New in Paperback: Frank Deford's BLISS REMEMBERED

New in paperback this month is Bliss, Remembered, Frank Deford's wonderful novel starring a fictional Olympic swimming hopeful Sydney Stringfellow. The book follows Sydney's life from 1934, when she was a lonely 16-year-old innocent growing up in the Depression in a small town on The Eastern Shore of Maryland, until 1942, when war with Germany has begun and she finds herself personally caught up in it in a way she could never have imagined. Sydney tells this story to her son, Teddy, in 2004. By then, she is an old woman, dying of cancer, but she is still charming and feisty and determined to finally let her son know of the fascinating events that so changed her young life - and all that followed.

Bliss, Remembered is both a love story and a historical thriller, making it a great choice for summer reading. Deford mixes in real-life figures, swimming star Eleanor Holm and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, in his razor-sharp depiction of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Author Frank Deford, author of sixteen books, is often recognized as the finest sports writer of his era, his highly-praised historical novels have ranged far afield. Besides Bliss, Remembered, he has written about such varied topics as the polio epidemic (An American Summer), reincarnation (The Other Adonis) and Japan before Pearl Harbor (Love and Infamy). His story about modern celebrity, The Entitled, is often also cited as the best novel ever written about the sport of baseball. Frank Deford is a commentator every Wednesday on Morning Edition on National Public Radio.

On the second day of Christmas, Overlook Press gave to me...

...A SIGNED COPY OF FRANK DEFORD'S BLISS, REMEMBERED!

(We know that does not even come close to rhyming. We have given up on that completely).

First, congratulations to Roger S (via Facebook) and Ellen L (via Twitter), winners of yesterday's copies of Charles Dickens' Christmas Books. Thanks to all of you who entered! We were thrilled with the response (and might need to add in some bonus days-of-Christmas for you all!). The holiday cheer is unparalleled.

Today's giveaway is one of my absolute favorite Overlook books--Bliss, Remembered by Frank Deford of NPR and Sports Illustrated fame. He signed advance copies of Bliss at Book Expo America 2010, which was our first indication that this wasn't your ordinary sports novel--the crowd was full of young and old readers, male and female, sports enthusiasts and those who just loved listening to him on NPR. Scroll down for praise and to see him discuss Bliss with Matt Lauer on the Today Show! Plus, the book is a wonderful love story--it's really appropriate to be given away on the day celebrating two turtledoves, a symbol of love.

We'll be giving away THREE AUTOGRAPHED COPIES of Bliss, Remembered. While I recommend it to anyone who loves a great story, we can say that our dads, grandmothers and twenty-something friends all really loved this book--it would be a great gift for someone who's hard to buy for but enjoys reading, and it has the fun signed touch!

TO WIN: Leave a blog comment, Tweet this contest, or leave a comment on our Facebook page. You can enter once in every area and we'll announce the winners tomorrow morning as we announce what you can look forward to for the Third Day of Overlook Christmas! And yes, unless you live on a farm, it will be better than three French hens. (Or any other hen ethnicity. We love them all).

Coming up over the next 10 business days...art books, more signed books, gift book sets, some of our most popular authors (including P.G. Wodehouse, Penny Vincenzi, Peter Quinn...and more!) and a True Grit giveaway bonanza! Thanks for participating and we hope you enjoy the holidays as much as we are!

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"Told as a memoir, Deford's newest is entertaining and thought provoking. He has a superb sense of character and period, and readers will at once feel drawn into the turbulent times... This is a poignant story, utterly charming and enjoyable."--Publishers Weekly

"Deford, the award-winning author of "Everybody's All-American" and a celebrated figure in print and broadcast media, creates as his heroine Sydney Stringfellow, an American athlete who falls in love with a dashing German while competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Describing that doomed love affair, against the budding wartime landscape of the time, Stringfellow relates the intriguing timeline of her life in a descriptive narrative to her son. The result is compelling and, from start to finish, filled with serpentine twists."--San Antonio Express-News

Frank Deford in the San Antonio Express-News

While we're sad not to be at the Texas Book Festival, we love the coverage of it by the San Antonio Express-News. Here's their interview with Frank Deford, author of one of Overlook's biggest books this year, BLISS, REMEMBERED. Click here to go to the article on mysanantonio.com, and click here for previous coverage of Frank Deford on the blog. Emphasis ours!

When Frank Deford sat down to write "Bliss, Remembered," the latest chapter in a glorious writing career, something unexpected happened.

His main character, whose first-person account drives the novel, became a woman.

"All of a sudden, without intending to, I'm a woman," Deford, one of six authors appearing at the 2010 San Antonio Express-News Book & Author Luncheon on Oct. 18, said recently from his home in Westport, Conn. "The process led me into it. I became a woman who's a swimmer."

And what a woman.

Deford, the award-winning author of "Everybody's All-American" and a celebrated figure in print and broadcast media, creates as his heroine Sydney Stringfellow, an American athlete who falls in love with a dashing German while competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Describing that doomed love affair, against the budding wartime landscape of the time, Stringfellow relates the intriguing timeline of her life in a descriptive narrative to her son. The result is compelling and, from start to finish, filled with serpentine twists.

For Deford, 71, the novel was a necessary departure from his previous two works of fiction, which dealt with rape and dementia.

"After that, I wanted something a little lighter, OK?" he said, chuckling. "I really wanted to write a love story, that's the first thing, and it went from there."

Deford's background includes spectacular work with Sports Illustrated and regular appearances on NPR's "Morning Edition" and HBO's "RealSports With Bryant Gumbel."

But he hopes that readers will accept "Bliss, Remembered" as something other than a sports novel.

"They can certainly learn a lot about that time and the way people felt at that time," he said. "I think I got that pretty right. It's important for people to remember that that's how it happened. At the time, people weren't aware of the future, of what was at stake."

Personally, he added, "I love working in the past. And the Olympics are a wonderful device for a love story."

Internet Housekeeping: Events on OverlookPress.com

Did you know that Peter Quinn is reading tonight in Tribeca? Or that Frank Deford is speaking Thursday in White Plains? If not, that means you're not keeping up with the Calendar section of Overlook's website. And you're missing out!

While our website has a ton of information about Overlook, our books and our authors (have you checked out the reader's guides?), it also constantly updates our author events with detailed information about the type of event as well as the time and location.

If you're a fan of our wonderful authors, check it out! And make sure to come back periodically--we try to publicize our events on Facebook, Twitter and right here on the Winged Elephant, but don't miss out!

Can't get enough Frank Deford? You could be in luck!

(Above: Frank Deford with Overlook editor Aaron Schlechter
and getting ready for his interview on the set of the Today Show)

Can't get enough of Frank Deford and his new book, BLISS, REMEMBERED? If you're an NPR listener, you're in luck--tune into NPR on Saturday for his interview on Weekend Edition!

If you're in Chestertown, Maryland (a name you should recognize from the novel!), you're even luckier. At 3 p.m., Frank will be reading from and discussing Bliss, Remembered at The Compleat Bookseller (310 High Street).

Frank Deford and BLISS, REMEMBERED in The Wall Street Journal

Frank Deford, fresh off his appearance at Book Expo yesterday, gets some attention from The Wall Street Journal: "Did we just say "Mr. McEnroe"? Apologies to Frank Deford. The veteran sportswriter recently needled the Journal for using the courtesy titles Mr. and Ms. in its sports pages. "There are no misters in sport," he said, noting that well-known figures in the sports world nowadays are even referred to by their first names or nicknames, like Kobe and A-Rod. Point taken, Frankie D.! We'll keep that in mind while discussing your novel "Bliss, Remembered" (Overlook, July). Good old Deford Fairlane takes his readers back to the 1936 Berlin Olympics in this tale of a young woman named Sydney Stringfellow, an American swimmer who falls in love with a German at the Games, but the romance that doesn't survive the politics of the day. The Defordable One has devised the story as Sydney's late-in-life memories of the affair, of her eventual marriage to an American and her lingering affection for her German lover. The author knows plenty about the Berlin Games, having written a classic Sports Illustrated piece in 1986 about filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl on the 50th anniversary of the Olympics she immortalized at Hitler's behest. Much Defordian work over the years, in fact, now constitutes for readers a sort of bliss remembered. Here's hoping El Franko has done it again. El Franko? Frankie D.? The Defordable One? Oh, WSJ-by-Murdoch, so playful."

Starred Review in PW for Frank Deford's BLISS, REMEMBERED

Publishers Weekly gives a starry preview to Bliss, Remembered by Frank Deford: " When American swimmer Sydney Stringfellow arrives at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, she never expects to fall in love with a handsome young German, but she does. When politics separate them, she goes home to nurse her broken heart and meets Jimmy, a kind young American who restores her faith in love and marries her before being shipped off to the Pacific theater of WWII. When Horst shows up on her doorstep, though, Sydney is torn and must decide what she is willing to do for love. Told as a memoir, Deford's newest is entertaining and thought provoking. He has a superb sense of character and period, and readers will at once feel drawn into the turbulent times. The memoir device, while overused in many books, is put to excellent effect, allowing readers to easily identify with Sydney's son and interviewer, Teddy. The surprising twist will catch readers off guard but not leave them feeling cheated. This is a poignant story, utterly charming and enjoyable."