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Mission Book Possible #9

Find a Book

The BookFinder is a month old!

With more than 1,815 books already in this new database, we wanted to create a fun way to help readers get acquainted with it.

Each day in November, we’re going to provide you with a sapphic book finding mission. Four prizes of a $15 Amazon gift card will be awarded during the month on Wednesdays, beginning next week, November 9.

Here’s how it’ll work:

Many of you already know that TB’s a history nut, so she’s been digging into historical happenings for each day in November to inspire the daily book-finding missions.

Once a day, I Heart SapphFic will share the day’s mission in the IHS Reader Group on Facebook. Your assignment will be to check the I Heart SapphFic Bookfinder for a book that fulfills the mission, and then to report back to the Facebook group with a link to that book on the IHS website. To get the link to the book, click on the cover and then copy the URL to paste in the Facebook group.

You are allowed one entry per mission. On November 9, 16, 23, and 30, TB will use a random number generator to select the winner from the entries that were received.

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Now let’s get to today’s fun: Marie Dressler

On November 9, 1868, Leila Marie Koerber, a Canadian stage and screen actress, was born.

Her father was a music teacher, and as a child, Dressler would sing and assist in operating the organ. Her first acting gig was when she was five, portraying Cupid in a church performance.

When she was fourteen, Dressler left home to start a three-year stint with the travelling Nevada Stock Company. She told them that was eighteen. She made $6 to $8 and sent half home to her mother. It was during this time, she adopted Dressler as her stage name.

In 1892, Dressler debuted on Broadway. While she hoped to become an operatic diva, Maurice Barrymore convinced Dressler that her true talent was comedy. Later, she’d appear in pictures with Lionel and John Barrymore, and she became pals with Ethel Barrymore.

She scored her first starring role in a Broadway production in 1892. The show ran for two years, and she became known for her funny facial expressions, humorous reactions, and double takes.

When she was forty-four, she got her first film role, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, starring opposite Charlie Chaplin. The movie was based on Tillie’s Nightmare, one of Dressler’s successful plays she owned the rights to. The movie was a hit, and she starred in two sequels.

In the 1920s, Dressler’s career started to sag, and she had to survive on her savings. At the age of fifty-nine, Dressler returned to the big screen, enjoying several successes. In 1930, she won an Academy Award for Best Actress in Min and Bill.

Dressler appeared in more than forty movies and experienced her greatest triumphs in talking films, created during her final years.

On July 28, 1934, Marie Dressler died of cancer. She was sixty-five. In 1960, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Face. In 2008, Canada had her image on a postage stamp as part of the Canada in Hollywood series. On November 9, 2020, her 152nd birthday was honored in a Google Doodle.

To honor Marie Dressler, we’re asking readers to go to the BookFinder and look up books in the following Theme category: Second Chance

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Find a book you haven’t read yet, or if you come across an old favorite, share it and tell us why. To enter the giveaway, share your entry in the Facebook group.

Remember, the more days you play, the more entries you’ll receive for the $15 Amazon gift card, so don’t forget to check back tomorrow for another Book Finding Mission.

Authors, if your books aren’t in the database yet, we highly recommend you submit them now. Here’s the form.

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