Goodreads Update August 2020 Pt. 2
Ok. I've had some sleep, some coffee, some food. I think I'm ready to continue this post. Again, I'm so thankful I decided to do this now instead of saving it all up for the end of the month.
Where I Come From by Rick Bragg - The subtitle is Stories From the Deep South. I'm here for stories from the deep South. Also, there is a goat on the cover.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth - This is described as a Russian Nesting Doll of stories. It's a haunted house story set in a girls' boarding school in New England where two students died in 1905. Now, the crumbling, abandoned school is being used as the site for a movie based on the original story. This sounds like a good choice for an October read.
The Call Me Ishmael Phone Book by Stephanie Kent and Logan Smalley - This is a book about books AND it has a catchy title. What could go wrong?
Read the Classics edited by Matthew Doucet - I might be skeptical about this one. You know I'll always give any book about books a fair shake, but I feel like this might be someone trying to fill the shoes of Harold Bloom.
The Bright Book of Life by Harold Bloom - Speaking of Harold Bloom, here is his first posthumous work. The way he wrote and didn't sleep much, I'm sure there will be more. I have a love/hate relationship with Bloom. I respect his mind and his love of literature, but he had some very outdated views on women.
Ex Libris by Michiko Kakutani - Now for a critic with whose ideas I am more closely aligned. Michiko Kakutani left the NY Review of Books a year or two ago and has since written a couple of books of her own. I wasn't too interested in the first one, but I could get on board with this one.
Jane In Love by Rachel Givney - A contemporary novel with Jane Austen as a main character would have to be pretty outstanding to get any traction. I am willing to give it a try, but I will reserve excitement until I finish or decide to quit.
Five Days by Wes Moore - I put this one my list solely because of the author's name, but it turns out it is the account of what happened in Baltimore after a black man was arrested and handled roughly by police. When he was placed in the transport van he was fine, but when the van arrived at the jail, he was in a coma he would never recover from. This is important in this era of BLM and defund the police.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel - This is a story about a woman who is half white, half native. She is the 6th of 8 children. The author based the story on her own mother who was raised in Ohio in poverty, but still managed to find the courage to write.
All Summer Long and All Together Now by Hope Larson - These are the first two in a graphic novel series for middle grade about girls in a band. I'm here for that kind of fun.
Bookish and the Beast by Ashley Poston - I don't know why I do this to myself. I have tried to read the first two books in this series, but they were just to high school for me. They were both fairy tale retellings about nerds in the current era. I went ahead and added this one because it's a Beauty and the Best retelling and I love B&theB. Also, I was suckered by the bookshelves and the dog.
Creating Anna Karenina by Bob Blaisdell - Despite what this stunning cover design would indicate, this book is actually about Leo Tolstoy and what his life was like while he was writing Anna Karenina.
Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher by Max Allan Collins and A Brad Schwartz - Am I suddenly getting interested in true crime? I've read and liked a few books in the genre recently. Maybe the recent popularity of all things true crime is finally affecting me. Huh.
The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn - This is a YA book in which the children of Robin and Marian have been kidnapped. It's the first in a series and the second one is coming out soon.
The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts - I think we have already established that I am a confirmed cover slut. But I challenge even the most staunch protector of "don't judge a book by its cover" to avoid the allure of this book. This gorgeous jacket houses a non-fiction book about pianos and music in Siberia. But really, does it matter what it's about?
Bronte's Mistress by Finola Austin - This historical novel capitalizes on the idea that Branwell Bronte had an affair with the mother of one of the students he was tutoring. We don't hear much about Branwell Bronte other than that he wasn't as talented as his sisters and drank himself into an early grave. This should be interesting.
Whew! It took me all day to put this together. I'm so so glad I didn't wait. Did anything on this list strike your fancy?