Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated

I love these Top Ten Tuesdays that are all about getting excited about the books slated for release this year.  I don't think I did one for the first six months of the year, but after reading a lot of BEA recap posts and realizing how many authors I like who have new books coming out in the latter part of this year, this list practically wrote itself.  So in conjunction with The Broke and the Bookish, I give you my top ten most anticipated releases for the rest of 2016.

1. Darktown by Thomas Mullen (Atria 9/13/2016) - You may have heard me go on (and on and on) about Mullen's book The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, so there's no doubt that I'll need to track down his next round of historical fiction which features Atlanta's first black police officers.

2. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Viking 9/6/2016) - Speaking of historical fiction, I can't wait to get my paws on the sophomore work by the author of Rules of Civility, which I loved.  Gentleman is about an unrepentant aristocrat sentenced by Bolshevik tribunal to live out his life under house arrest in a Moscow hotel.  Sounds very different but equally enticing!

3. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (Harper 9/13/2016) - Ann Patchett is another author I've been loving for a while between Bel Canto and The Magician's Assistant and Truth & Beauty.  Her latest sounds like a true family saga that follows the reverberations from one misplaced kiss.

4. This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell (Knopf 7/19/2016) - I loved O'Farrell's style in The Hand That First Held Mine and After You'd Gone (the book that contributed my header quote!), so a new book by her is always cause for celebration. I don't have too awful long to wait for this one about an American professor who falls in love with a world famous actress while on holiday in Ireland. 

5. The Motion of Puppets by Keith Donohue (Picador 10/4/2016) - Donohue's The Stolen Child is another book I rave about, and this one sounds like it has a bit in common with it, except creepier and with puppets.

6. Nobody's Son by Mark Slouka (W.W. Norton 10/18/2016) - I was totally captivated by Slouka's writing in his last novel, Brewster, so I'm hoping the same magic carries over to this memoir that centers on his parents, Czechoslovakian refugees.

7. I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows (Henry Holt 8/9/2016) - This one keeps landing on my radar, historical fiction about a woman trying to keep her family together in 1930s Oklahoma, where drought and dust storms threaten.  I love the cover, and the story sounds compelling, too.


At this point in my list, I became uncertain of which book to feature as number eight, so naturally I got sucked into a Goodreads vortex of "Omigosh this one sounds good!  And this one sounds good!  And this one sounds good, too!" until I had to take a break to tremble in a corner for a while and cry out to all my friends that it's not fair that there are so many books to read and so much time that I spend not reading them.  Hold on, let me gather myself here.


But this one...  And that one...  And...and...uh, one more minute.  Okay.

8. Mischling by Affinity Konar (Little Brown/Lee Boudreaux 9/6/2016) - I am a sucker, a total and complete sucker, for Holocaust related historical fiction.  I have been since I was but a young reader. There are twins and Auschwitz and Mengele and liberation...and I must have it. 

9. The Wonder by Emma Donaghue (Little, Brown 9/20/2016) - In the authors I don't read so much as I collect, is Emma Donaghue with a new book that sounds every interesting.  A girl in Ireland is fasting and surviving only on "manna from heaven."  Is it a miracle or a murder?

10. The Infinite by Nicholas Mainieri (Harper 11/15/2016) - And then, out of left field comes this debut I heard about during Harper's fall books preview webinar-y thing that I totally left work early to attend before BEA.  It's a post-Katrina love story of sorts.  There are undocumented immigrants and babies and violence, and I am enticed all over again.


I could go on and on and on.  I mean, I didn't even hazard a glance at the YA side of things lest be reduced to a quivering mass of to-be-readness.  I trust that there will be a boat load of YA focused Top Ten posts that will reduce me thus, anyhow.  What's one (ha, one!) book you're looking forward to that's coming out later this year?

Series Worth Reading: Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

I made a choice not too long ago to only read series when they were completed, and I had all the books in my possession.  What a good choice.  Instead of reading one book and then forgetting it and trying to get back into the series a year later, I can read them all within weeks of each other.  I usually intersperse standalones between books but not so many that I lose track of the series.  This has turned series reading into a welcome event instead of an exercise in frustration.  Happily, there are oodles and tons of complete YA series that are out there ripe for the reading (and reviewing...with only light spoilers!).

Monument 14 is one such series.  I'm an easy target for a good post-apocalyptic/dystopian series, and this one was great.

Book one wastes no time getting right into the nitty gritty of the apocalypse.  Dean and his brother Alex are running to catch their school buses little knowing that their lives as they knew them are about to be over.  Between home and school the buses are caught in a treacherous hail storm.  Dean's bus wrecks, but, quick thinker Mrs. Wooly, the elementary school bus driver plows her bus into a Greenway super store.  Unfortunately, the hail storm is only the beginning, and soon the group of unsupervised kids has taken more permanent shelter inside the store while the world outside endures catastrophe after catastrophe.

Monument 14 is cleverly conceived as both a post-apocalyptic thriller and a sort of social experiment that brings together average, slightly nerdy Dean with Jake the jock and Niko, a boy scout always prepared type, and a herd of scared and/or bratty elementary school kids.  While the world outside is crumbling under freak weather events and the release of a military grade toxin that interacts with certain blood types to produce dangerous effects, a motley assortment of grade schoolers is learning to rely on each other to survive.  It's interesting to see how long the normal high school social construct holds up before it becomes apparent that it's becoming a thing of the past.

The three books follow the group of kids from their safe haven in the super store out into the destroyed world, starting with Dean as the narrator and branching out to other points of view as circumstances change.  The post-apocalyptic world Laybourne presents is terrifying, filled with people desperate to get by and people who are wreaking havoc unaware thanks to the chemical weapon leak.  The pace is quick, with the kids dodging near disasters of all kinds as they seek a more permanent kind of safety than the Greenway has to offer.  Despite the abundance of characters presented, Laybourne doesn't scrimp on the character development, and each kid young and old(er) has a personality all their own.

The Monument 14 books are can't-put-them-down thrillers that read fast and have you longing for a happy ending for the "family" of kids who were unexpectedly thrown together in the Greenway on one fateful day.  

#AMonthofFaves : 10 Books That Made My Year

2015 has nearly drawn to a close, and it's been a rough one life-wise, but reading-wise it was certainly rewarding.  I think what's funny about my favorites this year is that so few other people seem to have read them, at least the ones that were published this year.  When I read great books published in the current year, it seems like they're never the same ones that everyone else is reading!  On a positive note, though, that gives me a chance to tell you about a few great books that maybe you haven't heard about from everyone and their mother......right? 

Anyhow, here is the top of the crop from my year of reading (in conjunction with a #AMonthofFaves).

 1. In a World Just Right by Jen Brooks - This book gets awarded the "Ugly Cry of the Year" award.  At first it's a strange little romance about a plane-crash survivor that can create worlds with his mind.  In one, his dream girl is his girlfriend, but what happens when the worlds start to meld together?  I never even saw it coming.

2. The Marauders by Tom Cooper - This one gets the "Surprise Hit" award.  When it first arrived, I thought I'd made a severe ARC requesting misstep.  However, this story of the hard luck people in a Louisiana bayou town turned out to be a hit for me because I've never been made to feel more sympathy for a bunch of less likeable characters, and I've never been so surprised at a book packing an unexpected emotional punch.

3. When She Woke by Hilary Jordan - I actually hate when I read a really great book at the beginning of the year because I know when it comes time to make this list, I'll nearly always forget to put it on the list because it seems like I read it an eon ago.  I loved Jordan's dystopian world where Christian fundamentalists dominate and dyeing people the colors indicative of their crimes has replaced imprisoning them.  Very believable world-building, very interesting retelling of The Scarlet Letter.

4. The Happy Christian by David Murray - Look!  It's a non-fiction title on my best of list, and it's not a memoir or even narrative non-fiction.  Be amazed!  This was a great read from last winter/spring full of practical ways to let God's promises make us more happy on a daily basis.  An ill-fit for my blog audience, perhaps, but a great fit for me as a human.

5. The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory by Stacy Wakefield - I fell in love with Sid, the narrator of this book, who is a girl caught up in the "romantic" idea of getting involved in the New York City squatter scene, which doesn't quite turn out like she expects.  The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory is a perfect slice of life book that follows Sid in her highs and lows with a little friendship and a little romance, nights when everything is perfect and others when everything goes wrong, but there's always a chance for a little happily ever after. 

6. Girl Underwater by Claire Kells - This one seems to have flown under the radar a bit, so all the more disappointed am I in myself for not having reviewed it.  It's the story of girl and the guy that dared to tell her to be true to herself, their survival of a plane crash and the long wait for rescue (with three young, newly orphaned boys in tow), and the aftermath. I loved Avery and Colin and their reluctant love story that emerges from tragedy.

7. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum - I never fail to be captivated by stories set in World War II Germany, and this one didn't disappoint.  Those Who Save Us captures the moral ambiguities of surviving the war when a German woman, whose daughter is the product of her forbidden love affair with a Jew who has been taken away to a concentration camp, has an affair with a German officer to survive and to continue in the dangerous pursuit of supplying extra bread to the prisoners of the camp where her true lover is imprisoned.  

8. The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma - How to describe this book?  Eerie.  One ballerina in prison, one ballerina performing her final dance before she heads to Julliard, a prison haunted by a tragic event, guilt, innocence, and lots of lies.  I won't spoil it by writing more words.  It's way too good to be spoiled. 

9. The Visitors by Sally Beauman - I was a little daunted by The Visitors when I started reading it, lots of pages, small print, but I was totally captivated by this story of 1920s Egypt where the the last of the undiscovered tombs are being excavated in the Valley of Kings.  The narrator is a young girl who proves the perfect observer to the astonishing chain of events when Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon discovered King Tut's tomb.  Beauman's story is the perfect blend of reality and fiction that left me feeling like I'd learned something and enjoyed every bit of it.

10. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson - I wrapped up my reading year with this one, and it was a fantastic choice.  After a slow start, I was totally engaged in this story of a princess turned queen, chosen by God for some feat of service.  I loved the narrator, Elisa, a young, pudgy princess who feels ill-suited to her role as queen and for whatever service may be required of her.  Watching her come into her own amid desperate times made this book positively unputdownable.

Which books have been the highlights of your reading year?

Charlie and the Grandmothers by Katy Towell

Charlie is afraid of everything.  Ever since the terrifying day when his father was killed in a mill accident, Charlie can't help fearing the worst.  Even when there seems to be nothing to fear, Charlie can't help concocting worst-case scenarios in his ever-wakeful, overactive imagination.  Most of the danger lives inside Charlie's head, but even his sister Georgie and their mother recognize the oddity of the numerous children leaving their neighborhood to visit their grandmothers and seemingly never returning. 

One night, darkness sweeps over their house and Charlie, still awake in the night, can hear a strange voice whispering to his mother.  Days later, the impossible is happening.  Charlie and Georgie's mother has taken ill and the two children are being sent away to their grandmother's house while she recovers, which wouldn't be so strange...if they actually had any living grandparents.  Instead of a charming getaway to the safety of their grandmother's house, Charlie and Georgie are plunged into the stuff of nightmares.  These grandmothers are distinctly evil, and only terrified Charlie is equipped to save them.

Katy Towell has crafted a deliciously and imaginatively creepy horror story for kids that worked for this adult reader, too.  Sure, the premise is unlikely.  Charlie's unnatural terror and weird attachment is a little exaggerated, but here, it works. 

While Charlie and the Grandmothers is undeniably unique, I couldn't help being reminded of books like Neil Gaiman's Coraline with a little James and the Giant Peach thrown in.  I love stories like this, fast-paced and full of adventure, where a kid left to their own devices in a world that should be heart-stoppingly petrifying finds his courage and steps up to become the hero of his own story.

(Review copy received at no cost in exchange for review consideration.)

#AMonthofFaves : My Reading Year

Wow, can it be December again already?  This year has flown past at a glacial speed.  (This sort of comment may make better sense to those with broken ankles.  Days go by so slowly, yet it still seems as if three months of my life have vanished with astonishing speed.)  Anyhow, no ankle sob stories today.  I was excited to see that Estella's Revenge, girlxoxo.com, and Traveling with T have brought back their December blogging event - A Month of Favorites.  They've got blogging prompts for most of the weekdays of December to help us keep up our blogging mojo even through this busiest of months.  If you'd like to join the fun, just click over to the one of the hosts' blogs to find out the schedule.

To kick things off, we're doing a little "my reading year" overview.  My reading year was...good.  One more book read and I will have surpassed my number of books read at the end of the year last year.  Astonishingly however, I tallied up my number of pages read this year and last year, and I kid you not, I am within 50 pages of my number of pages read last year at this time.  I might be a slow reader, but it seems I am consistently slow.  Ha!

Also, strikingly similar to last year is my ratio of books authored by females to books authored by males.  The girls have it, making up around 75% of my reading.  I did a good job of balancing review copies with titles from my stacks.  An even half of my reading was not furnished by a publisher for my review consideration.  This was something that I meant to be better about, so it's exciting to have not lost track of that goal over the year.

May was tops for both quantity and quality of books read.  Thank you busted back and beautiful weather.  August was the worst.  Thank you workaholism and ankle surgery.  Ugh.  Thankfully, what the ankle stole in August, it returned in September and October when there was a major uptick in reading.  Obviously.  Those who cannot walk, read.  That's how that saying goes, right?

Thanks to a mid-summer move into a new apartment, I purged around 400 books from my collection, and I also haven't read a single e-book since most of the summer my goal was to unload books that would need to be lifted. I feel a little guilty about leaving my Kindle in the corner (nobody puts Kindle in a corner!), but hopefully I can make a return to occasional e-book reading in 2016.  I certainly haven't taken a break from e-book buying.

On the whole, 2015 was a much better quality reading year than 2014.  There were a random few duds that if I could go back in time I would totally DNF.  That said, looking back over the past few months, while I haven't read anything that's totally knocked my socks off, the books I've been reading have been consistently good.  Here's hoping the trend continues (except maybe a, uh, "sock knocker" is in order before the calendar turns another page) for the rest of the year!

What has been the highlight of your reading year?

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

I've been reading young this fall.  It seems that the randomizer by which I lazily choose my reading has been skewing toward YA surprisingly often this year, and I've rather been enjoying having my reading seasoned with YA again.  It helps too, that I finally did Dewey's Readathon again this October, which lends itself to YA reading.

The Readathon was a golden opportunity to finally dig into Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water.  This one slipped into my collection on the occasion of my very first BEA and has been woefully neglected ever since.  A Long Walk to Water is a mere 115 pages (making it an ideal Readathon book), but it packs a punch.

Park tells, side by side, the stories of two young characters, Salva, a young boy in 1980s Southern Sudan, forced to run for his life when the war against the northern government comes to his village, and Nya, a young girl in nearly present day Sudan whose life is defined by her endless walks to and from a distant pond to supply her family with precious and hard to come by water.  When gunshots ring out near Salva's school, his teacher rushes the kids out the door insisting that they must not return to their villages and potential slaughter but flee into the bush alone.  What follows is Salva's perilous journey among strangers across dangerous terrain to the safety of an Ethiopian refugee camp.  Nya's village struggles to find fresh water that won't sicken people, but it's becoming more and more difficult, until strangers arrive in her village with an unexpected gift.

A Long Walk to Water is a short book, but a weighty one based on the true story of Salva Dut's terrifying childhood in his war-torn native country.  It digs into the harsh realities of war in Sudan caused by both rebellion against the northern government that wants to force its Islamic beliefs on the whole nation and the dangerous animosity between the rival tribes of the south.  Salva's story is both heartbreaking and often hopeless, but his refusal to give up and his coming of age under impossible circumstances are ultimately inspirational.   Nya's story seems almost out of place, at first, highlighting the practical implications of living in an area where struggling to survive is forced to be the top priority, but the dual stories come together to offer a touching and pitch perfect ending.

What's a short book that you have read that has had a big impact?

In the Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib

Samir and Nagla Al-Menshawy immigrated to the United States from their home in Egypt in search of the American dream.  It wasn't always easy, but in suburban Summerset, New Jersey, they thought they had found it.  Samir's medical practice was successful, the couple found fast friends in the family next door, and their children were growing up knowing the luxuries of American life.  But, when a heinous crime is committed by their oldest son, Hossam, the family is plunged into grief and the community they once felt a valuable part of turns forcefully against them.  In the Language of Miracles is the story of the Al-Menshawy family's struggles in the aftermath of their tragic awakening from the American dream that should have been their reality.

In the Language of Miracles is a story of faith and community: having it, finding it, losing it.  Mother Nagla struggles with her loss of faith in face of tragedy, her inability to match the piety of her mother and her best friend that increases her fear that it was a shortfall in herself that caused tragedy to befall her family.  Grandmother Ehsan is steeped in faith, perpetually murmuring prayers and waving incense, providing holy water for healing.  Her faith imbues her every action and is so genuine that it can tear down cultural walls but can't rescue her daughter's family from their grief and struggle.  Daughter Fatima is seeking her own path to faith, uncertain of whether to pursue her family's more Americanized ways or don the headscarves of her more religious friends.  Son Khaled is a different story completely.  Caught between the shame and treachery brought on by his brother's act and the expectations of a father whose hopes are now pinned upon him alone, Khaled takes refuge in studying monarch butterflies, how they migrate thousands of miles south to winter only to have a new generation of butterflies return north - a practice that seems to have parallels even in his own family.

Each of Hassib's characters is fleshed out and fully realized, from Khaled who is coming of age in the shadow of tragedy to his father, whose stubbornness makes him easy for readers to dislike, but his ultimate wish and goal to preserve the life and community he had striven so hard to attain, is ultimately sympathetic.  I wished for an ending that offered a bit more closure, but that should take nothing away from this book that seems in every way to be an authentic exploration of the immigrant experience, an honest portrayal of the Muslim faith, and a compelling picture of a broken family knitting themselves back together after tragedy.

(I received a copy of In the Language of Miracles from the publisher in exchange for review consideration.)

Top Ten Tuesday: My Fall TBR

It's time again to engage in that futile effort of trying to predict what I may read in the next season that is presently coming upon us.  This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic brought to us by The Broke and the Bookish is, of course "Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR."  Since I read from my own stacks almost entirely at random, this seemed like a good opportunity to share 10 review books that I'm particularly looking forward to and hope to get to this fall.  Here they are!

Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam - "A vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, Bright Lines follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their past."  I received two excellent-looking books from Penguin earlier this summer that are set to help me read more diversely.  I read the first one which was excellent, but I've still got this one to go! 

 The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks - This one just rolled into my mailbox.  I loved Year of Wonders, so I can't wait to see what Brooks does with the story of King David, you know...of Biblical fame?

Love and Other Ways of Dying by Michael Paterniti - I won this one from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers months and months and months ago, but it only just came.  In other news, this book of essays just got a longlist nod for the National Book Award, so I'm that much more excited to read these "ultimately uplifting" essays that "turn a keen eye on the full range of human experience."

Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade - Debut historical fiction - "In 1919, four-year-old Rachel Rabinowitz is placed in the Hebrew Infant Home where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research on the children. Dr. Solomon subjects Rachel to an experimental course of X-ray treatments that establish the doctor's reputation while risking the little girl's health. Now it's 1954, and Rachel is a nurse in the hospice wing of the Old Hebrews Home when elderly Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Realizing the power she holds over the helpless doctor, Rachel embarks on a dangerous experiment of her own design. Before the night shift ends, Rachel will be forced to choose between forgiveness and revenge."  Yes.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters - Here's a good token ghost story for the ghosty season of the year.  "
Ivy’s life-long gift—or curse—remains. For she sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked, unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918 she sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother’s chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death of Ivy’s older brother Billy in the Great War."

The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marra - I'm not always the biggest fan of short stories, but something about these interconnected ones that start with a 1930s Soviet censor caught my eye.   

Early One Morning by Virginia Baily - World War II historical fiction in which a woman in occupied Rome rescues a boy from being deported, and the aftermath of that event.  

Marvel and a Wonder by Joe Meno - A man and his biracial grandson come together while chasing down the thieves that stole the horse that was willed to the man by mistake.  Sounds different, right?  And good!

A Master Plan for Rescue by Janis Cooke Newman - Historical fiction is apparently my thing this fall.  Set in 1942 New York and Berlin "A Master Plan for Rescue is a beautiful tale, propelled by history and imagination, that suggests people's impact upon the world doesn't necessarily end with their lives, and that, to some degree, we are the sum of the stories we tell."  I kind of dig stories about the power of storytelling, too.  This sounds like a winner.

Under a Dark Summer Sky by Vanessa Lafaye -  Because I'm not ready to let summer go, and also, more historical fiction!  "Huron Key is already weighed down with secrets when a random act of violence and a rush to judgment viscerally tear the town apart. As the little island burns under the sun and the weight of past decisions, a devastating storm based on the third-strongest Atlantic Hurricane on record approaches, matching the anger of men with the full fury of the skies. Beautifully written and seductive, Under a Dark Summer Sky is at once a glorious love story, a fascinating slice of social history, and a mesmerizing account of what it's like to be in the eye of a hurricane."

What are you looking forward to reading this fall?

Loose Leafing: Reading, Mommies, and a Giveaway!

It's been a week, I'll tell you.  I screwed up my back like I do last Sunday and spent the week recovering at a glacial pace that's still glaciering a long even now.  Luckily (?), I have a job where I can work from home if the situation calls for it, and the situation called for it all week long.  The only upside of the busted spine situation is how much extra reading time it afforded me.  Happily, just as I was destroying my spine, I was also starting a run of great books.  The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory by Stacy Wakefield, Girl Underwater by Claire Kells, and Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum have kept me great company this week, distracting me from the misery of a major spine failure.  I'll write more about these after my spine heals a bit more and I find my missing blogging mojo.

Until, then, there are still more exciting things lurking in this post.  It's Mother's Day!  I'm not one, but I have one, so I'll be spending today celebrating her and my grandmother as well.  One of the things I'm the most grateful for about my mom is that she's a big reader, too!  We enable each other's book habits by pointing out the sales on BookOutlet.com and traveling to all the area library book sales, where we usually get more books than we can carry.

In honor of all the mothers who read, I've got a great giveaway from Penguin/Viking for a few titles they think will be big hits with moms.  I haven't read any of them yet (for shame!), but I'm excited to do so (as long as I don't have to hurt my back again to do it - LOL)!

I've got a copy of each of the following to give away (one winner for each book to increase your odds of winning!):


The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd - Freshly released in paperback, I know this novel based on the life of abolitionist and suffragist Sarah Grimke has been a favorite of a several of my blogging friends.

One Plus One by Jojo Moyes - A bunch of bloggers also loved this one, which is about a down on her luck mom taking her kids on an ill-fated road trip to the Math Olympiad, who finds an unlikely rescuer along the way.

Cut Me Loose by Leah Vincent - I haven't heard as much about, but it sounds interesting. It’s a memoir of a young woman’s self-destructive spiral after being cast out by her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family.

You can enter to win one of these books in the form below until next Sunday, May 17th at 8 PM EST.  The publisher is doing the shipping, so I'm afraid the giveaway is U.S. only.



Is your mom a reader?  If so, did you get her a great book this year?

Top Ten Books on My Spring TBR List

It's been a while since I've done a Top Ten Tuesday, or much reliable blogging at all, if we're being honest, so I'm ready to dive right back in with this week's lists of the top ten books on our Spring TBR lists.  There are a ton of books I want to be reading this spring, and these ten barely scratch the surface, but here's a quick look at what I hope to be reading this spring!

If you want to check out more lists or link up your own, head on over to The Broke and the Bookish to join in the fun.

1. The Reluctant Midwife by Patricia Harman - I read and enjoyed a review copy of Harman's The Midwife of Hope River back when it came out and really enjoyed it.  I'm looking forward to making a return to Harman's richly set Depression-era West Virginia.

2. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman - If you know me, I don't go in for a whole lot of short storying, but if Neil Gaiman writes it, exceptions can be made.

3. In a World Just Right by Jen Brooks - In a World Just Right was on my Top 10 Most Anticipated Debuts list from a few weeks ago.  When Jen wrote to offer me a review copy, I was delighted to say yes.  Looking forward to reading this one very soon!

4. The Martian by Andy Weir - I was excited to find this one under my Christmas tree since I'd heard so much good stuff about it.  I definitely have to read this one before its movies version comes out.

5. The Illusion of Separateness by Simon van Booy - This one was on my Christmas list, too, but I ended up buying it for my own self after the holiday.  I'm super-stoked to read another van Booy after having quite liked Everything Beautiful Began After.

6. Girl Underwater by Claire Kells - I hadn't heard of this debut at all until a listing of Dutton's spring titles showed up in my e-mail box.  It's about a girl who survives a plane crash with a guy she's been avoiding.  Sounds really interesting.

7. The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue - I loved Keith Donohue's The Stolen Child, and this new one of his about a boy whose drawings of monsters "take on a life of their own" sounds like it might well evoke the same kind of eerie magical realism that The Stolen Child did.

8. The Chronicle of Secret Riven by Ronlyn Domingue - I read and quite loved the first book in the series, The Mapmaker's War, around Thanksgiving.  I'm eager to return to Domingue's thoughtful fantasy world.

9. Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy - I spotted this Appalachia-set debut on someone's else's anticipated debuts list, so I was excited to snag an early copy.  They're calling it Winter's Bone meets "Breaking Bad" about a guy who has to choose between his father (and the meth ring he runs) and leaving the life he was born to.

10. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - I'm pretty excited about this one, too.  World War II historical fiction that includes a woman who joins the French Resistance?  I'm in.

What are you excited to be reading this spring?

The Acquisitions Department Strikes Again

Okay, so, there really should have been no reports from the bookish Acquisitions Department so early in the year.  In the spirit of one who is trying to save some money and also trying to avoid accumulating more boxes of books that will need to be moved when I (hopefully) move this year, I was totally going to give the Friends of the Library book sale a wide berth (even though I'm totally their poster child and everything).  My resolve lingered until Monday evening when I was chugging along at work and thinking about how nice it would be to have an evening off and how it would just be so easy to take a few hours off and go to the book sale.  A perfectly good excuse for a few hours off, right?  And I could go it easy, right?  Only get the *really* good ones, right?

Well, the good news is, I did actually get fewer books than usual.  The bad news is, I usually get a ton.  This library happens to have a pack of readers who donate who read just the kinds of books that are right in my wheelhouse.  So, I scaled back and got only, like, twenty-some instead of thirty-some.  So, go me, right?  A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step or something like that.  We all knew I couldn't just, like, quit cold turkey or anything.

Oh Hell, enough rationalizing, we all know you just want to see the books, amIright?

(click to embiggen)

 

The Run-down (with selected commentary)...

 

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (There's always a "big find" of the book sale.  This is it.)

The Truth About the Henry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker (Because why accept a book for review when you can just buy it later?)

Seven for a Secret by Lyndsay Faye (My mom has The Gods of Gotham so we've got the series so far now)

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani 

The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (I'm pretty sure all the bloggers really liked this one.)

The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katharina Hagena

Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster

The Promise of Stardust by Priscilla Sibley

The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (All the bloggers heart Murakami.  Maybe I will one day, too!)

French Leave by Anna Gavalda (It's a Europa.  Whenever I have the luck to find a used Europa, I snatch it right up.)

The Smile by Donna Jo Napoli

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
The City of Ember/The People of Sparks/The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne DuPrau
The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison
Land of a Hundred Wonders by Lesley Kagen (I'm kind of on a Kagen kick lately, it would seem.)
An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor (Eva told me I should try this author.  So I shall!)
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
The Alphabet Sisters by Monica McInerney
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
Flyboys by James Bradley (Okay, maybe my dad just gave me this one)
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (I secretly think this sounds as boring as heck, but it's J.K Rowling, so you know...
The Violets of March by Sarah Jio (not pictured, because I was not doing so well with the braining last night when I was taking the pictures)

The theme of this sale's haul?  (There always is one, and it's not usually intended.)  Books in translation!  (An excellent unintended theme if I do say so myself)

There they all are, to my (mild) shame.  Once again, I have exhibited my great feats of willpower.  If you're lucky I'll break out my Book Outlet Boxing Day haul pictures one of these days and amaze you with yet more impressive displays book buying discipline.

But, anyhow, where should I start?

#AMonthofFaves / Top Ten Tuesday: Best of the Year

The day has finally come!  It's time for my top ten favorite books of the year in conjunction with #AMonthofFaves and Top Ten Tuesday.  I don't really like doing this before the end of the year proper, but my current read is definitely not in danger of unseating any of these, so I think I might be clear to divulge my top ten even before the year is fully over. Drumroll, please!

1. One Hundred and Four Horses by Mandy Retzlaff - This year's reading started off truly dreadfully.  I DNFed two books before I even made it halfway through January.  Just when I was starting to get really bummed out that my reading year was starting off as such a bust, Mandy Retzlaff rescued it with her memoir about saving the horses left behind in a hostile Zimbabwe by their white owners who were being forced off the land by Mugabe.  Retzlaff's writing reminded me of getting letters from an old friend, and her story would definitely appeal to any animal lover.

2. Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen - Kagen's novel has a really great precocious narrator, Sally O'Malley, who lightens up what is really a pretty dark story of a murderer/molester on the loose during a summer when Sally's mother is in the hospital, apparently near death.  Kagen's great narrator and her perfect descriptions of the essence of childhood summers, not to mention her great picture of the bond between Sally and her sister Troo almost make you forget how dark the story is without compromising the tension leading up to the final climax.

3. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis - Okay, so, my mom sells used books through Amazon, and when I spotted this one in one of her piles to go out, I couldn't help sneaking it away for a few minutes to read it, kind of as a cheater book to kick off my Bout of Books with an early success.  Sis's graphic memoir of his growing up in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War really got me.  It's got great art that really shows the transformation of a kid and a country reawakening after being squelched beneath Soviet communist rule.  I was totally captured by how Sis reveals the resurgence of the human spirit that longs for freedom and color and creativity.

4. The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi - This is the first book I read this year that I knew would go on my end of year best list.  I loved this story of two courageous Afghani women separated by decades who refused to let fate and destiny and men determine the outcomes of their lives.

5. Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert - Here's to William Morrow for delivering some great debuts from new authors this year.  Hashimi's book is one, and Last Night at the Blue Angel is another.  This story of an old school night club singer in Chicago, her daughter, and the man who is in love with her totally broke my heart (in a good way?).  It shifts points of view between the steadfast daughter and the mercurial mother and what emerges is a story of a misunderstood woman on the cusp of fame and a daughter desperate for love that she can count on.  A little sad and a lot powerful, this is a captivating debut.

6. Divergent by Veronica Roth - I finally read this book after hearing all the hype and seeing the movie version, and I loved it.  Roth's strictly delineated dystopian world of factions is well-built, and Tris is a powerfully sympathetic character, and Four is tinged with just the right amount of mystery.  Divergent was everything I expected.  Too bad the rest of the series flagged and didn't quite live up the standard set out by the first book.

7. Something Like Normal by Trish Doller - This is another book that I saw a bunch of YA book bloggers raving about that absolutely lived up to the hype.  Travis is a young marine who has returned home from a tour in Afghanistan.  His struggle to fit back into his old life with struggling with PTSD and his slow budding romance with a girl he wronged in the past are pitch perfect.  Loved.

8. The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood - This is the second book by Marwood I read this year, and I think I really like her style.  Her books are ostensibly thrillers/crime fiction, but Marwood digs a little deeper and provides some really penetrating character studies, too.  People looking for fast-paced semi-brainless page-turners will probably find themselves disappointed, but if you like good character-driven stories with a touch of suspense and mystery, check out Marwood's books.  Excellent for fans of Tana French's books, I'd think, and fans of Criminal Minds on TV.

9. Gonzales and Daughter Trucking Co. by Maria Amparo Escandon - This is a different sort of book, kind of a mix of Orange is the New Black and a quirky modern fairytale.  Libertad grew up living the life of a long haul trucker with her father who is perpetually fleeing the dangers of a (probably) forgotten crime from his past.  Libertad longs for a home that's not on wheels and freedom from her overprotective father and, well, freedom itself.  Her story is delivered from the Mexican prison where she is incarcerated with a pack of weirdly lovable inmates and a corrupt, if unexpectedly decent, warden.

10. The Mapmaker's War by Ronlyn Domingue - I should have read this book a while ago, and I'm glad I finally did.  It's been forever since I've read anything that could be considered fantasy in its purest sense, and I'd missed it.  This entire book is told in the second person by a woman exiled from her kingdom for treason who finds refuge among a mysterious (and pretty awesome!) people.  This is a unique (Did I mention that it's written in the second person?  And how that's so cool?) and powerful story with a decidedly feminist bent that I adored. 

 

 

#AMonthofFaves : Year in Books Timeline

And I'm back with #AMonthofFaves stuff today.  Bookish timelines are the order of the day today, so here's a brief look at my year in books...

January - Started the year with not a bang, DNFing two historical fiction titles that definitely didn't live up to their 2013 predecessors. While I'm failing to actually read any books, I become the unwitting poster child for the Friends of the Library book sale when a picture of me appears in the local newspaper clutching a stack of my new (used) acquisitions. I am the picture of bookish irony.  Literally.

February - The month when I was ready for summer to come. I blame Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen and her very convincing Milwaukee summer.

Is it summer yet?

March - Doesn't look like the month I read the least, but probably is. I turned 30 and changed jobs. I was busy eating a cake every week and discovering that lunch break reading was a thing in my past, leaving little time for the mediocre reading that marked this month.

April - My book group ruined Ender's Game (which I finally read!) for me with, like, all their intelligent ethical qualms about Ender's character. D'oh.

May - This is the month I remember that I have a blog and start posting on it which some regularity again. I attempted my first Bout of Books leading to an excellent five book month.

Blogging, I does it.

June - It takes until June for me to read a book I know will end up on my top ten for the year. I think I'll keep the title under wraps until next week, though. ;-)

July - My records say I only read one book. My brain knows I was digging my way through John Irving's substantially long and dense The Cider House Rules (which I finally read!).

August - Bout of Books take two on the year results in an even bigger reading month than May. I finally start reading the Divergent series after years of meaning to.

September - I read the best YA book I read this year. Nope, not telling til next week.

 Nope, really not telling. Yet.

October - Marks something else I never do - read a second book by an author I'd read earlier in the year that's not part of series. Maybe I'll eventually even get around to reviewing it.

November - Is when I start reading Christmas books, for once achieving the aim of actually reading Christmas books during the holiday season.

December - I trade reading a lot for blogging way more dependably than usual. I imagine I can do it all and still finish a few more books this month even while writing 70% more posts than usual (and forget all that extra commenting!).  Endeavor seems destined for failure on one front or another...  To be determined.

I love you, you little thief of reading time.

What's a notable event in your year in books?