There are so many interesting books coming out today, so the list is a wee bit longer than normal. Let’s get right into it:
Becoming by Michelle Obama
I’ve been eagerly anticipating this memoir by our former First Lady. I’m not afraid to admit that I was a Michelle Obama fangirl while Barack was in office. I love the energy she put into her healthy eating campaigns, and she just seems so delightful.
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Empire of Sand (The Books of Ambha) by Tasha Suri
This is a fantasy novel inspired by Mughal India, which isn’t something I’ve read before. “The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended of desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember, but whose face and magic she has inherited.”
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Creature of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer
Can we talk about how amazing that cover is? I was drawn to it immediately. This novel is a fantasy book that takes place during Prohibition. Ellie makes and sells bootleg alcohol, and comes into possession of an unusual drink. The drink is made from mushrooms by a cult of diabolists and anyone who drinks it has terrible visions.
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We Can Save Us All by Adam Nemett
The synopsis of this book intrigues me: “Welcome to The Egg, an off-campus geodesic dome where David Fuffman and his crew of alienated Princeton students train for what might be the end of days: America is in a perpetual state of war, climate disasters create a global state of emergency, and scientists believe time itself may be collapsing.” That sounds exactly like something I’d enjoy.
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A Cat by Leonard Michaels
This is a newly published edition of a book about cats, featuring meditations, anecdotes, illustrations, and more. Cats are amazing, so what else needs to be said?
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This Splintered Silence by Kayla Olson
This novel takes place on a space station after much of the crew is killed by a virus. Lindley becomes the leader then and struggles to survive with her crew. Since the virus only killed the first generation of the crew, they think they’re safe, until one of the second generation crewmembers dies from similar symptoms.
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In/Half by Jasmin B. Frelih
“Twenty-five years into the future, a glitch in the global communications network is ripping a previously united world apart at the seams. The millennials find themselves hardest hit, trapped in a crumbling world they did not want.” This #intranslation book sounds interesting. It’s already won the EU Prize for Literature and has been shortlisted for the Kresnik Award.
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A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
Maurice Swift wants to be a famous writer, except he doesn’t have any talent. He “accidentally” encounters a celebrated author named Erich Ackermann, and uses Ackermann’s real-life secrets for his new novel.
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The April 3rd Incident: Stories by Yu Hua
“The stories collected here show Yu Hua masterfully guiding us from one fractured reality to another… By turns daring, darkly comic, thought-provoking, and profound, The April 3rd Incident is an extraordinary record of a singular moment in Chinese letters.” This is another #intranslation book, and appropriate for Read Yourself Happy’s #readtheworld challenge.
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Madame Victoria by Catherine Leroux
This is a solid week for books #intranslation. The synopsis of this book caught my eye. A woman’s skeleton is found and placed in an evidence room, eventually forgotten. Leroux creates twelve different histories for this Jane Doe: “Like musical variations repeating a theme, each Victoria meets her end only after Leroux resurrects her, replacing the anonymous circumstances of her death with a vivid re-imagining of her possible lives.”
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The Incredible True Story of the making of the Eve of Destruction by Amy Brashear
In this young adult novel, Laura Ratliff wins a minor role in a film, which is the perfect opportunity to distract herself from her broken family. While on the set, her father, a military officer, calls her and hints at an impending catastrophe, and Laura and her stepbrother try to figure out if a real nuclear bomb has detonated.
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Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey by A. J. Jacobs
The premise of this book sounded so sweet and fun to me. Jacobs decided to thank every single person who was involved in making his morning cup of coffee. He travels around the world thanking everyone from truckers, farmers, chemists, and more. Our current world is filled with so much hate, and seeing a book like this makes me feel a little more hopeful. I will definitely be reading this in December.
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Out There: A Scientific Guide to Alien Life, Antimatter, and the Human Space Travel (for the Cosmically Curious) by Michael Wallis
Since I’ve always been obsessed with anything space-related, I had to add this to the list. This book is set up in a question-and-answer format and examines the possibility of alien life and what human life in space might look like long-term, among other topics.
Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp
The newest book from this Bram Stoker Award-nominated author is a psychological horror fantasy novel. “When the… thing first insinuated itself into the Lund family household, they were bemused. Vaguely human-shaped, its constantly-changing cravings seemed disturbing, at first, but time and pressure have a way of normalizing the extreme. Wasn’t it always part of their lives?”
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Pulp by Robin Talley
This is a dual-narrative young adult novel that takes place in 1955 and 2017. In the earlier narrative, a woman named Janet Jones is gay, which is looked down upon. She discovered a series of book about women falling in love with other women, and she discovers that she wants to write her own story. In the portion of the story taking place in 2017, Abby Zimet is working on her senior project about 1950s lesbian pulp fiction, and the two lives intertwine.
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The Winter Road by Adrian Selby
The Winter Road is a fantasy novel. “The Circle – a thousand miles of perilous forests and warring clans… With a merchant caravan protected by a crew of skilled mercenaries, Teyr embarks on a dangerous mission to forge a road across the untamed wilderness that was once her home.”
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Read Yourself Happy 