It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 7-8-24

Life has dealt our family a blow this month and it’s been hard to go on as if everything is the same. We are going forward, but saddened. We visited with our little granddaughter this weekend and had many happy moments.

If you’d like, please let me know what you’re reading in the comments, and share a link to your book blog if you have one. (If you can’t see comment section, try clicking/tapping on the title of this post to open it in full.)

Currently Reading

The Book of Love by Kelly Link

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In the long-awaited first novel from short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle. “A dreamlike, profoundly beautiful novel [that] pushes our understanding of what a fantasy novel can be.”—Amal El-Mohtar, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

I’ve gone back to The Book of Love by Kelly Link. It’s soaked through with Gothic melancholy and dark magic, and is just the absorbing distraction I’ve been needing this month. At 600+ pages, it should count towards Big Book Summer, even though I didn’t put it on my 2024 BBS List.

Recently Read

Rhodesian Doll Hunt by C.L. Manning

“I’ve been writing all my life while traveling to over fifty countries, visiting penguins off the tip of South America, hiking the Livingstonia escarpment in Malawi, dodging hippos and crocs while canoeing the Zambezi River, surviving a flash flood in Israel, and spending the night in jail in Yugoslavia. But my books are not travelogues. I take true historical events, science, a murky family history, and writings from a collection of journals and mash them into thought provoking novels that explore love, technology, international politics, and how the Beatles mirror the Holy Trinity. Some call it autobiographical fiction. I hope you call it a good read.” — Author’s Website

It seemed to take me a long time to read Rhodesian Doll Hunt, but that’s more to do with not reading much, than with the story, which was a good read, just as the author hoped! It’s a book by a local author, who joined our library writers group not too long ago.

Retired from a career in clinical laboratory work, he decided to write a book based on the travel journals that he kept as a young man traveling through Africa. His first and last name had already been taken by an author, so he published under the initials “C.L.” Check out his author website!

How to Love a Jamaican: Stories by Alexia Arthurs

How to Love a Jamaican: Stories by Alexia Arthurs

I ended up doing an audio/print combo on this collection of short stories. It was blurbed by Zadie Smith, which is how I came across it. Recommended both on audio and in print!

Currently Listening To

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

“Zura Johnson’s smooth voice and careful, meticulous pacing build suspense as a small space crew investigates an abandoned planet while struggling to hold on to their sanity. Isolation in space has brutal, sometimes murderous, consequences, and psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray will do anything to help her crew.” — AudioFile

Ghost Station was recommended by Sue at Book by Book, I believe, and this one will also count towards her Big Book Summer reading challenge.

This post is linked up to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading, hosted by The Book Date. “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading” link-up is a place to meet up and share what you’ve been and are currently reading each week. Visit the link-up for more books to your groaning TBR pile.