Wednesday, September 02, 2009

GUEST: Lisa Lipkind Leibow

Books provide hours of entertainment for me. I love the way a good novel can transport me to another world, allow me to see things from a new point of view. Once, I inadvertently insulted my husband when answering the question, “If you could be any place on Earth where would you be?” My answer, “Alone on a beach with a book,” made him feel slighted somehow. Today, I’m officially editing my answer. My new answer, “Alone on a beach with my husband...and a book.”

I adore the complete, sensory experience of holding a print book – the smell of the pages, the way the paper feels between my fingers, and the look of the ink on the page. I love to dog-ear and highlight my favorite passages as I get lost in the fictive dream a good book brings to me. I savor, I devour, and I love print books.

But a print book is not the only way I can get lost in that fictive dream I crave. E-books offer new ways to love literature. I can adjust the font size of the print as large or small as I like. I can keep a file of “clippings” of my favorite passages. I can perform keyword searches, and gain quick access to material when I’m on deadline.

More than that, e-books are great for impatient people, like me. I agree with Carrie Fisher when she said, “That’s the problem with instant gratification – it’s just not fast enough!” The ability to download a book within seconds of deciding I want to read it is fantastic.

As for why I became an author, before I began writing fiction full-time, I juggled a career as a lawyer with parenting. A series of events beyond my control led me to re-evaluate everything I thought I wanted out of life.After being stuck in my office on 9/11, on alert during the anthrax scare, terrorized by a sniper’s month-long siege on metro-DC by a sniper, and discovering that the other parents at my twins’ preschool thought my au pair was my sons’ mom, I could hear these words echoing in my ears. "If I knew this was what it was going to be like to have it all, I would have settled for less." (Lily Tomlin: The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe).I didn't really settle for less. I settled for different, and traded the billable hour lifestyle for fiction writing. Now, I can spend more time with my family and more time lost in the world of books. More than that, making up stories is much more fun than negotiating contracts, attending hearings, and deciphering statutes and regulations for clients.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Not every woman who rides the fertility treatment roller coaster winds up like Octomom!

Who will find friends, family, and fertility?

Three women’s lives are intricately intertwined, as Amelia Schwartz and Summer Curtis struggle with the complex dynamics of intrafamily embryo adoption, and Chandy Markum strives to make her patients’ dreams a reality.After more than a decade, of mourning her parents’ deaths, anal-retentive Amelia Schwartz decides to take control of her life, pursuing single motherhood via embryo adoption. While her fertility doctor, Chandy, is preoccupied with the destruction of the cosmopolitan Cape Town of her youth and her first love in apartheid-torn South Africa, believing all is lost, her niece, a young, married, overachieving attorney Summer Curtis, juggles zealous career ambitions, demanding bosses, and friction with her husband over family and fertility issues. They must confront the painful reality that, no matter what technology humans devise to manipulate reproduction, prolong life, and construct family units, they have not yet mastered control over their beginnings and endings.

Thrown all into this is one story that can make or break. Are you up to it?


DOUBLE OUT AND BACK VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR '09 will officially begin on September 1 and ends on September 25th. You can visit Lisa's blog stops at http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/ in September to find out more about this great book and talented author!As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors' blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available.

12 comments:

  1. I agree with you! Books - can't beat a good book, in a nice sunny (or more likely rain drenched in the UK) window with a cuppa or a glass of wine. I love the way books smell too - there's something very comforting about reading my grandad's old books (some are nearly 80 years old!!) and just inhaling the mix of ancient tobacco, mould and ingrained knowledge that evey page holds!

    Your new release sounds a right rollercoaster - and totally fantastic!! Thanks for sharing!!

    LJ xx

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  2. I love books... they are the best way to move into a world that isn't your own... and a great author can move you so deeply you forget it isn't real.

    I love the sound of your new release.

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  3. Hey Lisa,

    Just stopping by to wish you luck. Great excerpt.

    LaVerne
    *hugs*

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  4. It's all about the book.
    Good luck!

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  5. Thank you so much for sharing the interesting information and the book. Many people have goner through lists of four reasons for reading on my radio programs of late. Obviously escaping, but healing often comes up as well. healing from life your day to day stress or from something deeper. I look forward to following the book and author on their tour

    Barry

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  6. Thank you all for visiting me here on The Fantasy Pages. I am thrilled to have so many of you joining me at this tour stop. So far it's a fun ride!

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  7. Can't wait to read DOAB, Lisa! The book tour seems to be going great :)

    Amber

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  8. I love books next to my grandkids I love books. I love to have them around me even when I'm not reading.

    lorettaC,
    lbcanton@verizon.net

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  9. Lisa, loved your comments about reading a good book. I have a chaise lounge on a screened in porch that allows me to look out at the Fox River in Green Bay when I read. It's my favorite place. It's also the place where I continually revised my first true crime book Run at Destruction: A True Fatal Love Triangle. I'd sit there contemplating the changes while sipping on a early morning cup of coffee or a late evening glass of wine.

    So happy to see you fulfilling your dream as a novelist!

    Lynda Drews
    http://lyndadrews.com

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  10. Thanks, Amber. This book tour has been so spectacular. My fuzzy slippers are almost worn out from travelling around the blogosphere!

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  11. Loretta,
    I'm glad you put your family first! LOL. But, I agree, even being surrounded by books makes me feel at home, too.

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  12. Lynda,
    Your reading spot overlooking the bay sounds lovely. I wish for you many peaceful days reading on that chaise! Thanks for visiting me on The Fantasy Pages.

    And, thanks to The Fantasy Pages for having me here. I't's been great!

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Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.