The Girls from Ames

April 20, 2009

Available in trade paperback on April 6!The Girls from Ames-ppr

THE GIRLS FROM AMES
A Story of Women
& a Forty-Year Friendship

By Jeffrey Zaslow

Gotham Books / Penguin Group (USA)
ISBN 978-1-592-40532-9
$16.00 Trade Paperback

Gotham Books / Penguin Group (USA)
ISBN 978-1-592-40445-2
$26.00 Hardcover
Women’s relationships / families /
group of women profiled in book grew up in Ames, Iowa

 

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As featured on Twin Cities Live “What to Read Next!”
Watch the show on May 17!

Visit www.girlsfromames.com

NEW! Watch the video for THE GIRLS FROM AMES paperback –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CgFqab3RNU

A Heartland Indie Bestseller! 

The perfect gift for every mother, daughter, sister, and girlfriend!

 From the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture comes a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became. Capturing their remarkable history, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the enduring, deep bonds of women as they experience life’s challenges, and to the power of friendship to overcome even the most daunting odds.

“What an accomplishment it must be to form friendships with so many others, to watch them form friendships with each other, and most importantly, to sustain these friendships for nearly 40 years! Zaslow prods deeply into who these women are, how they frustrate and motivate one another, and how they sustain each other. It is an emotional and inspirational story of true friendship.” 
– Laura Flaugher, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS 

    
 ”The more I read, the more I wanted to read.  The story of this group of friends is probably not extraordinary, but that is what makes it a great story:  Everyone can find a bit of themselves or their own friends in this book!   It reminded me of my own childhood friendships and how girls are girls, whether it is 1957, 1977, or 2009……The writing and perspective [Jeffrey Zaslow] provided just enhanced the story. 
     The book reminded me of the importance of the women in my own life, past and present.  People are always looking for a “great gift for a friend.”   I know I will recommend The Girls from Ames because it is the PERFECT gift for a friend!”
– Angie Grafstrom, Inspiration Hollow, Roseau, MN 
Buy this book from your favorite locally owned and operated Midwest independent bookseller!
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MBA Bookseller Information
Girls-From-Ames-160x600NEW

For more information about this book, please contact your Penguin Group (USA) sales rep.  Order from Penguin or your preferred wholesaler.
If you would like to inquire about publicity and events with some of the women featured in the book and/or with author Jeffrey Zaslow (who does not live in the region), please contact Beth Parker, Gotham Books Publicity, beth.parker@us.penguingroup.com , 212.366.2213.

MBA Booksellers: earn up to $100 in rebates for promoting this book!  See the marketing information and rebate form below.

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About the Bookames_old

 ”I know women will see themselves and their friends in this book. They’ll be reminded of how they’re not alone in the world, and I’m betting that the stories here will be comforting, bringing back their own memories. I’m sure some women reading the book will think of friends they have lost touch with, and maybe it will encourage them to reconnect. I also assume some women, who feel they never won the friend lottery, will feel a bit envious of what the Ames girls have. I hope these women will be inspired by what they read, and perhaps they will find meaningful friendships down the road.”
– Author Jeffrey Zaslow

Meet the Ames Girls: eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames, Iowa.  As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, a child’s illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group.  Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life’s joys and challenges — and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy.

 girlsfromames_backcoverThe girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend.  Photograph by photograph, recollection by recollection, occasionally with tears and often with great laughter, their sweeping and moving story is shared by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal columnist, as he attempts to define the matchless bonds of female friendship.  It demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women’s lives – their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters – and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them. 

 Because they came of age in an era of unprecedented opportunity for women, their story also examines how feminism’s major breakthroughs have been seized or wasted, and captures what it was like to be girls in the sixties, to come of age in the seventies and eighties, to be new mothers in the nineties, and enter middle age in the new millennium-and how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women’s lives. With both universal events and deeply personal moments, it’s a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.

 The Girls from Ames is the story of a group of ordinary women who built an extraordinary friendship.  With both universal insights and deeply personal moments, it is a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.

 About the Authorjeffzaslowcourtesyoftheauthor1

 Jeffrey Zaslow is a Wall Street Journal columnist and coauthor, with Randy Pausch, of The Last Lecture, the #1 New York Times bestseller now translated into 41 languages. Zaslow attended Dr. Pausch’s famous lecture and wrote the story that sparked worldwide interest in it. The Girls From Ames also grew out of one of Zaslow’s columns. He lives in suburban Detroit with his wife and three daughters.

 Jeffrey Zaslow’s “Moving On” column for The Wall Street Journal reaches more than two million readers, and his pieces get widely circulated via e-mail. The #1 New York Times bestseller The Last Lecture grew out of Zaslow’s column on Randy Pausch, a professor diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Like Zaslow’s “Last Lecture” piece, his “Moving On” column on the enduring bonds of women’s friendships was for a long time the most e-mailed article in The Wall Street Journal and generated enormous reader response.

Midwest Connections Marketing Plans

  • $100 in REBATES from MBA for display photos, ads, features in your newsletters, e-newsletters, and on your store website, and using this book with your book clubs and reading groups – print out the REBATE FORM above and follow instructions.
  • Contact the publisher to inquire about events and/or phoners with the women featured in the book and/or with the author.
  • Banners and Midwest Connections page for the book on the MBA website.
  • Flyer/sign PDF file and other materials provided by the publisher.
  • Reading copies of THE GIRLS FROM AMES available from Penguin and MBA – contact the MBA office if you need a book.
  • Print ad you can run in your local paper – earn a rebate from MBA for your ad!
  • Midwest Connections stickers, shelf-talkers, signs, bookmarks for in-store displays – earn a display rebate, too.

Gotham Books Marketing Plans

  • Published for Mother’s Day
  • National television interviews
  • Radio tour
  • National print advertising
  • Newspaper and magazine features and reviews
  • Targeted online marketing

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