Good morning! I am a voracious reader, as are many of you, and I am curious where and how do you pick the books that you read? Are you in a book club? Do you stick to a specific genre of books? Do you pick your books by the covers?
I find my books from online lists, recommendations from friends and my local bookstore. I also find them at my local library as I walk along the shelves to see if something “jumps out at me.”
Lately I have been relying more on my library as I am trying not to buy any books for awhile. Today I thought I would share the books that I have on my list to read in the next week. Have you read any of them?
A first-person narrative of Lilly Bere’s life, On Canaan’s Side opens as the eighty-five-year-old Irish émigré mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. Lilly, the daughter of a Dublin policeman, revisits her eventful past, going back to the moment she was forced to flee Ireland at the end of the First World War. She continues her tale in America, where—far from her family—she first tastes the sweetness of love and the bitterness of betrayal.
Spanning nearly seven decades, Sebastian Barry’s extraordinary fifth novel explores memory, war, family ties, love, and loss, distilling the complexity and beauty of life into his haunting prose.
On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
On the 14th November 1940, Hitler’s bombs rain down on Coventry. From the rubble of a bombed-out family home, a young girl is saved…
As the Nazis’ relentless bombs fall during the Blitz of Coventry, six-year-old Rose Sherbourne finds herself orphaned and under the guardianship of a Cornish farmer’s daughter, Elenor Cardew.
Elenor knows that the only way to protect spirited Rose is to leave the city and make a new life for themselves away from harm. But soon Elenor discovers that Hitler’s firestorm is not the only thing she must fear when she learns a devastating secret about Rose…
With Rose’s life in imminent danger, Elenor turns to the only person she can trust to keep the deadly secret, heroic Canadian pilot, Jackson St John. And amidst the destruction of war, an unlikely romance blossoms as they find a way to protect the child they have both grown to love…and each other.
On sale for .99 on Kindle.
Kitty McCloud and her new husband/former blood enemy Kieran Sweeney have bought an ancient Irish castle with the profits from Kitty’s popular revisions of classic novels like Jane Eyre. Kitty’s American cousin, Aaron McCloud, has arrived to visit with his new wife, the former swineherd Lolly McKeever. With them is a troublesome and unwelcome pig, a wedding gift they are redelivering to Kitty and Kieran. But over the resulting lighthearted discord hangs a weightier problem: Kitty’s new home is inhabited by a pair of ghosts from out of the castle’s troubled past.
When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddenly awash in possibility—no mean feat for a servant in 1884. The opportunity to move to America. The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota. And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else…and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.
One hundred years later, Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities: Fresh out of rehab, the former interior designer is homeless, jobless, and penniless. Bailey’s grandfather was the ward of famed architect Theodore Camden, yet Bailey won’t see a dime of the Camden family’s substantial estate; instead, her “cousin” Melinda—Camden’s biological great-granddaughter—will inherit almost everything. So when Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation of her lavish Dakota apartment, Bailey jumps at the chance, despite her dislike of Melinda’s vision. The renovation will take away all the character of the apartment Theodore Camden himself lived in…and died in, after suffering multiple stab wounds by a former Dakota employee who had previously spent seven months in an insane asylum—a madwoman named Sara Smythe.
A century apart, Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle against the golden excess of their respective ages–for Sara, the opulence of a world ruled by the Astors and Vanderbilts; for Bailey, the nightlife’s free-flowing drinks and cocaine—and take refuge in the Upper West Side’s gilded fortress. But a building with a history as rich, and often as tragic, as the Dakota’s can’t hold its secrets forever, and what Bailey discovers inside could turn everything she thought she knew about Theodore Camden—and the woman who killed him—on its head.
What are you reading this week? Please share what you have on your bedside table or on your wish list.
Have a great day!
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Rules of Civility is a pleasure to ready. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Nancy
Oh, Elizabeth, I was excited to see The Address and have written it down because one of my favorite books is about the Dakota. Have you ever read the time-travel book Time and Again by Jack Finney? I'm not usually a time travel reader but this book was so believable I found myself believing the possibility. And I fell in love with the Dakota where it takes place.
I also wrote down The Rules of Civility and who could resist The Pig Comes to Dinner? I wrote your name by these where maybe I won't forget who recommended them so I can let you know how I like them. And I guess I find most new books through blog friends but mostly I reread books off my shelves and try to add new ones by favorite authors. And I too am determined to go to the library more and buy books less–unless it's by a favorite author who I collect.
Happy reading, dear Elizabeth,
Dewena
THE PIGGY BOOK A MUST FOR ME!
I haven't read any of these. Will check them out though!
Brenda
Thanks for pointing these ones out!