Along with all the tinkering I did last week, I had a change of template. This one is much more me!
Changing subject, this isn’t bookish, but I want to share this site with you - ASL’s Lego page. Now I love Lego, but this chap is totally obsessed with it, and particularly loves recreating Escher drawings in 3D in Lego. Scroll down to the bottom to see these projects - they’re wonderful!
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I’ve had a great couple of weeks of new acquisitions, so rather than waffling on about nothing, I want to share my incoming books with you.
- Mrs. Chippy’s Last Expedition: The Remarkable Journal of Shackleton’s Polar-Bound Cat
by Caroline Alexander. This is a wonderful blend of fact and fiction – being the story of Mrs Chippy, the carpenter’s cat on board the Endurance with Shackleton. It combines fact from the journals of crew members with the fictional exploits of the aforesaid feline.
- Angel
by Cliff McNish. I loved McNish’s latest book Savannah Grey and Angel has great write-ups too.
- The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers
by Thomas Mullen. This is set during the Great Depression at the tail-end of the gangster era. The Firefly brothers are bank-robbers who wake up on the slab dead but alive. Their girls and family believe them dead. The setting is irresistible.
- Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking)
by Patrick Ness. The final volume in the Chaos Walking trilogy. Volumes 1 & 2 of this dystopian series for young adults, The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer, were amazing books and I am so looking forward to reading this one.
- Will You be There?
by Guillaume Musso. This was a charity shop find, and tells the story of a successful surgeon who gets the chance to go back in time to San Francisco in the 1970s in search of the love of his life who died thirty years ago.
- The Taste of Sorrow
by Jude Morgan. A novelisation of the lives of the Bronte sisters. Although I realise this is a novel, I’m hoping that it will fill in a lot of gaps for me in my total lack of knowledge about these literary greats.
- The Book of Fires
by Jane Borodale. Another charity shop buy, about a girl who runs away to London in 1752 and works for a fireworks maker. As a scientist and fan of pyrotechnics this sounds intriguing.
- Maus: My Father Bleeds History v. 1: A Survivor’s Tale
by Art Spiegelman. This and its sequel is probably the most important graphic novel of all, and spotting it on the charity shop’s shelves, it was definately time to add it to the TBR pile.
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot. It is a somewhat terrifying thought to find out that so much medical research relies on an immortal cell-line taken from a black woman who died of cervical cancer back in the 1950s. This is the story of her and her ‘HeLa’ cells as they are known.
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Along with all the tinkering I did last week, I had a change of template. This one is much more me!
These all sound fabulous, especially The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Book of Fires.
I just finished The Complete Maus last week and found it amazing. It is very powerful, even if you’re familiar with Holocaust, its survivors and its terrifying truth. It reads very quickly, too (the beauty of graphic novels).
The HeLa book isn’t published in the UK until June, but has been a bestseller in the US. I like to read this type of non-fiction and am looking forward to it. The Book of fires is a debut, and the blend of historical novel with gunpowder could be fun. I will definitely make time for Maus very soon.
The only one I have read (and actually the only one I have heard of – but some of them sound most tempting) is Jude Morgan’s ‘The Taste of Sorrow’ and I thought it was wonderful, in fact I think it should have been on the Man Booker Longlist at least!
I’m glad you liked it Simon, that reassures me that I’ll enjoy it too.
*big eyes* You have Monsters of Men already? I seriously could not possibly be more jealous. It doesn’t come out in the States for ages and ages. Cannot wait to see what you think of it!
The hardback came out just this week, and I was able to get a signed copy too. Sorry to rub it in Jenny. I’ll be reporting back soon I hope.
Loving the new template, Annabel.
I received a copy of The Book of Fires this week, mainly due to its Orange New Writers nomination, and really looking forward to reading it.
I was very impressed by The Complete Maus when I read it last year; it is the most important graphic novel published, for sure.
Thanks Claire. It hadn’t registered with me that ‘The Book of Fires’ was nominated for the Orange New Writers prize, so that definitely bumps it up the pile…
you lucky lady! Maus and The Taste of Sorrow feature on my wishlist as I have wonderful things about both and I do like a bit of Bronte especially since visiting Haworth a couple of years ago. I still, to my shame, have to read the first two Mc Ness books, must prioritise them…off to check lego page as son is an addict…
Would you believe it, I went to Haworth – we caught the steam train up there – but didn’t go into the Parsonage (OH & daughter weren’t interested, and getting bored). However, I haven’t read Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights since school. I hope this book will rekindle and interest in revisiting them.
Looks like you’ve got quite a nice haul lately! I looooved The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. Definitely one of my favorites of the year, and I’m sad to see it not generating too much talk in book blogs. It definitely does a great, great job bringing the setting to life. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
I think the hardback has only been out here a short while – I got sent this by the publisher, so I guess they’re pushing it now! Looking forward to reading it though.
The Taste of Sorrow is just brilliant. I read it last year and absolutely loved it – it’s atmospheric and absorbing and I really felt as though I had had a real insight into their lives.
I have re-read Jane Eyre many times as I absolutely love it, but I have never been able to get beyond about the fourth chapter of Wuthering Heights no matter how hard I try – I suppose I should give it one last try but I might read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall first as I haven’t read any of Anne Bronte’s work.
The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers looks fascinating and I like the sound of Will You Be There as well – might see if the library has them.
Gosh, I don’t think I’ve heard of any of those, despite having a similar-sized tbr pile.
The lego-meister is pretty good isn’t he – thanks for sharing the link – the mathematical creations are rather clever
While I’m here, could you possibly change my url on your blogroll, but dropping the .uk bit. Its now http://www.acommonreader.org Thanks greatly