The first week of the month I got several excellent book parcels. Firstly my final Secret Sister parcel of the last round arrived and contained Phillip Pullman's Grimm Tales which I've been after for a while and this edition is super beautiful so I'm excited for that. I also got a parcel from my sister containing Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce which is the August pick for our kid lit bookclub - Rhys is reading it at the moment so I've not had a chance to get to it yet, but he's adoring it so that's a good sign! Then I got an excellent belated birthday present from Charlotte (to whom I now owe her own belated birthday present! It's coming I promise!) containing This Savage Song by V.E Schwab which I know pretty much nothing about but since I'm in love with A Darker Shade of Magic I'm pretty much willing to read anything she writes now, and Nimona by Noelle Stevenson which I've been wanting for so long. It's kind of super-villainy and sounds a little bit like Kick Ass but not? Basically I've heard great things! Then I got a thank you parcel from Chantelle who was the Secret Sister I'd been sending to last round and because she is excellent she got me Caramel Hearts by E.R Murray which is YA and contains recipes so that's obviously excellent, and then A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn which is clearly a sign since I've had The Dead Travel Fast on my shelf for a couple of years now recommended because I wanted to read more mysteries, and haven't got to it yet, so clearly now's the time! And finally (for the first week!) I received on request a copy of the excellent The Outrun by Amy Liptrot from the lovely publisher Canongate. You can see what I thought about it here.
The second week I got three books in the post. The first one, The Diabolic by S.J Kincaid is billed as Star Wars meets The Hunger Games, so when the publishers asked me if I wanted a copy I said yes please and am looking forward to getting to it soon! The others were a gift from lovely Ellie who passed them along to me after she'd finished them, having scouted out my wishlist ahead of time - a tactic which I'm now using to guide my reading! She sent me Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein which has been on my wishlist forever. I think it's about gender and how Disney and the 'girls like pink' thing affects girls growing up and obviously that is the most interesting thing ever for me. She also sent me a lovely Persephone copy of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson which I've never read but I will read absolutely anything Persephone publish and I also have the excellent film with Amy Adams so yes, excited for that.
Then the Bath Bookshop Crawl happened and obviously there were books... I'm still working on a post about the crawl but basically it was great and this is what I got:
One by Sarah Crossan is about conjoined twins and is written in verse. I bought it because loads of people on twitter had been saying how good it was and Ellie also recommended it and then I read it when I got home that night in one sitting and it is so good and so beautiful and sad. Read it. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter I'm really going to read soon because I've been hearing such great things about it and it's also pretty short. It's about a family who is grieving and a crow comes to stay with them and help them through the process. It sounds really intriguing and my copy is also signed by the author which is excellent. Then I got a couple of nonfiction titles, both of which were on the recommendation of other bloggers and/or Book Riot. Gossip from the Forest by Sara Maitland is about forests and their place in our history and landscape and also how fairytales have their roots in forests so obviously I had to get it. I also bought Yeonmi Park's memoir In Order to Live about her family's escape from North Korea. Not easy reading I'm sure, but I've heard many excellent things about it. More things I bought because Book Riot (specifically All the Books) recommended them are Wolf Road by Beth Lewis (which Ellie also recommended) which is about a girl who takes up with a guy who is wanted for something awful I think? (the book is upstairs so I'm kind of ad-libbing here...) Anyway it sounds excellent. I also bought Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho for Rhys (but also for me) because he mentioned it sounding excellent a while ago but also because Rebecca has been talking about it on All the Books for months and it sounds excellent. Magicky school type book? Yes please! I got the second volume of The Wicked and the Divine because I want to find out what happens next although I don't entirely remember what happened in the first one? Something to do with reincarnated Gods... and the art was beautiful. And then finally I got That Girl from Nowhere by Dorothy Koomson (whose name alone sells books to me because I know they'll be great and twisty and very readable) and The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence because I remembered Charlotte saying how great it was. And then Katie Morag for the boys, of course!
I'm almost done I promise! I got my first parcel from my new Secret Sister for this round. It was Great British Bake Off themed and excellent! Little Bites by Christine Chitnis and Sarah Waldman is a really fantastic recipe book full of seasonal, exciting snack recipes for kids and I am in love with it. It has all kinds of helpful tips for how to eat seasonally and I am so all about that at the moment! She also sent Chocolate Treats which has a plethora of yummy looking things I can't wait to try.
Finally I got a lovely parcel from Myriad Editions today containing some really exciting sounding titles!
The Busker by Liam Bell Murray is about a guy who is about to be the next big thing in music and then it flashes forwards in time and he's sleeping rough on the streets, and the novel goes back and forth filling in the gaps I think. Very much looking forward to reading it. Also excited for The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock which is historical fiction about a test pilot who is offered a chance to become one of the first men in space. I love space things, particularly if they're about early exploits into space so I'm looking forward to this. Finally they sent me Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago by Douglas Cowie which has as a character Simone de Beauvoir. I'm excited to read them all and will be reporting back in due course!
That brings my grand total for August to twenty four which is quite crazy considering that I only actually bought nine for myself, so I definitely don't need to be buying books really and many many thanks to wonderful friends and lovely publishers who have made my month so full of bookish goodness!
If you've stuck with me this long then I hope you've found some loveliness to add to your wishlists and I also want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because my goodness that was longer than I thought it would be!
As usual all titles link to Wordery and are affiliate links so should you use the link (or the general one in the top left of my sidebar) I'll get a small commission. You should - Wordery are independent, excellent and will ship worldwide for free and send you a bookmark with your book!
Obviously I've already given you my opinion on some of these but The Last Pilot was very good, interesting on the historical side and also rather moving.
ReplyDeleteAnd Yay for Nimona!
Oh, I loved Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Ellie bought me it for a RAK and that's how we met! I love how sparkly it is and from what I remember, it was really interesting too.
ReplyDeleteIt IS really interesting - and it's not one of those books where you can't follow all the American references either, which was nice. American brands, American culture, but nothing that excludes readers from elsewhere. I also like the fact that there's some balance there - Orenstein's not all "THIS IS EVIL, THIS IS NOT", there's some nuance to counter the slightly overblown arguments she occasionally wanders into. Hope you enjoy it Bex!
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