa has recently given up her career to focus on her family and the pursuit of domestic happiness. From the outside, she seems destined to live a charmed life. Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie, a boy who has never known his father. After too many disappointments, she has given up on romance - and even, to some degree, friendships - believing that it is always safer not to expect too much. Although both women live in the same Boston suburb, the two have relatively little in common, aside from a fierce love for their children. But one night, a tragic accident causes their lives to converge in ways no one could have imagined.

The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer by John Doyle

He fel in love with the game as a child and never looked back. And as a grown-up journalist, John Doyle has been offered opportunities he could not have imagined years before: to moonlight from his day job as The Globe and Mail's television critic and travel the world of soccer. This is the enchanting story of that odyssey so far. It begins with the first game John saw, in repressed 1960's-era Ireland, through soccer in the 21st century - the World Cups in 2002 and '06, the European Championships in '04 and '08 - and on to a detailed chronicle of the key games leading to World Cup 2010. In dispatches from Italy to Ireland, from Buenos Aires to Bratislava, and between encounters with the crazed taxi drivers and drunken fans dressed as leprechauns or in lederhosen, Doyle beholds, celebrates and explains the evolution of soccer as a global phenomenon. He shows a sport where for 90 minutes on the pitch anything seems possible - a game of athletic art where colonized nations can conquer their colonizers, where the oppressed can triumph and the poor are rich in the pleasure of play.