Leslie's Bookcase

celebrating books & the literary lifestyle

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‘MAD HONEY’

Last week I posted my fall reading list and I’m back to review the first book, which I had early access to thanks to NetGalley. The book is now available to all:

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Picoult was the author of a book I truly enjoyed last year – Wish You Were Here – so that’s why it first attracted my attention.

In Mad Honey, two moms are starting over; their kids fall in love. One ends up tragically dead and the other is accused of murder. What follows is a family and courtroom drama as well as a murder mystery and a love story told from two points of view (the mom of the accused and the girl who died). Without giving more plot details away, here’s why I liked the book:

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NEW BOOKS! – READING LIST/PREVIEW – FALL 2022

Just in time for Fall reading, I am presenting a list of nine new books I’m eagerly anticipating. There’s a good mix here – historical fiction (of course), thrillers of climate and family, non-fiction about the evils of social media, new books from critically acclaimed authors and another on death row.

Check out my reading list and read with me!

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TWO STATES & TWO BOOKS

I just returned from a summer road trip where – thanks to the S.S. Badger – my family visited Michigan and Wisconsin without driving through Chicago, and enjoyed long, sandy beaches and massive water parks during the same vacation. For me, vacation = reading so I can also recommend two books today while reminiscing about my fun travels.

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MY FAVORITE TRAVEL BOOKS

I want to share my favorite travel books. These are the books I browse through over and over to plan and dream about vacations.

If you read this blog often you already know that I love planning vacations. And because the actual vacation usually includes driving and/or flying, and relaxing, vacations and BOOKS go so well together.

Related post: My four book vacation.

Most recently I wrote about trips to Jamaica and Memphis.

I love reading travel books, and this is one of my favorite sections in the library; I always have a couple of books borrowed from this section! But these books I’m listing below, I actually own, and I use them again and again.

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MY TRIP TO MEMPHIS & GRACELAND

Back around the turn of the century (wow!!) I traveled to Memphis often because my hometown BFF lived there. (And she still does, more on this later.)

But I hadn’t been there for about 20 years (again, wow) so I invited myself along while suggesting that my mom finally make her pilgrimage to Graceland.

And by the end of the trip, I found myself to be just as big of an Elvis fan!!

We traveled with Timi’s Tours out of my hometown. You may know from previous posts that I love planning my vacations and obsess over every detail. I will admit, however, there were some nice things about having someone else do all of this for me.

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‘BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS’ – A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON GATSBY

I am a huge fan of The Great Gatsby and have read it several times. I also loved the 2013 movie (with Leonardo), and I wrote a post on that several years ago about how I will always consider this movie when thinking of the book.

The copyright on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book expired in 2021 so it is now in the public domain, making it legal for someone to write a different version of it, which Jillian Cantor has done in:

Beautiful Little Fools

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‘CUTTING FOR STONE’

The book I’m recommending today was a slower, thoughtful read for me. I am adding it to the “Newer Classics” list which is where I categorize the epic reads published in the past 20 years (or so).

This book was apparently a national bestseller years ago – or so the cover claims – but I hadn’t heard of it until my Dallas friend who also recommended A Fine Balance (I will always be recovering from that book) recommended it to me.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

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JAMAICA

I don’t have a book review for you (yet) because I’ve been caught up in a slower, epic read that I will hopefully tell you about soon; and I recently spent a lot of my time watching all 10 best picture nominations (yay for CODA!).

Because travel planning is my other hobby besides reading I want to share my experiences and recommendations from a fun trip we took in March to Jamaica.

We went to Kingston and Montego Bay, very different cities, and together they made for a great vacation.

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