Many of you have contributed to a large list of books that I save in a file and review each time I am about to order some books or visit the library. That list is so long, now, that I have described it as being like an alien garden, green and glowing in the dark.
A smaller, but more potent list is my wish list at Barnes & Noble. There I maintain a list for more immediate purchase. I also keep an eye out for new books from my favorite authors.
At B&N, you can put books on the wish list that will not come out for months. It is always a surprise how fast the months go by.
It is fun when searching for a title to find other books listed that I might like and sometimes those go on the wish list, also.
Here are some books that I have on my wish list. What do you have on yours?
1. After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti by Edwidge Danticat. I just finished her book of essays Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work and I have read her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, and I want to read more.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Part travelogue, part memoir, this is a lyrical narrative of a writer rediscovering her country along with a part of herself. It’s also a wonderful introduction to Haiti’s southern coast and to the true beauty of Carnival.
Another one of hers that looks very interesting is
The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
In four sections—Childhood, Migration, First Generation, and Return—the contributors to this anthology write powerfully, often hauntingly, of their lives in Haiti and the United States. Jean-Robert Cadet's description of his Haitian childhood as a restavec—a child slave—in Port-au-Prince contrasts with Dany Laferriere's account of a ten-year-old boy and his beloved grandmother in Petit-Gove…The variations and permutations of the divided self of the Haitian emigrant are poignantly conveyed in this unique anthology.
Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
2. Broken Harbor by Tana French
Coming at the end of July:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
3. The Beautiful Mystery (Armand Gamache Series #8 ) by Louise Penny
Coming at the end of August:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”
4. An Unmarked Grave (Bess Crawford Series #4) by Charles Todd
Coming June 5th:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
5. Elegy for Eddie (Maisie Dobbs Series #9) by Jacqueline Winspear
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Early April, 1933. To the costermongers of Covent Garden—sellers of fruit and vegetables on the streets of London—Eddie Pettit was a gentle soul with a near-magical gift for working with horses. When Eddie is killed in a violent accident, the grieving costers are skeptical about the cause of Eddie's death. But who would want to kill Eddie—and why?...
My friend liked the book and says that Maisie’s hairshirt is in full view, again, and I agree that I get a bit tired of that, but I still want to know what she has been up to as she is really unique in how she works as a detective.
6. Bared Blade by Kelly McCullough (A Daily Kos author)
Coming June 26th, the second in the series that began with Broken Blade.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
7. The Blood-Dimmed Tide (John Madden Series #2) by Rennie Airth
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
I have decided to try the second book after River of Darkness seemed more than just a mystery.
The Blood-Dimmed Tide, set in 1932, marks the return of the beloved Inspector John Madden, whose discovery of a young girl's mutilated corpse near his home in rural England brings him out of retirement despite his wife's misgivings. Soon he finds himself chasing a killer whose horrific crime could have implications far afield in a Europe threatened by the rise of Hitler.
8. The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
I don’t know why, but this story intrigues me. It is worth a try.
Emily Benedict has come to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew, she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor, Julia Winterson, bakes hope in the form of cakes, not only wishing to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also dreaming of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.
9. Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, Edie's mission is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries kidnap Edie, she's not entirely sure it's a bad thing . . . until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn—a former freedom fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie strays from Finn's side, he dies. If she doesn't cooperate, the pirates will kill them both.
But Edie's abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now, with Finn as her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in, she'll have to prove it or die on the site of her only failure . . . a world called Scarabaeus.
10. Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Polly Whittacker has two sets of memories. In the first, things are boringly normal; in the second, her life is entangled with the mysterious, complicated cellist Thomas Lynn. One day, the second set of memories overpowers the first, and Polly knows something is very wrong. Someone has been trying to make her forget Tom - whose life, she realizes, is at supernatural risk. Fire and Hemlock is a fantasy filled with sorcery and intrigue, magic and mystery - and a most unusual and satisfying love story.
Widely considered to be one of Diana Wynne Jones's best novels, the Firebird edition of Fire and Hemlock features an introduction by the acclaimed Garth Nix - and an essay about the writing of the book by Jones herself.
11. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist A New York Times Notable Book.
A gorgeous novel by the celebrated author of When the Emperor Was Divine that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago. In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journeys by boat, to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; from their experiences raising children who would later reject their culture and language, to the deracinating arrival of war. Once again, Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.
12. Death at La Fenice (Guido Brunetti Series #1) by Donna Leon
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Beautiful and serene Venice is a city almost devoid of crime. But that is little comfort to Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who is poisoned one night during intermission. As Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police and a genius of detection, pieces together the clues, a shocking picture of depravity and revenge emerges.
13. Sundial in a Grave by Mary Gentle
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
The year is 1610. Continental Europe is briefly at peace after years of war, but Henri IV of France is planning to invade the German principalities. In England, only five years earlier, conspirators nearly succeeded in blowing up King James I and his Parliament. The seeds of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War are visibly being sown, and the possibility for both enlightenment and disaster abounds.
But Valentin Rochefort, duelist and spy for France's powerful financial minister, could not care less. Until he is drawn into the glittering palaces, bawdy back streets, and stunning theatrics of Renaissance France and Shakespearean London in a deadly plot both to kill King James I and to save him. For this swordsman without a conscience is about to find himself caught between loyalty, love, and blackmail, between kings, queens, politicians, and Rosicrucians — and the woman he has, unknowingly, crossed land and sea to meet.
14. In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
…Nearly a century would pass before an unconventional young American scientist unearths evidence of this great discovery and its mysterious disappearance. Taking up the challenge, he begins to assemble a new generation of explorers to resume theperilous search into the ocean’s depth . . . and theshadows of history. Armed with cutting-edge, moderntechnology, and drawing on connections to powerful families at home and abroad, this time Americans and Chinese will follow together the path of secrets that have long proved as elusive as the ancient treasures that held them.
This striking debut novel by a masterful writer weaves together two fascinating eras into one remarkable tale. In the Shadow of the Cypress is an evocative, dramatic story that depicts California in all its multicultural variety, with a suspense that draws the reader inexorably on until the very last page.
15. In the Sea There are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari by Fabio Geda
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
When ten-year-old Enaiatollah Akbari’s small village in Afghanistan falls prey to Taliban rule in early 2000, his mother shepherds the boy across the border into Pakistan but has to leave him there all alone to fend for himself. Thus begins Enaiat’s remarkable and often punish¬ing five-year ordeal, which takes him through Iran, Turkey, and Greece before he seeks political asylum in Italy at the age of fifteen.
Along the way, Enaiat endures the crippling physical and emotional agony of dangerous border crossings, trekking across bitterly cold mountain pathways for days on end or being stuffed into the false bottom of a truck. But not every¬one is as resourceful, resilient, or lucky as Enaiat, and there are many heart-wrenching casualties along the way.
Based on Enaiat’s close collaboration with Italian novelist Fabio Geda and expertly rendered in English by an award- winning translator, this novel reconstructs the young boy’s memories, perfectly preserving the childlike perspective and rhythms of an intimate oral history.
Told with humor and humanity, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles brilliantly captures Enaiat’s moving and engaging voice and lends urgency to an epic story of hope and survival.
Diaries of the Week
Write On! Worldbuilding, part 1
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 74: The Sibelius Violin Concerto
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early