Currently Reading
Why do so many of the books I’ve picked up recently start with a main character dying right off the bat? I suppose this is a problem I bring on myself by my fanatical avoidance of plot spoilers. (I won’t list the books and audiobooks I’m talking about, in case any readers of this post are the same way.)
Dear Edward (Random House, 2020) by Ann Napolitano is one of those books with so much buzz (Jenna’s Book Club, etc.) I feel compelled to read it to be a good librarian. Probably everyone else knows the book starts with introducing several characters who are on a plane that crashes. (I actually did know this at one point, but had forgotten it when I brought a copy of this book home from the library around the holidays.) Now that I’ve started it, I’m not sure I’ll finish it.
I started the essay collection, What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence (Simon & Schuster, 2020) a while ago, but my library loan expired before I could finish it. Writers with essays in this book include André Aciman, Julianna Baggott, Alexander Chee, Cathi Hanauer, and Bernice L. McFadden.
The title caught my eye while browsing through OverDrive, as it may have caught yours while scrolling through this post! I like collections of personal essays by different writers, and figured this general topic would have widely different starting points and lead in many different directions. Others apparently thought the same, as I had to wait a while for this to come back to me again from the library.
Recently Read
The story told in Dominicana by Angie Cruz was inspired by the arrival story of the author’s mother. In Dominicana, Ana gets married off at age 15 to an older man, a “friend” of the family, and must leave her small-town home in República Dominicana and travel to New York City. For the sake of the family she does as her mother demands– to make it possible for her mother, and eventually her father and siblings, to follow after her and come to America for a new life.
Ana’s coming of age story is not an entirely happy one, but she is resiliant and manages to survive and eventually thrive, in her new American life.
Recently Listened To
Set in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Little Comfort by Edwin Hill has been on my TBR for a couple of years. It is the start of a mystery series featuring a Harvard librarian with a sideline business as a private investigator specializing in finding missing people. Hester Thursby lives in Somerville, MA (where the people who can’t afford Cambridge live). Her relationship status is complicated, but although she doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body, she is currently responsible for (and falling in love with) her boyfriend’s three-year-old niece.
How could I resist? I was a little thrown off when I first started the audiobook, because the narrator, Karen White, also does all the Lucy Stone books, a cozy mystery series by Leslie Meier that I’ve been listening to. I had recently finished New Year’s Eve Murder (Dreamscape Media, 1994), so I still had Karen White in my head as the voice of Lucy Stone and the other characters in that book, and it took a while to adjust to her now being Hester Thursby, et al.
Currently Listening To
At least with murder mysteries, you know someone is going to die at the beginning or is already dead. I started Troubled Blood (Hachette, 2020) by Robert Galbraith, read by Robert Glenister, a while ago, and it expired on me. (Maybe because it’s 31 hours and 52 minutes long!)
Excuse me, I have to get back to listening now.
This post is linked to “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. Check out the link-up party there for more book lists!
Nice looking assortment of books. Little Comfort caught my eye. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
I’ve read a few lately as well that start off with the death. And then they backtrack. It’s okay sometimes, but I hope it doesn’t become too big of a thing. ha. “Little Comfort” sounds like an interesting book! I’ll have to add that to my tbr list for both me and for my husband’s audiobook wishlist with the library.
Little Comfort sounds like a good read!
Nice list of books. I hope you enjoy them. Have a great week!
Dear Edward has been on my TBR for quite some time, but I really don’t know much about it. I’m sure I will get to it…eventually!
I have Dominicana but have been anxious abt starting something that will crush me. So I’m reading Olivia Dade’s Spoiler Alert and a biography of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (crushing, and I feel like I can only do so much crushing at a time!).
I am curious about Dear Edward. Enjoy your reading and viewing, and thanks for visiting my blog.
The story has a lot of hope and optimism threaded throughout!
Oh dear, no I don’t like characters dying at the beginning of a book either!
I’ve seen several of these recommended – especially Dear Edward. Hope you have a great reading week.
I find that by coincidence I’ll have a run of books that share something particular in common on occasion.
The premise of Little Comfort appeals to m.
Wishing you a great reading week
I’ve heard good things about that essay collection. I want to read more nonfiction this year, so I should probably pick it up. Have a great week!What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About and Dear Edward both sound like books I would enjoy.
“I feel compelled to read it to be a good librarian.” Sometimes, people think being a librarian is the best work ever, because you can and have to read a lot. But you cannot always choose what you really want to read
Oh my. 32 hours for the latest Strike novel? I may need to switch to print. I’m only up to the third book in the series. I’ve enjoyed them on audio but I don’t have much patience for audiobooks that are longer than about 15 hours.
I rarely read a full book synopsis because I don’t want to have any expectations either! That sometimes leads me to pick up books I might not have chosen had I known more about them, as sounds like the case with you and Dear Edward.
Enjoy your week!
True! But I definitely skip over a lot of books!
All these sound great, especially Little Comfort. Thanks for sharing and for visiting my blog.