It’s already November and I hate to say it but I’ve not been super excited about too many of the books I’ve read thus far in 2019. I think (hope) I’m yet to find my favorite book(s) of the year. Maybe it will be on this fall and winter reading list below, which includes sequels and more fantastical than usual (for me). Although I gravitated towards all the tantalizing new fiction, I did include a memoir and some non-fiction about an insect!
Publishers notes are in the boxes. You can click on the images or titles to find out more and purchase on Amazon. I will update this list with links to my reviews as I read through my list.
Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati
From the international bestselling author of The Gilded Hour comes Sara Donati’s enthralling epic about two trailblazing female doctors in nineteenth-century New York.
If you are intimidated by long books, this is not for you but I am glad I have 500+ pages left because I never want a good book to end. The book begins with several letters and court notes, newspaper articles, etc. and has elements of several different genres.
The Starless Sea: A Novel by Erin Morgenstern
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world–a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.
Another follow up book from a popular author. This fantasy springs from a mysterious, hidden book in a library.
The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele
If the grid went down, how would you find someone on the other side of the country? How would you find hope?
The is an post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel but supposedly it focuses on hope over doom and rebuilding over destruction.
The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale (Co-Booker Prize Winner) by Margaret Atwood
When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her–freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.
Margaret Atwood’s sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
Of course I have to know what happened to Offred!
Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel (Co-Booker Prize Winner) by Bernardine Evaristo
Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.
The co-Booker prize winner with Atwood’s sequel is worth reading!
This Tender Land: A Novel by William Kent Krueger
For fans of Before We Were Yours and Where the Crawdads Sing, a magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression, from the New York Times bestselling author of Ordinary Grace.
Hoping for an epic read here. UPDATE: LOVED THIS
Skein Island by Aliya Whiteley
“Skein Island, a private refuge twelve miles off the coast, lies in turbulent waters. Few receive the invitation to stay for one week, free of charge. If you are chosen, you must pay for your stay with a story from your past; a Declaration for the Island’s vast library.”
Had me at “vast library” ha!!!
The Giver of Stars: A Novel by Jojo Moyes
“Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond, from the author of Me Before You “
Maybe I’m the only one who hasn’t read Me Before You, but this is on my list because it’s about women delivering books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s traveling library initiative.
The Last Train to London: A Novel
“A pre-World War II-era story with the emotional resonance of Orphan Train and All the Light We Cannot See, centering on the Kindertransports that carried thousands of children out of Nazi-occupied Europe—and one brave woman who helped them escape to safety.”
Long Bright River: A Novel by Liz Moore
“In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.”
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir by Jaquira Diaz
“With a story reminiscent of Tara Westover’s Educated, Roxane Gay’s Hunger, and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz delivers a memoir that reads as electrically as a novel.”
The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
Why was gin and tonic the cocktail of choice for British colonists in India and Africa? What does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? What has protected the lives of popes for millennia? Why did Scotland surrender its sovereignty to England? What was George Washington’s secret weapon during the American Revolution?
The answer to all these questions, and many more, is the mosquito.
Hopefully I can pull myself away from all the fiction above to learn something from this narrative nonfiction. But it will be difficult.
So this is what I’m planning to read in the next couple of months…please let me know your favorite books of the year thus far or what you’re planning to read this season.
Thanks for reading and supporting Leslie’s Bookcase.