📚A Week with Two🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Books!

 

   The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Marc Lawrence was nominated for the Good Reads Fantasy Award. It is written by someone who is deeply knowledgeable about fantasy literature and skillful in crafting intricate stories. Two outsiders find each other in a quiet wood between their worlds. A guinea pig nibbles in the grass nearby. Lawrence creates a compelling, mysterious story with grand themes of xenophobia, the blessing and curse of knowledge, and the cost of friendship. I would easily compare it to The Lord of the Rings in its scope and reach. It has spunky, contemplative characters that captured my heart. I have the next book reserved and hope that Lawrence quickly finishes the final book!

🔥📕📗📘📔🔥

    My book club is reading Newberry Award winners, and this month, we read A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. At the book's center is fierce, larger-than-life Grandma Dowdel, who lives in rural Illinois in 1937. Fifteen-year-old Chicago-raised granddaughter Mary Alice is forced by financial circumstances to live with her grandmother for a year. Mary Alice learned so much that year. She is like a city cat that moves to the country and discovers the joys of living a less gentile life. 

🐈🚂🐍

👽☕️😭All Books Published (In English) in 2024

    James S. A. Corey--the pen name of the writing duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck--writes masterful science fiction. The Mercy of the Gods is an excellent story with incredible world-building, science, and a propulsive plot. Multiple storylines are unfolding, coming together, and branching off again. The basic premise is that a human-populated world is invaded by an aggressive, robust species of aliens who relocate the "best" of the world's citizens. It's excellent.

👽🪐🛸👾

    Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi continues his series "Before the Coffee Gets Cold." Individuals risk becoming ghosts to return briefly to the past to say what they failed to say to a loved one who is gone. It is complicated and also refreshingly hopeful. The author is Japanese. One woman returns to talk briefly with her husband, who died before their baby was born. She wants to know what name he wants to give the child he never met. It is a rule that it is impossible to change the future by returning to the past, but the book demonstrates that you can change how you understand the past. It is a lovely book. 

☕️👶🏻💔💖

    The Women by Kristin Hannah has received much well-deserved attention and accolades. It tells the story of a young woman, "Frankie" McGrath, who volunteered to go to Vietnam as a nurse in the Army and had very little nursing or life experience. Her time there was horrendous, but she rose to the challenge and became an excellent nurse and a traumatized veteran. This book should have trigger warnings. Hannah does an exceptional job of showing how damaging untreated PTSD can be, and she compounds the trauma with tragedy after tragedy. I found it to be overwhelming to the point of melodrama. In the end, I didn't like it. I think it was because the central character lacked warmth and a connection with others. 

🏥🌊😭🤕

        

 

🐈‍⬛💊 🐕Murder Trouble, Drug Trouble, and more Murder Trouble!😍

 

    I love the whacky series featuring senior citizens who local murders called "The Thursday Murder Club"  by Richard Osman. He is starting a new series, and its first book is We Solve Murders. Osman writes quirky characters that get into ridiculous problems while trying to solve a tricky murder. He starts with a fresh cast. Steve Wheeler is a retired policeman comfortable with his well-ordered life. His daughter-in-law Amy works as a professional bodyguard for a high-end protection business. A mysterious trail of influencer deaths clusters around Amy. She needs to solve who is behind them and why before she ends up in jail or dead herself. She finds help in the unlikeliest of places. I'm going to like them!

🐈‍⬛🛩️🏝️🍸

    The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing by Lara Love Hardin was recommended by my sister, and when I started reading it, I thought it was fiction. It begins at a desperate point where Lara uses a stolen credit card to stay in a hotel with her young son. She waits there for her husband to bring heroin for them both to get high. She goes on to explain how their drug use has dismantled her comfortable suburban life as she steals and lies to support their habit. This is about the time I realized it was a memoir. Hardin tells her gripping story of addiction, jail, and recovery. 

💉💊🚓👩‍💻

    I have seen the Netflix series advertised, but I wanted to start with the book. I was surprised that A Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson was a  YA book. The mystery: a five-year-old disappearance of 17-year-old popular high school student, Andie, becomes the capstone project for straight-A student Pip. Andie's boyfriend Singh is believed to have killed Andie, then killed himself out of guilt, but her body was never found. The deeper Pip digs, the more things don't add up. When she starts receiving threats to stop looking or else, Pip knows she's onto something. I liked this twisty story. The pace was good. My only complaint is never go to confront a killer alone! There are two other books in the series, and I'm excited to read them.

🐕📝👱‍♀️💊

🧩Why is Everything I Read Depressing? 1 Horror, 2 Dystopian, 1 Opiod Crisis, and 1 🧩

 

    I have read Matt Dinniman's "Dungeon Crawler Carl" series and looked forward to Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon, another LITrpg short for literary role-playing game. LITrpg is a work that uses the structure of a computer role-player game with monsters, quests, battles, and multiple players. Where the "Dungeon Crawler Carl" series has a loss of players and mystery,  it has a playful silliness. Carl has dedicated himself to helping others succeed and survive. His mantra is, "You will not break me." Duke, in Kaiju, repeats, "This is too much," as he makes dark choices necessary for survival.   

🧌🪱💉🦖

    I don't love The Giver. Dystopian fantasy stories aren't my favorite in general. Even though I would like to live in a world where people don't suffer, and everyone has what they need materially, the cost is high. Only one person understands what has been sacrificed. He has the knowledge of good and evil and it's time for his successor to receive it. I read a review that referenced the Biblical imagery, that I had completely missed and now I want to reread the book. 

🍎🐍🛷👶🏻🚲

    I enjoy hearing what Malcolm Gladwell says and have read many, if not all, of his books. The Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering was meaty, engaging,  and well-told. He digs into painful topics like COVID-19, the opiate crisis, teen suicide, and more with insightful kindness and hope. I come away from reading his book, especially this one, feeling educated and given tools to interpret the world around me. 

🦠💊🌳

    I am excited to read the latest from James A. Corey. who wrote "The Expanse" series, which spawned an excellent series that ended too soon. The pair that makes up James A. Corey combines all the sci-fi elements. As Frederik Pohl says, "A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam." I have yet to read the start of the next series--a matter of when not if--but I did read this short novella called Livesuit about soldiers who fight the war against alien invaders in a livesuit. A livesuit is a body armor loaded with tech. A soldier is encased at the start of his/her enlistment of seven years and decanted when the enlistment is over. The suit makes the soldiers practically invincible. 

🧑‍🚀👽🛸🪐

    I picked up the The Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni because I wanted something intriguing but not too much thinky-thinky. Mike Brink becomes a savant through a traumatic brain injury. He has the ability to see patterns that others can't see which makes him . . . a master at solving and creating puzzles. He is presented with the puzzle of a convicted murderer that hasn't spoken since the death of her boyfriend until she gives her prison therapist a puzzle for Mike Brink. It leads down a weird and hard to sustain rabbit hole. 

😇אה🧠🧩

🧛🏻‍♂️Horror and 😇Self-Help

 

    The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix is a horror story of the vampire variety. Unfortunately, Hendrix is such a good writer that his creepy scenes have burrowed into my brain like a cockroach into an ear. I don't know if I'll read any more of his books because he does a brilliant job of showing, not telling, and I like to sleep at night.

🧛🏻‍♂️🍑🏚️🪳

    I heard about No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life by Dr. Robert Glover on Marriage Therapy Radio (https://marriagetherapyradio.com/2024/08/06/ep-332-no-more-mr-nice-guy-with-dr-robert-glover/) where Dr. Glover was interviewed by Zach and Laura. He has counseled many "nice guys" to help them toward healthier ways of navigating life. He does not advocate toxic masculinity but encourages men to ask for what they need and appreciate their worth. I found lots of things to apply in my own life. If you seek to get your emotional, physical, social, and financial needs met by taking care of others to the extent that you don't care for yourself, then you will probably not get your needs met. 

😇😠😡

A British Romance🇬🇧, A Pulitzer Finalist🏅, and Only One Giant Fantasy Book🐉

 

Sometimes, after reading two massive fantasy books, you need a world that is not built from scratch but more grounded in reality- like a romance novel! I read Flatshare by Beth O'Leary. There are many, many romance books and movies in the world, and it is challenging to create a novel "meet-cute." This one was quite creative. Our main characters, Tiffy, a worker bee at a craft book publishing house, and Leon, a nighttime hospice nurse, share a flat with only one bed. Tiffy sleeps in it at night, and Leon sleeps in it during the day. On weekends, Leon stays with his girlfriends. Perfect! What could go wrong?

😁

O'Leary created well-crafted backstories for both main characters, with room for change and discovery. With deftly juggled storylines and characters, I found the book quite diverting.

🧶❤️‍🔥🇬🇧🐚

    Iron Flame, by Rebecca Yarros, is the second book in the series The Empyrean series. The many problems introduced in the first book continue into the second but in a good way. There are still mysteries to be resolved. Violet Sorrengail is still a feisty, intelligent dragon rider in training. Her understanding of her extraordinary power, her connection to her dragons Tairn and Andrrna, and to complex bad-boy Xanden. The second book of a series is difficult. The characters have traits and trajectories that must remain "true" to the first book but still surprise and delight the readers. Iron Flame mostly succeeds. The ending sets up the third book of the series, which is due out early next year. According to my research, Yarros plans to have five books in the series. 

    People have strong feelings about the series. There are many five-star and some one-star reviews. I'm a three-star. I like the series, but it feels like a contrived YA book with adult scenes created to sell. At its center, it lacks passion. Violet and Xanden know they love each other because of their intense attraction. Yarros tries to balance it with "and you're smart," but I'm not buying it; however, it's entertaining.

🐲⚔️⛈️🪄

    James by Percival Everett is a brilliant book. Everett retells the story of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man who travels the Mississippi River with Huck. Several blurbs mention that it is humorous. It epitomizes irony, but harsh realities give the book gravitas. Even though it is based on Huckleberry Finn, it stands on its own and could be read without knowing the plot of Huckleberry Finn, but it would be helpful to read over a summary. It is fast-paced without sacrificing thought-provoking. 

🏞️🚣🏽⛓️‍💥🎣

🐲🐉⚔️🪄Two Huge Fantasy Books!🐈‍⬛👰🩸🎴🎮

 

    I learned a new word this week: romantasy. It is a fantasy romance book. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros is one of the leading books in that category. As I read it, my mind sorted it into the YA (Young Adult) story in the vein of The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter. It takes place at a lethal military college where cadets train to be soldiers who fight using dragons. There are several intriguing barriers to overcome before you can ride a dragon. For one, the dragon has to find you worthy. Two, if you bond with a dragon and it dies, you will die. The book strikes a good balance between using magic "realistically"--it's tied to the dragon--and spilling oceans of ink describing exactly how it all works. The college is a brutal one. Each morning at formation, the names of those who died the previous day are read. Less than a third of the class survives to graduate. The country is at war, which lends an edgy view to their education. The rivalries and love triangles feel more like high schoolers than adults. However, the book took a decidedly sexy turn when the protagonist, Violet, and her smoldering hot, bad-boy wing leader gave in to their overwhelming chemistry. Wowza! It's adult romantasy. For sure.

🐲🐉⚔️🪄

    The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman is book VI in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I say this frequently, but I admire Dinniman's capabilities as a writer to juggle a large cast of characters, action scenes, and multiple plot lines so well. The story continues for Carl and Donut as they battle for survival, this time using players' cards, much like Magic: The Gathering. I bought the cards as presents for my grandkids but lack experiential knowledge. Dinniaman's descriptions make me curious to see how it works. I anticipate being schooled by some ten and fourteen-year-olds. The series deals with mature themes like lots of gory death, foot fetishes, and other adult happenings, but at the same time, it seems aimed at gamers.

🐈‍⬛👰🩸🎴🎮

🤨 One Book Week and It's Theology!

 

    I'm in the middle of two large fantasy books--because sometimes you need to read a book when it's available--so I only finished one book this week. 

    It was a really good one. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien. This book has been bobbing up from several places, asking to be read. I was reluctant because I am weary of books explaining how I needed to try harder and do better. That was nothing like this book. Richards and O'Brien are excellent Biblical scholars with many years of teaching seminary in non-western places. Their insights are well-reasoned and considered. Insights were communicated warmly with personal anecdotes, historical examples, and our present culture. For what is primarily a book about theology, it was enjoyable and informative. The authors cover complex topics like food, time use, dating versus arranged marriage, racism, finance, rules versus relationships, and more. 

    It made me uncomfortable when it challenged things I tend to rely on, such as rules over relationships. Rules are so predictable, whereas relationships are chaos! Give me the rules.

    Here are some quotes that resonate with me:

 "We can easily forget that Scripture is a foreign land and that reading the Bible is a crosscultural experience."

― E. Randolph Richards, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

"Thinking critically about why you assume what you assume can make you sensitive, over time, to the cultural mores you bring to the biblical text."
― E. Randolph Richards, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

🧐🤨🤓

🧛🏻‍♂️👻🐺🔪 Book Club for October, 🙀 Dungeon Crawler Carl, and ⏳ Time Travel

 

    In October, my book club reconvenes. Hurray! This season, we are reading Newberry Award winners. So fun! Our first book is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I read an informative article by Eva Langston about what she gleaned from Gaiman's writing. He doesn't write down to children in ideas or language. https://evalangston.com/2018/05/13/the-graveyard-book/  I found many words that I paused to recall the meaning of, like "susurrus." (Whispering, murmuring, rustling) The book is unusual in many aspects. The story is told in short narratives occurring every two years about Nobody Owens, Bod to his friends. It starts with the death of everyone in his family when he was a baby. He unwittingly escaped to a nearby graveyard where he was adopted. A hook from the very start. How is that going to work? This book has won many awards and would be a terrific gift for any middle-grade through adult.

🧛🏻‍♂️👻🐺🔪

    I'm hooked on Matt Dinniman! The Butcher's Masquerade is the fifth in his Dungeon Crawler Carl Series. His plots move at lightning speed and are action-packed. The humor is crass at times, but his characters are maturing. The toll of continually fighting for their lives and seeing their friends killed is well portrayed. The narrative is growing beyond the dungeon and into the universe at large. What forces are causing this, and can they be stopped? The tension is high because you wonder if your favorite sub-character will die. 

😽🐐🕶️🌌👾

    A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII by Mary Janice Davidson was recommended by my husband. We both love a time travel story, and this one was excellent. Time travel books have different "causes." There are magical portals like a wardrobe or scientifically constructed ones like flying Delorian. This book mashes both of them together; there is a magical portal with a scientific reason. From the title, I knew I would be in the Tudor era in England, meeting Henry VIII. Davidson has done excellent research with many atmospheric details. The food descriptions were sensuous in the best way. Joan Howe is an American living a low-key life in England until she has a migraine and materializes in Tudor, England. Her mother was a Tudor fanatic so Joan has a good sense of the timeline and the key players of the court. She works hard not to change history--always the time traveler's dilemma--am I right? She gets herself back to 2023 and is commissioned to return to find those that have slipped back in time, Losties, to return them. However, everything is not as it seems.

    This was a vivacious, well-paced, intriguing book. There may be a setup for a sequel. I hope so!

⏳🏰🐴🤕

🐺🐈‍⬛🐈🐕 Every Book This Week Had Animals, At Least Metaphorically

fantasy, middle grade, dog/coyote, free dog

    There is so much I didn't know when I started The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers. I didn't realize the protagonist was a dog. I was surprised to find it was middle-grade fiction. The story is intricate and nuanced. I didn't realize it was the Newberry Award Winner for 2024, but I could see why.

    Joke--How do you know if a book about an animal is good? The animal dies in the end! For example, Sounder, Charlotte's Web, Where the Red Fern Grows, and I could go on. Here is a list from Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/675.The_dog_dies_a_cautionary_list_

    I wonder if Eggers set out to write a book where the dog lives. I liked the ongoing jokes in this book about ducks being morons and the inability to measure time and distance like a human. I listened to the audio version narrated by Ethan Hawke, for which he was nominated for an Audie. It was amazing. I found this to be a lovely, gentle book.

🐕🦆🦝🦬

 

    I am up to Dungeon Crawler Carl Book IV, The Gate of the Feral Gods, by Matt Dinniman, and I continue to be impressed. The way the previous books interlock with the current story leads me to suspect that Dinniman has the entire series plotted. The characters continue to mature, and the story has expanded beyond the dungeon. I am rooting for Carl and Donut to save the entire galaxy.

🐈🕶️❊🧪🪄

    I have always been a fan of bookstores. In my early teens, I would walk to the Stars and Stripes Bookstore near where I lived in Wiesbaden, Germany, to buy books. The Bookshop by Evan Friss explores the history of bookstores in America from Benjamin Franklin to Amazon especially its impact on minorities and culture. He talks about several Indie bookshops I have visited: The Curious Iguana in Frederick, MD, Busboys and Poets in Washington DC, and Browseaboutbooks in Rehoboth Beach, DE. He has an entire chapter on the number one bookstore I want to go to, Parnassus Books, in Nashville, TN. Evans's research is deep and thoughtful, creating an absorbing book that reads like fiction! 

📚📖🐈‍⬛☕️🍫

    A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur is a terrific book that fits in many categories historical romance mystery thriller. It takes place in 1506 in Korea and is based on historical records. Spoiled Iseul set out to find her kidnapped sister and set her free. Her sister has been captured by the king to join his 1,000 concubines. Hur's story has many threads that create an intricate plot with many with excillerating hairpin turns.

🐺🪽🗡️🐺

⚓️ I Read Historical, Nautical Non-Fiction Because I'm Well Rounded and an 😹 Amazing Fantasy Series 👾 🎮

    I had heard about Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman from a daughter with a middle school boy sense of humor, but then also had it recommended by Jeremy Cotter- a friend and fellow Star Trek fan. It pushed me to find it. I reserved one on Libby, I was number 212 on the list, and they offered me a lucky copy to listen to, the catch being I could only have it for seven days. It was 13 hours and 31 minutes. I can listen to books at 2x, which means it would take around six hours and 45 minutes. Maybe. I'm not great at base six math. Mission accomplished!

    Dungeon Crawler Carl is an apocalypse scenario that begins with most of the world's population dying as everything with a roof is pulled underground for its matter to be redistributed into a multi-level dungeon. Carl and his ex-girlfriend's prize-winning Persian, Princess Donut, enter the dungeon and become players in a first-person shooter game. To survive, they must level up their skills, collect loot, and charm the universe of beings who are watching. Fortunately, Carl has a cat on his team.

    Even though the story is low fantasy and, at times, ribald in its humor, the characters feel genuine as they wrestle with who to help survive and what lengths to go to survive. The writing is dark and funny. It is reminiscent of Hunger Games if it were a comedy. The dungeon has 18 levels. Book one covers set-up, level one, and level two, so it ends on a cliffhanger. 

    In book two, Carl's Doomsday Scenario, only one level is covered. I think that's how it will go. Dinniman keeps the momentum going, as does character development. Because the cat is newly sentient, she is childlike in her thoughts and approaches; however, it's not creepy that she's a successful player because she's a cat. I sense a lot of planning and thoughts have gone into these books. There is the driving core story of Carl and Donut trying to survive and other multiple stories being excavated over the series' arc. I found an interview with Matt Dinniman, the author, who predicts the series might have ten books. Book seven is coming out soon. I almost regret starting a series that isn't entirely out because I don't like to fight for copies or wait for the next book. Life is sometimes difficult, but I persevere.

Here is a link to the interview I referenced: https://beforewegoblog.com/interview-matt-dinniman-author-of-dungeon-crawler-carl/

🧌🐈‍⬛😹 👴🏻🦼👽👾 🎮

    I want to be a person who also reads nonfiction--well-rounded and erudite--however without a strong story, I fall asleep. Also, there is the sheer horror of events happening to actual people, not fictional characters. I saw The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann on several lists as one of the best nonfiction books of 2023, with this comment: it reads like a novel, so I gave it a try. I wanted to give up almost immediately. Terrible things happen. TERRIBLE. Grann says upfront that what actually happened can't be determined because the surviving accounts conflict. What? I like novels that wrap it neatly without loose ends. 

    I persevered. The tale is riveting, and David Grann masterfully fleshes out the 1742 journey of the Wager and its crew. I recommend it, especially if you like nonfiction, historical, or nautical.

⚓️🏝️😱