Happy Tuesday — and even better it’s almost fall! I think I’ve been saying that off-and-on for the past few weeks, but no matter what the weather says, it’s actually coming. The calendar says Friday is the last day of summer, officially. In this week’s Top Ten Tuesday the bookish topic is Books on My Fall TBR, and these are the books that I’m most excited to see released this fall. Just two weeks until the first release date – I can’t wait!
Tommy Orange’s novel There There tells a multigenerational story of Native Americans as they are today, living not on reservations but in cities throughout America. It’s a perspective many of us have never seen or read about, that of the Urban Native.
It’s a complex and epic story, told through vignettes involving twelve different characters. There are characters who embrace their Indianness, those who are just fully discovering it, and those who use it as a means to an end. Though in the beginning they are seemingly disconnected, their convergence at the Big Oakland Powwow gives each of them purpose.
It’s the second Tuesday of the month, and you know what that means; it’s time for another edition of Show Us Your Books! Compared to last month, which included a couple 2-star reads and a couple of DNFs, this one was AMAZING. I had 6 — yes, SIX — 4-star reads, which is pretty unheard of, for me. I love great reading months!
But I’m also a little bit sick this week (I’m blaming it on the abrupt transition to fall from a week of suffocating 90 degree weather…), so I’m keeping my blurbs short and linking to full reviews in lieu of blurbs where I can. Know that I 100% recommend any of the 4-star books, and honestly, you should go read them now, if you haven’t already… Let’s get to it!
I suppose I expected a book about books when I chose Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore for the Book Challenge by Erin bonus round, but beyond that I didn’t have much background. Everyone else who’d previously read it for the challenge had nothing but good things to say, so if nothing else, I had high hopes. Matthew J. Sullivan’s novel is a low-key thriller — and yes, a book about books — but it’s also about choosing your family and finding out where you belong.
Lydia, who has my dream job as a bookstore clerk, works at Bright Ideas, where she does her best to blend into the background. For the most part, she’s successful, but to the lonely regulars known as the BookFrogs, she’s special. When Joey, one of the BookFrogs, commits suicide in the store just before Lydia’s closing shift ends, her life takes a series of unexpected turns. He’s left her all of his possessions — mostly books full of coded messages — and she begins to unravel the mystery around his death. Lydia is alarmed to discover that it’s mystery that entwines with her own childhood trauma.
An American Marriage, the poignant novel by Tayari Jones, received a boost of popularity when Oprah selected it as her book club pick earlier this year. I bought it before reading it — something I don’t typically do — but all of the buzz about it made it feel like a sure bet. I finally picked it up as part of my two reading challenges, and while it wasn’t “unputdownable,” it was captivating all the same. Jones is brutally honest in a narrative about a broken America.
Celestial and Roy are a young married couple with their whole lives ahead of them. She is a promising artist, and he’s an ambitious executive. They are also black in America, which ultimately has a greater effect on their lives than anything else about them. As their lives together are just beginning, Roy is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and their lives and marriage are never the same.
September is here and it’s exciting! Fall is coming… those cooler, breezy days that are perfect for reading. The end to the hot and sticky summer means it’s soon going to be comfortable enough (and acceptable) to bake all the pumpkin things. And, finally, I’m starting my September with four days off work, which means LOTS of extra time for reading. Yay!
Below is a look at what I plan to read in September — and make sure to check out the rest of book blogs for lots of other TBR fun. (Link at the bottom of the my post.)
Happy Tuesday! It’s time for another edition of Top Ten Tuesday, a literary list with a new bookish topic every week. In honor of the new school year upon us, this week’s topic is a back-to-school freebie. Last year’s BTS edition was one of my favorite topics — and one of my more popular posts — so I struggled a little bit with what to choose this time around. I landed on one of the suggested freebie topics: Non-Fiction Books I’ve Loved & Those I Want to Read.
I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but I like to think it’s because I’m choosy about it. Obviously, non-fiction is great if you’re looking to learn something, but I also like it when that learning inspires me or sticks with me well after I’ve put the book down. I’ve decided to highlight five of the non-fiction books I’ve loved over the years, and give non-fiction books I hope will teach me something when I get to them!
If you’re anything like me, you’re looking forward to fall. It’s the season of cool nights, hot cups of tea, fresh baked goods and cuddling up under a blanket with a good book. Reading Louise Miller’s The Late Bloomers’ Club was so cozy and comforting, it felt like I stumbled into Stars Hollow, a fall festival just around the corner. I’m absolutely jones-ing for fall.
Nora owns the Miss Guthrie Diner, which was opened by her parents and is now an institution in the small Vermont town of Guthrie. She is well-respected in the town but mostly keeps to herself in the wake of her divorce from her high school sweetheart. When the beloved local cake lady, Peggy, unexpectedly dies and leaves her estate to Nora, no one is more surprised than her. Nora learns that Peggy was considering selling her land to a large corporation, potentially changing the town of Guthrie forever, and she must take on the burden of making the decision herself.
I included Chloe Benjamin’s novel The Immortalists on my list of Books I’m Looking Forward to in 2018 over eight months ago. It’s been sitting on my shelf for nearly as long (shortly after it came out in January), and I just — finally! — got around to reading it. I’m happy to say it lived up to expectations!
The novel follows the four Gold siblings: Varya, Daniel, Klara and Simon. In 1969, when they’re still quite young — Varya, the oldest, is thirteen and Simon, the youngest, is only seven — they visit a mysterious psychic because Daniel has heard she is able to tell anyone the day they will die. They leave shaken but armed with a glimpse into their futures.
Let’s be real, the cover of Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ latest novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree is gorgeous. Like the “drunken tree” in the title, the flower’s brightness and beauty draws your attention from the darkness that lingers behind.
The coming-of-age story follows two Colombian girls in the 1990s. Seven-year-old Chula Santiago and her older sister are aware of the violence in their city but are, for the most part, protected from it within their gated community. Petrona, on the other hand, lives in a guerilla-occupied slum before she becomes the Santiago family’s live-in maid. Their lives are very different but become intertwined throughout the course of the novel.