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Google has analyzed the searches that took place during 2014. The company has unveiled the ten books that were trending throughout this year.

Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird claimed the top spot on this list. The other nine titles come from a variety of different genres; almost all of them have become hit bestsellers and award winners.

We’ve collected free samples of all the books on the list for your reading pleasure after the jump. What do you think?
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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NOOK Media LLC has announced the launch of B&N Sync Up! The executives have curated a selection of paperbacks for this new in-store program.

Customers who buy one of these books can purchase the NOOK eBook edition of that same title for $4.99. The price for the digital copy has been reduced by 70%. Some of the books that have been made available through B&N Sync Up! include Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Here’s more from the press release: “The B&N Sync Up! program was created to offer Barnes & Noble customers the convenience of owning both print and digital formats of a great book at a great value with the benefit of being able to easily gift one or both of the versions to a friend or family for the holidays. Now customers can read and enjoy the same books together with their loved ones. The eBook version can be read on any NOOK device and on a multitude of smartphones and tablets via the free NOOK Reading App (available at www.nookapp.com).”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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A few minutes ago, while searching for a slip of paper I had carried home with me from Florence, I found a folder full of exercises I'd given a private student years ago. We'd had a week together, eight hours each day, and I had given every day a name—Childhood Remembered, Place as Poetry, Beyond Life Itself, that sort of thing.  The readings I'd assembled for each day were to serve as both inspiration and prompt.

Oh, I thought, as I rediscovered this folder. I should write a book about teaching, a book that would allow me to celebrate all the books I've loved. Or at least some of them. A fraction.

And then I remembered: I already did.

So here, for those of you seeking a prompt on this day, is a small simple thing. Return to your favorite passages in books (fiction or memoir, even poems—in this case it doesn't matter) that limn an early childhood scene. For my student I chose the early pages of Paul Horgan's The Richard Trilogy, A. Manette Ansay in Limbo, and Sue Monk Kidd from The Secret Life of Bees. We read the pages together and then considered:

* the physical details that surfaced most quickly when my student was asked to remember his childhood home;
* the nature of childhood memories that he considered most dear; and
* the first event in his life that he considered tragic.

He then wrote a fragment of memoir that returned to that time and place.

Here's a paragraph from Sue Monk Kidd to get you started:

At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.

For more thoughts on memoirs, memoir making, and prompt exercises, please visit my dedicated Handling the Truth page.

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Last Thursday Washington, D.C. saw an advance screening of Fox Searchlight Pictures Feature Film’s The Secret Life of Bees – based on the best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Sue Monk Kidd.

As one of the movie’s promotional partners, First Book was thrilled to send a team of its own to attend the red carpet premiere, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus at the beautiful new Newseum. Several members of the star-studded cast were on hand to celebrate, including: Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, and Sophie Okonedo.

Join in the celebration by making a donation to First Book! And stay tuned for an upcoming post to find out how Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okonedo and other stars from the film are joining with Fox Searchlight and Sue Bee Honey to celebrate the film’s release.

LOOK FOR THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES IN THEATRES OCTOBER 17!

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