Week of 1/21/18-1/27/18 Weekly Book Round-Up

Week of 1/21/18-1/27/18 Weekly Book Round-Up

This is a weekly installment of bookish happenings across the collective book community. 

 


New Release:  The Sky is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith 

This title was released this week.  It’s a dystopian novel that is supposed to be refreshing and funny.  I’ll take that!  Here is a review from TOR  that made me bump this title towards the top of my to read stack!

Book blurb: In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island, three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. When violence strikes, reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, the spoiled scion of the metropolis’ last dynasty; Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, his tempestuous, death-obsessed betrothed; and Abby, a feral beauty he discovered tossed out with the trash; are forced to flee everything they’ve ever known. As they wander toward the scalded heart of the city, they face fire, conspiracy, mayhem, unholy drugs, dragon-worshippers, and the monsters lurking inside themselves. In this bombshell of a novel, Chandler Klang Smith has imagined an unimaginable world: scathingly clever and gorgeously strange, The Sky Is Yours is at once faraway and disturbingly familiar, its singular chaos grounded in the universal realities of love, family, and the deeply human desire to survive at all costs.

The Sky Is Yours is a visionary, funny, infuriating dystopic romp, and it’s full of carefully observed character details and revelations that simultaneously broke my heart and made it soar like a dragon.” Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock

 

Literary News:  Ursula K Le Guin passed away this week.   Here is a beautiful essay I found in the Paris Review by Karen Joy Fowler Ten Things I Learned from Ursula K. Le Guin

Write what you want to write. Add as many dragons as you like.

 

 

Commute Worthy Podcast:  The Idle Book Club Podcast

Sarah and Chris host The Idle Book Club Podcast.  They chose a book a month to read and discuss, this month they chose Zadie Smith’s NW.   They both agree that this book is worth the re-read and would be a great starting point if you haven’t read any Zadie Smith before.

Book Blurb: Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals—Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan—as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. In private houses and public parks, at work and at play, these Londoners inhabit a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead-end. Depicting the modern urban zone—familiar to city-dwellers everywhere—NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.

 

In other blog pages:  

Sam at Clues and Reviews gives a spoiler free stamp of approval for the new thriller  The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Book Blurb: A novel of suspense that explores the complexities of marriage and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement.
You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.
You will assume the first wife was a disaster and that the husband was well rid of her.
You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.
Assume nothing.

 

What I’m reading:  

I just started reading Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.  This is my book club pick for this month.  Our group needed a little levity and this is fun read so far.  It’s a story about a plane crash with a plane full of beauty queen contestants.  Surprisingly feminist and filled with hilarious satire.

Image Courtesy of Floralinkbooks on Instagram/Bookstagram

 

 

BookTube: A clever challenge concept for creating month long reading goals 

Lauren with Lauren and the Books has an interesting concept for her reading goals for February.   Shes going to concentrate on consuming female content throughout the month February.  This will cover the books she reads, the music she listens to, every facet of her entertainment outlet will be Female Focused.  That’s better than just Galentine’s Day!  Excellent idea!

 

 

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