2017

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.

What did I read last week?

The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock: Just beautiful. My review is here.

Next Year For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson: Unusual and entertaining. My review is here.

In audiobooks, I finished the utterly delightful Prudence by Gail Carriger. Sheer silly fun — just as I’ve come to expect from Gail Carriger’s books.

Pop culture goodness:

In movies, I finally watched the magnificent Moonlight. It’s a movie that needs time to sink in. I found myself thinking about it all night after watching it, as small moments clicked into place for me. Powerful and beautifully made — watch it.

Fresh Catch:

One new book, for an upcoming blog tour:

What will I be reading during the coming week?

Currently in my hands:

The River at Night by Erica Ferencik

Now playing via audiobook:

Imprudence by Gail Carriger: Well, of course I’m going to listen to Imprudence next! I’m excited to start book #2 of the Custard Protocol series — although I’m dreading the letdown that will inevitably follow once I finish and have to wait for the release of book #3.

Ongoing reads:

My book group is reading and discussing Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon — 2 chapters per week — with an end date coming up in June.

It’s week #4 of Outlander Book Club’s group read of One Hundred Years of Solitude. If you’d like to join in, just ask me how!

So many books, so little time…

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5Mar2017

My next can’t-wait book: Odd & True

Posted in Books & Authors by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Cat Winters, whose books I adore, has recently shared the cover and synopsis of her upcoming new release, Odd & True (to be released September 2017). Here’s the cover:

… and here’s the synopsis:

Trudchen grew up hearing Odette’s stories of their monster-slaying mother and a magician’s curse. But now that Tru’s older, she’s starting to wonder if her older sister’s tales were just comforting lies, especially because there’s nothing fantastic about her own life—permanently disabled and in constant pain from childhood polio.

In 1909, after a two-year absence, Od reappears with a suitcase supposedly full of weapons and a promise to rescue Tru from the monsters on their way to attack her. But it’s Od who seems haunted by something. And when the sisters’ search for their mother leads them to a face-off with the Leeds Devil, a nightmarish beast that’s wreaking havoc in the Mid-Atlantic states, Tru discovers the peculiar possibility that she and her sister—despite their dark pasts and ordinary appearances—might, indeed, have magic after all.

For more info, check out the author’s blog post and visit her website, http://www.catwinters.com.

What do you think? Anyone else bouncing out of their seats with excitement?

I’ve loved all of her books so far, so I can’t wait to get my hands on Odd & True.

Preorder links:

Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Amazon UK
BAM • Book Depository • IndieBound

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For more on books by Cat Winters, check out my reviews of:
The Uninvited
The Cure For Dreaming
In the Shadow of Blackbirds
The Steep & Thorny Way

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4Mar2017

Take A Peek Book Review: Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

In this moving and enormously entertaining debut novel, longtime romantic partners Kathryn and Chris experiment with an open relationship and reconsider everything they thought they knew about love.

After nine years together, Kathryn and Chris have the sort of relationship most would envy. They speak in the shorthand they have invented, complete one another’s sentences, and help each other through every daily and existential dilemma. But, as content as they are together, an enduring loneliness continues to haunt the dark corners of their relationship. When Chris tells Kathryn about his feelings for Emily, a vivacious young woman he sees often at the Laundromat, Kathryn encourages her boyfriend to pursue this other woman—certain that her bond with Chris is strong enough to weather a little side dalliance.

Next Year, For Sure tracks the tumultuous, revelatory, and often very funny year that follows. When Chris’s romance with Emily evolves beyond what anyone anticipated, both Chris and Kathryn are invited into Emily’s communal home, where Kathryn will discover new possibilities of her own. In the confusions, passions, and upheavals of their new lives, both Kathryn and Chris are forced to reconsider their past and what they thought they knew about love.

Offering a luminous portrait of a relationship from two perspectives, Zoey Leigh Peterson has written an empathic, beautiful, and tremendously honest novel about a great love pushed to the edge. Deeply poignant and hugely entertaining, Next Year, For Sure shows us what lies at the mysterious heart of relationships, and what true openness and transformation require.

My Thoughts:

Interesting. One of the blurbs for this book mentions polyamory, and I’m not sure I’d have described the relationships in this book using quite that term… but for lack of anything better, sure, why not? If anything, I’d say it’s about how relationships don’t have to follow the one-on-one traditional format, and how different people may need different things at different times in their lives.

Chris and Kathryn, at the outset, seem to have a perfect relationship, utterly secure and utterly devoted. And if they seem a little light on passion, well, it’s been nine years, and they have such a deep soul-to-soul connection that the sex part seems not such a big deal. There’s a loneliness in their lives, though — their best friends and next door neighbors have moved away, and Chris and Kathryn as a unit of two and only two seem a bit insular and cut off from the rest of the world.

They also share every single thought and feeling they have, including their random crushes on other people. This time, though, Kathryn encourages Chris to actually do something about it. Maybe she’s hoping that he will just work it out of his system, but instead, his connection with Emily deepens from a crush to love, and Kathryn has to figure out a response. (And we know this story will go down some unexpected paths when, for example, Emily invites Kathryn to come to dinner along with Chris and Emily on their first date).

The three navigate their unusual relationship, with plenty of ups and downs. For Kathryn, it’s an introduction into a life that includes more people, more challenges, more ways of interacting with the world. For Chris, it’s a constant tug-of-war between wanting a safe, stay-at-home life with the woman (or women) he loves, versus needing to be “on” in order to keep up with Emily’s boundless energy and even Kathryn’s newer need for interaction with others.

We alternate between Chris and Kathryn’s points of view over the course of the year when their lives and relationship changes for good. While it’s hard for me to relate to Kathryn’s attitudes at time, as she both encourages and resents Chris’s growing involvement with Emily, I did ultimately come to understand why their new lives made sense for these two people. (I was also surprisingly charmed by the love and friendship that develops between Emily and Kathryn.)

The writing in Next Year, For Sure is fresh, insightful, and often funny, and I zipped through this book in about a day and a half. It might be flashier to say that this is a book about polyamory, but what I really think is at the heart of it all is a story of lonely people finding connection and belonging. I didn’t always understand the characters’ actions and feelings, but I enjoyed reading about them and considering their motivations, experiences, and outcomes.

Next Year, For Sure is certainly an unusual book with an unusual view of relationships, but I quite enjoyed reading it.

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The details:

Title: Next Year, For Sure
Author: Zoey Leigh Peterson
Publisher: Scribner
Publication date: March 7, 2017
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

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4Mar2017

Book Review: The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Alaska: Growing up here isn’t like growing up anywhere else.

Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck suddenly comes her way. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger.

Four very different lives are about to become entangled. This is a book about people who try to save each other—and how sometimes, when they least expect it, they succeed.

This is a beautiful piece of writing, showcasing the lives of a handful of young people as they navigate their way through their triumphs and sorrows in 1970s Alaska. The novel is told through interlocking stories, giving us windows into the various characters’ lives, while offering constantly shifting perspectives on other characters as we see how they see one another. Some of the characters are best friends; others just know each other in a friend-of-a-friend or even more remote sort of way.

Along the way, they deal with missing or abusive parents, misunderstandings, birth families and found families, and the quiet support that can come from the most unexpected of sources.

The backdrop of life in Alaska lends the stories a unique flavor. What’s most important is the human relationships, but the scenes of life in a poor neighborhood in Fairbanks or on a fishing boat or along a remote highway give the plot developments a grounding in real life that’s gritty and evocative.

The language in this book is really lovely, and I thought the way the characters’ stories weave together was remarkably well done, with many surprises along the way.

The Smell of Other People’s Houses is a relatively thin book, but it’s got plenty to enjoy and savor. If you enjoy great, emotionally powerful writing, check it out. I believe this book has been marketed as young adult, but there’s no reason that adult readers wouldn’t love it.

Reading tip: I made the mistake of reading this book during a very busy, hectic week, so I was only able to read it in bits and pieces, and I think I lost a bit of the flow along the way. If you can, I’d suggest setting aside a cozy couple of hours and reading this one straight through.

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The details:

Title: The Smell of Other People’s Houses
Author: Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Publication date: February 23, 2016
Length: 240 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Purchased

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1Mar2017

Thursday Quotables: The Smell of Other People’s Houses

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
(published 2016)

This lovely novel, consisting of interlocking stories, follows several young people in Alaska whose lives intersect in all sorts of intricate ways. I’m about halfway through, and can’t wait to share my thoughts when I’m done. Here’s one example of the lovely, unusual writing in this book:

It’s too hard trying to keep track of brothers who are full of their own ideas. They’re like helium balloons. At some point you just have to let go of the string and say, “Go on, then — good-bye, safe travels,” which has got to be easier than wondering whether you’re going to hold on too tight and pop the damn thing.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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28Feb2017

Shelf Control #72: City of Thieves

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! Fore more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

My Shelf Control pick this week is:

Title: City of Thieves
Author: David Benioff
Published: 2008
Length: 258 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible.

By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.

How I got it:

I don’t even remember. I picked it up used, somehow, somewhere.

When I got it:

At least 5 or 6 years ago.

Why I want to read it:

This book made it onto my “must check out sometime” list as soon as I read the very positive reviews when the book was first released. I always intented to get around to it… eventually. Realizing later on that the author is the same David Benioff as the Game of Thrones David Benioff gives me even higher hopes that I’ll end up really enjoying this book.

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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments!
If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

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27Feb2017

Top Ten Tuesday: The top 10 places I love to read

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a freebie, so I thought I’d go with something simple and fun — it’s all about going to my happy place. Because my happy place always involves books!

Here are ten places I love, love, love to read:

1) In a big, cozy chair

2) On my back porch, on a sunny day

3) IN BED!

4) On an airplane

5) In a park

6) In a room full of books

7) At the beach

8) In a coffee shop

9) Any beautiful outdoor location

and, obviously…

10) Wherever I happen to be!

What’s your TTT topic this week? Please share your link!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

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27Feb2017

The Monday Check-In ~ 2/27/2017

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

What did I read last week?

The Mother’s Promise by Sally Hepworth: A lovely but heartbreaking book. My review is here.

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer: I’m loving Georgette Heyer, now that I’ve finally given her books a try! My thoughts on These Old Shades are here.

Fresh Catch:

Three new books arrived this week!

One to feed my obsession with fiction set in Alaska, plus the next two books in the phenomenal sci-fi series, The Expanse.

What will I be reading during the coming week?

Currently in my hands:

I have a few ARCs I should catch up on, starting with:

Next Year For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson
The Book of Etta by Meg Elison

Now playing via audiobook:

Prudence by Gail Carriger: My listening time was sharply curtailed by the rainy weather this past week, since my main audiobook listening happens during my walks. Still, I’m making progress, and having lots of fun. Gail Carriger’s books never let me down, and all of her audiobooks have been delightful so far.

Ongoing reads:

My book group is reading and discussing Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon — 2 chapters per week — with an end date coming up in June.

It’s week #3 of Outlander Book Club’s group read of One Hundred Years of Solitude. If you’d like to join in, just ask me how!

So many books, so little time…

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26Feb2017

Take A Peek Book Review: These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Under the reign of Louis XV, corruption and intrigue have been allowed to blossom in France, and Justin Alastair, the notorious Duke of Avon and proud of his soubriquet ‘Satanas’, flourishes as well. Then, from a dark Parisian back alley, he plucks Leon, a redheaded urchin with strangely familiar looks, just in time for his long over-due schemes of revenge on the Comte de St. Vire. Among the splendours of Versailles and the dignified mansions of England, Justin begins to unfold his sinister plans — until, that is, Leon becomes the ravishing beauty Leonie…

Unanswered questions.

Lovely, titian-haired Leonie, ward of the dashing Duke of Avon, had all Paris at her feet. Yet her true origins remained shrouded in mystery. And neither the glittering soirees nor the young aristocrats who so ardently courted her could still the question that plagued her young heart.

What was her mysterious parentage?

Just one man held the secret, the one she feared most in the world–the iron-willed Comte de Saint-Vire, deadly enemy of the Duke. He would give her the answer–for a price. But could she betray the man she secretly, helplessly loved? And could this proud young beauty bear to face the truth when it came?

My Thoughts:

I’m sold! Until this month, I had never read a Georgette Heyer book — until my book club selected Devil’s Cub for our February book of the month. I really enjoyed Devil’s Cub, and once I realized that it was a sequel (kind of) to These Old Shades, I simply had to read this one as well.

These Old Shades is even better than Devil’s Cub, in my humble opinion. The Duke of Avon is just everything you could want in a hero of a Regency romance — he’s of the nobility, has a terrible reputation, is incredibly self-assured and handsome… but turns out to have a smooshy heart just waiting for the right person to come along and melt it. Léonie is a delight — an unpolished young girl, masquerading as a boy, who falls head over heels for her rescuer, but never quite loses her independence, impudence, and saucy sense of humor.

The banter and social maneuverings in These Old Shades are delicious. The book is scrumptious fun, beginning to end.

More Georgette Heyer, please! If you’re a fan, let me know which book you think I should read next.

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The details:

Title: These Old Shades
Author: Georgette Heyer
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication date: Originally published 1926
Length: 386 pages
Genre: Historical romance
Source: Library

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25Feb2017

Counting up the books: 2017

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

For a brief period last year, I had the crazy idea that I’d do a mini-inventory of my books each month. Basically, I decided I’d count all the unread books on my shelves and on my e-reader, then track my monthly reading and buying and see if my numbers went down (the goal) or up (the reality). The point was both to remind myself that I actually own oodles of books that I should get around to reading and discourage myself from buying more books than I read.

Did it work?

Well. No.

I quit my counting project after a few months. My spreadsheets were messy, my tracking was arbitrary, and in the end, who needs the pressure?

But here I am, back again with a brand new approach!

Thanks to being turned on to the oh-so-fun-and-useful Libib app (www.libib.com), I have a whole new way to get geeky about counting my books.

With Libib, you can create libraries of books, movies, music, etc, organized in whatever way suits you. Adding books is super easy — there’s a scanning feature, so I went through my entire house and starting scanning book barcodes using my smartphone. The scanning feature won’t work for books that have bookstore stickers over the original barcode, and I also got incorrect results for some of my older books. Most of the time, though, scanning worked beautifully, letting me build my home library record over the course of a few hours. (And for anything that didn’t scan, manual entry via the website was quick and easy.)

I decided to include just the unread books in my house, so I’d have a starting place for keeping track. I broke my inventory out into four categories, and here’s where I stand at the moment:

I decided to exclude book I felt pretty sure I’d never read — and in fact, created a new stack of books to donate or give away while I was at it. I also excluded e-ARCs, and any Kindle titles that I doubted I’d get to.

Grand total: 657

The last time I counted in February 2016, my numbers were:

Books: 428
E-books: 76
Graphic novels: 40
Non-fiction: 52

For a total of… 596

Hmmm. My numbers keep going up and up. To be fair, I’ve done a lot of public library reading this past year, but still, I’d like to think I’m reading books from my home library too. I did make a big dent in my graphic novel collection, so yay me!

Anyway, this is all really just for my own bookish entertainment. (My son thinks I’m a total nerd.) I’m not going to be doing monthly updates, but it might be fun to see where I end up at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, my project 2.0 with Libib will be to go back through my house with the scanner one more time and create a “books I’ve read” library too. You never know when that dreaded moment will hit, as you stumble on a book you’re tempted to buy and think “wait, do I own that one already?” Okay, this mainly happens to me in regards to my Stephen King collection, but it’s still fun to have a reference of all my books ready at my fingertips.

Anyone else crazy about counting books? What methods do you use for keeping count?