Currently Reading
I will be finishing my bedside-table book, The Archived by Victoria Schwab, this week, no matter the cost to my sleep! There’s no excuse other than constant exhaustion for this YA book to have taken me so long.
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was an ebook loan from the library that expired. Now I have it back again, so this may be my lunchtime reading this week. Our work schedules have changed, though, so I’m back to doing some hours from home and no lunch break at work. Which means hot lunches with my husband again! (My outdoor dining spot in the parking lot was getting uncomfortably chilly, anyway.)
No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (Chronicle, 2014) by Chris Baty was originally intended as a guide to succeeding at the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in November, but is useful for writers in general who have trouble getting words to accumulate on paper, whether due to inner editors; tendencies towards procrastination; multitudinous distractions; outline-making inability; time management problems; and/or all of the above.
Next Up
Written before the pandemic and released in July 2020, Survivor Song is described by the publisher like this:
In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less.
Survivor Song (Willam Morrow, 2020) by Paul Tremblay is going be my Second-Wave Pandemic reading. Who wouldn’t want to read about a rabies pandemic during the COVID-19 pandemic, right?
Paul Tremblay is the author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts. If you like literary horror and haven’t discovered him yet, you should give his books a try.
Recently Read
Cherokee America (HMH, 2019) by Margaret Verble was not the genteel work of historical fiction and female empowerment I expected from the cover!
The shockingly frank talk of sex and private (body) parts put some of the book club members off, but others found the story of the mixed community – Cherokees, Choktaws, whites, free Blacks, and combinations thereof – making up Cherokee Nation West, part of the Indian Territory of the 1870s, a compelling combination of drama (almost a soap opera, one person said), cultural clashes, and history on a personal level (the book is based partly on the author’s own Cherokee ancestors.)
Currently Listening To
Narrated by Roger Clark, The Searcher is the new Tana French novel that I’ve been waiting for! I don’t know if it’s a standalone or if we’ll be seeing more books about the American former police detective now living in the Irish countryside. It’s 14.5 hours long, so it’ll be a race to finish it within 14 days.
Temporarily Not Listening To
Troubled Blood by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith is #5 in the dark detective novel series about private investigator Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. They are popular and also long, so I wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t finish it before the audiobook loan expired. Back on hold for it!
Recently Listened To
Mexican Gothic (Random House Audio, 2020) by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia had expired on me last week, but I was surprised to have it come up on hold for me again so quickly. Literary horror set in 1950s Mexico – excellent audio narration by Frankie Corzo. Recommended!
Happy Monday! It’s raining here. Tell me about your weather in the comments if you don’t have anything to say about my books! 😉
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!
