July Giveaway: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by SUSAN on July 01st, 2009

Every month, Typescript posts a new giveaway, with recipients chosen at random on the 15th of each month. Submit your name and email in the comments below and you’ll be automatically placed in the drawing. Please only submit once; if you’re chosen, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address.

If you have a book or product you’d like to see featured in a future giveaway, feel free to contact me.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

a-tree-grows-pix

“There’s a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly…survives without sun, water, and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.”
- Betty Smith, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

My most treasured book has a green hardcover with yellow engraving on the spine. The street address from where I was born is stamped on the inside cover, and my grandmother’s name is written in elegant script on the title page. It’s an old book, with crinkled paper edges and dog-eared pages — a reminder of something that sparked truth, imagination, or that spoke to the heart when it was first read. And then re-read. And read again.

There’s something about books that is so comfortable, so familiar, that call upon a fondness to which no other object can really compare. Some call books their old friends, and I think that’s a pretty accurate description. Favorite books are the ones you return to time and time again for their wisdom, their solace, their nostalgia.

I first read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was eleven or twelve years old, but the affect of those words on the pages has remained with me ever since I closed the book for the first time, never the last. If books can have an influence on the reader, as a writer, this book certainly had the greatest influence on me. A coming-of-age story unlike any other, Betty Smith captures the beauty of the simple moments that bind us all together, weaving her characters’ story around these moments as they experience the themes of life to which every reader can relate.

For this month’s giveaway, I’m so excited to offer a new copy of the book that has had the greatest influence on both myself and my writing, a book from which I hope you can find a similar inspiration.

To learn more about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, check out the Wikipedia entry or Amazon reviews.



CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations to Greymous, recipient of Typescript’s July giveaway!

Thanks to everyone who entered and spread the word about the giveaway!

Check back soon: giveaways will be back in early August with a new selection.

(Note: recipients are chosen based on a random drawing.)


7 Comments so far

  1. Guy July 1st, 2009 10:13 am

    Hi, I’d like to be entered in the drawing. It sounds like a very interesting story.

  2. Anna July 1st, 2009 10:13 am

    That book is on my list of “things to read” but not at the top of the list yet…it’s a long list.

  3. Nean July 1st, 2009 10:49 am

    Right… I should enter one of these drawings, eh? ;)

  4. Sam July 2nd, 2009 9:16 am

    I live in Brooklyn, do I get extra points?! Just kidding :)

  5. Michael July 4th, 2009 9:42 am

    Sometimes I wander through the internet like I would wander through an old book store. I like looking for treasures that are wrapped up in words. I’d like to enter your drawing even though I already feel like a winner having discovered the numerous places you have written.
    I do believe I’ll read a while. Perhaps you have inspired me to write as well.

    Take Care
    Michael

  6. greymous July 6th, 2009 9:37 pm

    Pick Me! Pick Me! Here I Am! :)

  7. Harl Delos July 15th, 2009 2:59 am

    I’d like to be entered in your giveaway. Last one to enter is on top of the pile and gets chosen for that reason, right?

    Actually, I’d like to bawl you out for hiding this site under a bushel; I only discovered it when you mentioned it on the Twenty(or)something blog.