Sunday, August 28, 2022

Summer Reading Wrap Up and My Fall Picks


So in May I picked (20) books that I hoped to read this summer and, I was happy that as the summer progressed (13) of these books called my name.  As always tends to happen, I was distracted by several other new releases that seemed to appeal to me more and so (7) alternate books, that I really enjoyed completed my 20 Books of Summer Challenge.

  1. The Shell Seekers; Rosamunde Pilcher 4.5/5 stars
  2. The Summer Place; Jennifer Weiner
  3. Tin Camp Road; Ellen Airgood - 2.5/5 stars
  4. Life Ceremony; Sayaka Murata - 3/5 stars
  5. The Club; Ellery Lloyd
  6. The Lobotomist's Wife; Samantha Green Woodruff
  7. Metropolis; B.A. Shapiro - 4.5/5 stars
  8. The Book Woman's Daughter; Kim Richardson - 4/5 stars
  9. Summer Love; Nancy Thayer - 2/5 stars
  10. Vacationland; Meg Mitchell Moore  4.5/5 stars
  11. The Lost Summers of Newport; Beatriz Williams
  12. The Hotel Nantucket; Elin Hilderbrand - 4/5 stars
  13. The House Across the Lake; Riley Sager - 3.5/5 stars
  14. It All Comes Down to This; Therese Anne Fowler - 3/5 stars
  15. Stay Awake; Megan Goldin
  16. A Sister's Story; Donatella DiPetrantonio - 3.5/5 sr=tars
  17. The Midcoast; Adam White - 4/5 stars
  18. Godspeed; Nickolas Butler - 4.5/5 stars
  19. Summer Guest; Justin Cronin
  20. The It Girl; Ruth Ware 

Alternate Summer Reads not on original list

  1. Love and Saffron; Kim Fay - 4.5/5
  2. Lucy By the Sea; Elizabeth Strout - 5/5 stars
  3. The Foundling; Ann Leary - 4/5 stars
  4. Take My Hand; Dolen Perkins-valdez - 5/5 stars
  5. Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders; Kathryn Miles - 4/5 stars
  6. The Family Remains; Lisa Jewell - 4/5 stars
  7. Happy-Go-Lucky; David Sedaris - 5/5 stars


Fall Reading Picks

There are several books which caught my eye as I looked forward to some new fall releases.  Here are my (5) top picks which release over the next few months that I hope to try. The first (2) appea;ed to me because they both feature senior protagonists, something we don't see that often in today's fiction.

We Spread; Iain Reid
Simon & Schuster - 2022

Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents.”

Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny—with a growing sense of unrest and distrust—starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling?

At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid’s genre-defying third novel explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old.
Killers of a Cerain Age; Deanna Raybourn
Penguin Random House - 2022

Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon.

They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller.

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.

When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they've been marked for death.

Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman--and a killer--of a certain age.

Demon Copperfield; Barbara Kingsolver
Harper Collins - 2022

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.
The Last Chairlift; John Irving
Simon & Schuster - 2022

In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor.

Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts; in The Last Chairlift, they aren’t the first or the last ghosts he sees.

John Irving has written some of the most acclaimed books of our time—among them, The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules. A visionary voice on the subject of sexual tolerance, Irving is a bard of alternative families. In The Last Chairlift, readers will once more be in his thrall.

Three fathers collide far beyond the reach or safety of the aw in this breathtaking thriller from the beloved author of The Stolen Hours and The Life We Bury and "one of our best crime writers at the top of his game" (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author).

Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt—he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter Sandy and his six-year-old grandson Pip have disappeared. Lyle’s certain Sandy's ex-husband Reed is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. 

When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.

Racing after the most dangerous kind of criminal—a desperate father—and with the ghosts of their own pasts never far behind, Max and Lyle go on the hunt within a treacherous landscape, determined to bring an evil man to justice, and to bring a terrified child home alive. 

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35 comments:

  1. Thanks for the news that there's a new book by Barbara Kingsolver! How could I have missed that!
    And your review really makes me want to read it.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. Mae. Glad you stopped by and have now added Barbara Kingsolver's new book to your fall reading list.

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  2. Your fall reading picks are on my reading list as well. Autumn always seems to be a time for great book releases.

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    1. We do tend to have similar taste in books. Hope these are winners for both of us.

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  3. We Spread and Killers of a Certain Age sound good.

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    1. I thought so as well Vicki, although the title We Spread seems kinda weird to me.

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  4. Killers of A Certain Age sounds really good. You had a great reading summer. I hope you have a great reading fall, too.

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    1. I like the sound of it as well and the author has a pretty good reputation. Hope your fall reading is excellent~ Yvonne.

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  5. You had a great summer of reading and checked off many on your list. I'm glad to get your fall picks which look good! I've heard the Chairlift novel is long right? But I'm curious about it.

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  6. You did an excellent job of cutting some titles and substituting in some titles that might be better than those you cut. I'm intrigued with the fact that your subs rated higher overall than those on your initial list that you did read.

    Thank you for spotlighting these titles, Diane. I've just added the new Barbara Kingsolver (hurray!) and the title featuring an elderly narrator to my wishlist. I tend to think the best books come out in the fall just before the big gift-giving season.

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  7. Deb, yes fall releases are generally the BEST. I agree the reason might be gift giving season is right around the corner. I noticed my substitutes ranked higher than some of my original picks as well.....funny how that happened.

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  8. You did pretty good! It is fun to look back and see how the summer reading went. :)

    Raybourn's book looks super fun.

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    1. I was pleased with the summer books I read overall and look forward to so good fall releases as well. Have a good week Greg.

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  9. Some great looking books there. I don't plan what I am going to read as I get distracted by Blog Tours. I am trying not to get as distracted but it hasn't gone as well as I had hoped!

    Have a great week ahead!

    Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
    My post:
    https://budgettalesblog.wordpress.com/2022/08/28/sunday-salon-18/

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    1. Hi Emily, I feel more focused if I at least plan some of the coming month's books I want to read. Otherwise none of the ones I hoped to read/review seem to get read LOL Hope you have a good week.

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  10. Looks like you had a really good summer of reading! And the books you didn't get around to reading this time around you can save for next summer. ;D

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    1. Lark, a few of those on my summer list that I did not read have been with me for years LOL

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  11. What a great collection of summer reads. I need to bookmark this post so I have these titles at the ready! And, a new Kingsolver based on my beloved David Copperfield and a new John Irving, set in Aspen (I spent a summer there in the 1970s in college), so both are must reads for me.

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    1. The Kingsolver and Irving books are the highlights of my fall reading. I hope they do not disappoint. The description of both sound so appealing. I hope you will enjoy them.

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  12. You've done so well on your summer reading; I am impressed!

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    1. Thanks Helen, I did try to focus but, a few I thought I'd like no longer held the same appeal when I got ready to start so I was happy for alternates.

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  13. I wish I could read that much without falling asleep, there is so many good books out there.

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    1. I was just saying that my eyesight and small, light print is failing me and soon I suspect, LP, Kindle or audio books may be my go-to formats. My eyes get too tired with small faint print.

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  14. Well done on completing the Summer reading challenge. I didn't manage 20, I read 16 and like you swapped out a few books for various reasons. Looking forward to autumn reading now. I like the sound of Killers of a Certain Age!

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    1. Sixteen is excellent Cath. Yes, Killers of a Certain Age seems entertaining. It releases her next week.

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  15. All those Fall releases sound good!!!! I hope ebook editions get themselves to the library ASAP. lol

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    1. Yes, my eyes need Audio, LP or eBooks lately as my eyes get too tired.

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  16. I've only read one of your completed summer reads (The Shell Seekers) and one of the ones you didn't read (The Summer Guest by Cronin). You did great with a total of 20! I'm hoping to finish one more before the end of the month, but I still won't hit 20.

    I'm interested in the books you've chosen for your fall reading. I am drawn to novels with senior protagonists, too. We Spread sounds very good! The Kingsolver and Irving books are high on my list, too. I need to catch up on Allen Eskens books. I think I've only read one.

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  17. Les, I wanted to read Summer Guest as I recall you liked it but, it never happened. Maybe in September?? We Spread - such a strange title but, I do like the sound of it and Kingsolver rarely disappoints. Kingsolver's is over 500 pp and Irvings over 900 pp.

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  18. You had a really great summer and I am interested in quite a few of your list. Your fall selection seems good as well! Killers of a certain age, - that can only be interesting!

    Have a good week Diane and enjoy your fall planning!

    Elza Reads

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  19. Great job on your summer reading! Your fall books look really good and that Deanna Raybourn is really calling my name. I can't wait to see what you think of it.

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  20. You sure had some great summer reads, Diane... I'm still hoping to get to several of them! The fall reads I'm most looking forward to are Lucy by the Sea and Celeste Ng's new novel. So many books!!

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  21. Wow, that's a lot of books you'd read, Diane! I've recently bought a copy of The It Girl so I'll read that at some point. And I still haven't finished reading all the library books. So many books, so little time!

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  22. So excited for fall releases and especially the Barbara Kingsolver! You had a great reading summer. Let's hope the upcoming season is filled with great stories too.

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