My Bookish Weekly Wrap Up – 23rd November 2019

Hello!  Another week closer to Christmas! And I’m feeling totally underwhelmed about the whole thing!  Can someone write my Christmas cards and shop for presents for me please?! bah humbug……

On to bookish things – I never feel underwhelmed by those! Maybe overwhelmed at times (ok, all the time!) about the TBR mountain but it’s been another good week with 5 books finished, one of which was an audiobook, and there may have also been a visit to Netgalley, a bit of bookish secondhand shopping and a couple of book wins too! Yay!

BOOKS FINISHED

Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston – 4 stars (audiobook)

The Beautiful Ones by Prince  – 5 stars

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin – 4 stars

Unexpected Lessons In Love by Lucy Dillon – 4 stars

Black Summer by M.W.Craven  – 5 stars

BOOKHAUL

One from Netgalley…

THE BERMONDSEY BOOKSHOP by MARY GIBSON

publication date – February 2020

Bermondsey, 1920s. After her mother’s death Kate is taken in by her father’s sister, the quick-tempered Aunt Sylvie. Already struggling to feed children of her own, Aunt Sylvie treats Kate like an unwanted burden. Although Kate’s father disappeared when she was a child, she still harbours hope that he will one day reappear and release her from this miserable existence. If only she knew why he left and what really happened to her mother…

One day, after a terrible argument, eighteen-year-old Kate is thrown out. Desperate to land on her own two feet she answers an advert for a cleaner at The Bermondsey Bookshop and Reading Room. Little does she know that her life is about to be changed forever…

In this cosy shop in Bermondsey Street, owned by a wealthy, idealistic young woman, Kate’s eyes are opened to a whole new world. The bookshop is a vibrant meeting place for the local factory workers and dockers and the free reading room a place where they can read in peace and attend lectures by the famous literary lights of the day. Here Kate rubs shoulders with Johnny ‘Rasher’ Bacon, the docker who goes to read Marx, and Martin Cliffe, the handsome, upperclass student who comes to hear H.G. Wells speak.

But when Kate recognises a stranger from her past, can she be sure that he is all that he seems? And will she be true to her roots and pick the fiery young Docker ‘Rasher’ Bacon? Or can the handsome young scholar Martin Cliffe persuade Kate that love can bridge the gulf between their two worlds

THE GUARDIAN OF LIES by KATE FURNIVALL

book prize won over at Random Things Through My Letterbox

Discover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage and betrayal, from the internationally bestselling author of The Survivors.
1953, the South of France. The fragile peace between the West and Soviet Russia hangs on a knife edge. And one family has been torn apart by secrets and conflicting allegiances.

Eloïse Caussade is a courageous young Frenchwoman, raised on a bull farm near Arles in the Camargue. She idolises her older brother, André, and when he leaves to become an Intelligence Officer working for the CIA in Paris to help protect France, she soon follows him. Having exchanged the strict confines of her father’s farm for a life of freedom in Paris, her world comes alive. 

But everything changes when André is injured – a direct result of Eloise’s actions. Unable to work, André returns to his father’s farm, but Eloïse’s sense of guilt and responsibility for his injuries sets her on the trail of the person who attempted to kill him.

Eloïse finds her hometown in a state of unrest and conflict. Those who are angry at the construction of the American airbase nearby, with its lethal nuclear armaments, confront those who support it, and anger flares into violence, stirred up by Soviet agents. Throughout all this unrest, Eloïse is still relentlessly hunting down the man who betrayed her brother and his country, and she is learning to look at those she loves and at herself with different eyes. She no longer knows who she can trust. Who is working for Soviet Intelligence and who is not? And what side do her own family lie on?

MIX TAPE by JANE SANDERSON

copy won via Twitter giveaway

You never forget the one that got away. But what if ‘what could have been’ is still to come?

Daniel was the first boy to make Alison a mix tape.

But that was years ago and Ali hasn’t thought about him in a very long time. Even if she had, she might not have called him ‘the one that got away’; she’d been the one to run away, after all.

Then Dan’s name pops up on her phone, with a link to a song from their shared past.

For two blissful minutes, Alison is no longer an adult in Adelaide with temperamental daughters; she is sixteen in Sheffield, dancing in her too-tight jeans. She cannot help but respond in kind.

And so begins a new mix tape.

Ali and Dan exchange songs – some new, some old – across oceans and time zones, across a lifetime of different experiences, until one of them breaks the rules and sends a message that will change everything…

Because what if ‘what could have been’ is still to come?

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE SUPERHEROES by ANDREW KAUFMAN

All Tom’s friends really are superheroes.

There’s the Ear, the Spooner, the Impossible Man. Tom even married a superhero, the Perfectionist. But at their wedding, the Perfectionist was hypnotized (by ex-boyfriend Hypno, of course) to believe that Tom is invisible. Nothing he does can make her see him. Six months later, she’s sure that Tom has abandoned her.

So she’s moving to Vancouver. She’ll use her superpower to make Vancouver perfect and leave all the heartbreak in Toronto. With no idea Tom’s beside her, she boards an airplane in Toronto. Tom has until the wheels touch the ground in Vancouver to convince her he’s visible, or he loses her forever.

LORDS AND LADIES / FEET OF CLAY by TERRY PRATCHETT

LORDS AND LADIES

The fairies are back – but this time they don’t just want your teeth.

It’s Midsummer Night – no time for dreaming. Because sometimes, when there’s more than one reality at play, too much dreaming can make the walls between them come tumbling down. Unfortunately there’s usually a damned good reason for there being walls between them in the first place – to keep things out. Things who want to make mischief and play havoc with the natural order.

Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven are up against real elves. And even in a world of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers and the odd orang-utan, this is going to cause real trouble. With lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.

FEET OF CLAY

THERE’S A WEREWOLF WITH PRE-LUNAR TENSION IN ANKH-MORPORK. AND A DWARF WITH ATTITUDE AND A GOLEM WHO’S BEGUN TO THINK FOR ITSELF.

But for Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City Watch, that’s only the start . . .

There’s treason in the air. A crime has happened.

He’s not only got to find out whodunit, but howdunit too. He’s not even sure what they dun. But soon as he knows what the questions are, he’s going to want some answers. 

CURRENTLY READING

Nothing! I’m at that stage where I’m deciding on what to read next! It never gets an easier does it?! Do I read ahead and start on 2020 books? Do I attack the backlog on the Netgalley shelves? Or do I just pick up a book from my own shelf that has been there for a squillion ears and read that??!!! Excuse me while I ponder and pontificate and waste valuable reading time deciding……

HAPPY READING!!

Advertisement