Week of 2/18/18-2/24/18 Weekly Book Round-Up

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

 

Podcasts:  Overdue Podcast 

This week Andrew and Craig discuss 2016 Hugo Winner:  The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

I love the format of Overdue – it’s as if you are listening to a couple friends about the books they are reading. Discussion and discourse always add that extra nudge when deciding if you want to read the title in question as well.  I find that it’s best to just listen to the podcast and then decide – but sometimes there are spoilers so if that bothers you, you may want to read the description and then decided if you want to read the book first of if you want to hear Andrew and Craig’s discussion and go from there.

Here is the book blurb for The Fifth Season

Here is the Overdue Podcast episode

 

Booktube: 

Sandra briefly reviews the books from the Man Booker Shortist 2016.  Below is the first video in the two part series.  I loved Sandra’s approach and authentic presentation of opinions. Can’t wait to see more from her channel.

 

New Release:   

From Penguin Random House a quiet thriller released this week.  The Woman on the Stairs by Bernhard Schlink (translated by Joyce Hackett and Bradley Schmidt)

The Woman on the Stairs is an intricately-crafted, poignant and beguiling novel about creativity and love, about the effects of time passing and the regrets that haunt us all.

 

About the Woman on the Stairs (Book Blurb Courtesy of Penguin Random House)

In a museum far from home, a lawyer stumbles across a painting of a woman he once knew, Irene. Decades before, he had become entangled in her affairs when he was called on to settle a dispute between her husband, who had commissioned the portrait, and the painter of the work—who was also her lover. When, ultimately, the lawyer fell in love with her himself and risked everything for her, she mysteriously disappeared—along with the painting.

Now, face to face with the portrait once again, the lawyer must reconcile his past and present selves. When he eventually locates Irene, he is forced to confront the truth of his love—and the reality that his life has been irrevocably changed.  A poignant, intricately crafted novel of obsession, creativity, and love, this is Bernhard Schlink at his peak.

What others are saying:

Spellbinding. . . . Runs on taut suspense.” —O, The Oprah Magazine 

“Has the grip of a mystery. . . . A satisfying ending . . . keeps the novel alive after the last page has been turned.” —The Washington Times

“At the heart of this terse novel is a love rectangle, decades in the past. . . . A chance glimpse of the picture in a gallery on the other side of the world leads to a series of reunions and examinations of male possessiveness.” —The New Yorker

“Elegant. . . . Exquisitely wrought. . . . Profound and moving.” —Buffalo News

“A page-turner. . . . Shine[s] a light on Schlink’s brilliance as a contemplative writer who, through simple prose and complex characters, mediates on life and all its challenges.” —New York Journal of Books

“Schlink, a professor of law in both Germany and the United States, writes with lawyerly precision, and his protagonist’s midlife search for meaning is thought-provoking and surprisingly tender.” —BookPage

 

In other Book Blogs:  Kristin at Kristin Kraves Books shares two mini-reviews this week.  

https://kristinkravesbooks.wordpress.com/2018/02/25/mini-reviews-wonder-they-both-die-in-the-end/

Wonder is a Middle Grade novel that at its core is about overcoming adversity and the power and strength of empathy and the goodness of humanity.   If the title or cover looks familiar, this one has been made into a movie.  This is an example of a book that was written for a younger audience but the themes addressed have a universal appeal and validity for all. 

They Both Die at the End is a young adult novel that deals with friendship, love, mortality. Similar to Chloe Benjamin’s the Immortalists – this book centers around living life when you know you are going to die as the two main characters forge a friendship and love on their last day on Earth. 

 

 

What I’m reading:  A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold.  No one can know what went through the minds of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as they executed the Columbine Masacre in 1999.  This book is to gain Sue Klebold’s perspective on how she came to accept the reality of her son’s role in Columbine and the beginning domino in the school shooting epidemic.  She has some interesting thoughts on removing the mental health stigma, one example is a simple solution requiring only semantics in reference to mental health.  By shifting the modifier from mental to brain she argues that it becomes a tangible and real problem to address instead of an invisible ailment.