Tuesday, July 26, 2022

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Books From My Past Seasonal TBR Posts I STILL Haven’t Read

 




This list of shame has been following me for many years. I found books from a 2013 list! Eek.
I've loved making these lists over the years and I have actually been pretty good, although I noticed a few books that I read this year that almost made this list.
For more lists and future topics, visit That Artsy Reader Girl.


Cop Killer by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
spring 2022, spring 2021


Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Spring 2021



This is Not My Life by Diane Schoemperlen
Fall 2017
Canadian nonfiction, a Charles Taylor Prize finalist, 


Death by Black Hole and other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Fall 2017
I've got this one on my desk at school and I am trying to read one essay a day. I bet the title essay has the word 'spaghettification' in it




Sovereign by C.J. Sansom
Summer 2019
book 3 in the Shardlake series
I like to try one big ole book in the summer and this series is always top-notch




The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder by Sarah J Harris
 Summer 2019, Summer 2020
a publisher freebie, I've been meaning to get to it, and then heard it recc'd on CBC, on one of those 'books to read this summer'




The Island Villa by Lily Graham
Summer 2019
described as 'the perfect feel good summer read' 



Rebecca
Summer 2020
Daphne DuMaurier



Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Summer 2013


The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin 
Summer 2013




Friday, July 8, 2022

CHALLENGE: Historical Fiction Reading, June

 

Only one historical fiction from June - also a movie on Netflix but I haven't seen yet.



Their Finest by Lissa Evans
1943-44 London

Their Finest follows a group of people in London during the Blitz who work for a film company making patriotic shorts and movies. There are several story lines that will join up for the patient reader - a woman writer seconded to add some punch to the female roles in the movie, and a costume designer at Madame Tousant's who leaves London for safety and becomes involved with the film. Both women are lonely and the war is not helping.

There is a lot going on and other than getting the movie made, there isn't a driving plot. I couldn't always see where the book was going, and yet I liked it. I liked the characters and their struggles, life in London even though it was brutal, and the movie making. 

This is the second Lissa Evans book I read - I also read Crooked Heart in 2017. It was also London and Blitz related but it tugged my heart-strings more overall. The end of Their Finest (or Their Finest Hour) was good, but not necessarily a happy ending - it is the Blitz after all, but by the end I was really hoping for a few of the characters.