It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed over the past week are:

Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Enrique's Journey by Sonia Navario
Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell
The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart
Yellow Earth by John Sayles

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

House of Gold by Natasha Solomons

Reviews posted this week:

nothing yet

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair
Faces: Profiles of Dogs by Vita Sackville-West
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Holding on to Nothing by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne
Difficult Light by Tomas Gonzalez
Adults and Other Children by Miriam Cohen
Grief's Country by Gail Griffin
Moments of Glad Grace by Alison Wearing
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube
Search Heartache by Carla Malden
What the Lady Wants by Renee Rosen
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
The Book Keeper by Julia McKenzie Munemo
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
Temporary by Hilary Leichter
Blue Marlin by Lee Smith
Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane
Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
A Short Move by Katherine Hill
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger
Watershed by Mark Barr
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
The Goshen Road by Bonnie Proudfoot
We Have Everything Before Us by Esther Yin-ling Spodek
Anna Eva Mimi Adam by Marina Antropow Cramer
This Is My Body by Cameron Dezen Hammon
Impurity by Larry Tremblay
The Last Goldfish by Anita Lahey
Invisible Ink by Guy Stern
A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Raphael Painter in Rome by Stephanie Storey
Blue Summer by Jim Nichols
The Miracle of Saint Lazarus by Uva de Aragon
Red Mother with Child by Christian Lax
The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos
Tamba Child Soldier by Marion Achard
The Girl with Braided Hair by Rasha Adly
The Book of Second Chances by Katherine Slee
Disfigured by Amanda Leduc
Floating in the Neversink by Andrea Simon
Seven Sisters and a Brother by Marilyn Allman May
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita
The Paris Secret by Natasha Lester
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
The Hierarchies by Ros Anderson
The Change by Lori Soderlind
The Man in the White Linen Suit by David Handler
I Saw Three Ships by Bill Richardson
A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy
Wild Ride Home by Christine Hemp
The Book of Rosy by Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schweitert Collazo
The Devil to Pay by Liz Carlyle
How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences by Sue William Silverman
The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels
The Bitch by Pilar Quintana
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
Continental Divide by Alex Myers
The Road to Urbino by Roma Tearne
The Wanting Life by Mark Rader
Invented Lives by Andrea Goldsmith
Friends of the Library by Susan Cushman
In Praise of Paths by Torbjorn Ekelund
Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans
Heiress for Hire by Erin McCarthy
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur
The Royal Abduls by Ramiza Shamoun Koya
The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
The Expert's Guide to Driving a Man Wild by Jessica Clare
How to Eat by Thich Nhat Hanh
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Startled by His Furry Shorts by Louise Rennison
Love and Hunger by Charlotte Wood
Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify by Carolyn Holbrook
You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
In Our Midst by Nancy Jensen
On the Steamy Side by Louisa Edwards
The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah
The Second Home by Christina Clancy
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss
Unconditional Love by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Along Came Mary by Jo-Ann Mapson
The Big Quiet by Lisa D. Stewart
All My Mother's Lovers by Ilana Masad
The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
The Moonshiner’s Daughter by Donna Everhart
True North by Beverly Brandt
Betrayal at Ravenswick by Kelly Oliver
Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst
Wild Dog by Serge Joncour
Meet Me In Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz
Happily Ever After by Debbie Tung
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Her Last Flight by Beatriz Williams
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg
Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew
The Last Blue by Isla Morley
Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell< br /> The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart
Yellow Earth by John Sayles

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood.

The book is being released by Doubleday on February 2, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: Following two families from Pakistan and Iraq in the 1990s to San Francisco in 2016, The Bad Muslim Discount is an inclusive, comic novel about Muslims immigrants finding their way in modern America. For fans of Hanif Kureshi, Mira Jacob, and Mohammed Hanif.

It is 1995, and Anvar Faris is a restless, rebellious, and sharp-tongued boy doing his best to grow up in Karachi, Pakistan. As fundamentalism takes root within the social order and the zealots next door attempt to make Islam great again, his family decides, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. Ironically, Anvar's deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother adjust easily to life in America, while his fun-loving father can't find anyone he relates to. For his part, Anvar fully commits to being a bad Muslim.

At the same time, thousands of miles away, Safwa, a young girl living in war-torn Baghdad with her grief-stricken, conservative father will find a very different and far more dangerous path to America. When Anvar and Safwa's worlds collide as two remarkable, strong-willed adults, their contradictory, intertwined fates will rock their community, and families, to their core.

The Bad Muslim Discount is an irreverent, poignant, and often hysterically funny debut novel by an amazing new voice. With deep insight, warmth, and an irreverent sense of humor, Syed M. Masood examines universal questions of identity, faith (or lack thereof), and belonging through the lens of Muslim Americans.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed over the past week are:

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg
Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew
The Last Blue by Isla Morley
Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Yellow Earth by John Sayles
The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart

Reviews posted this week:

Beginning with Cannonballs by Jill McCroskey Coupe
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair
Faces: Profiles of Dogs by Vita Sackville-West
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Holding on to Nothing by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne
Difficult Light by Tomas Gonzalez
Adults and Other Children by Miriam Cohen
Grief's Country by Gail Griffin
Moments of Glad Grace by Alison Wearing
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube
Search Heartache by Carla Malden
What the Lady Wants by Renee Rosen
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
The Book Keeper by Julia McKenzie Munemo
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
Temporary by Hilary Leichter
Blue Marlin by Lee Smith
Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane
Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
A Short Move by Katherine Hill
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger
Watershed by Mark Barr
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
The Goshen Road by Bonnie Proudfoot
We Have Everything Before Us by Esther Yin-ling Spodek
Anna Eva Mimi Adam by Marina Antropow Cramer
This Is My Body by Cameron Dezen Hammon
Impurity by Larry Tremblay
The Last Goldfish by Anita Lahey
Invisible Ink by Guy Stern
A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Raphael Painter in Rome by Stephanie Storey
Blue Summer by Jim Nichols
The Miracle of Saint Lazarus by Uva de Aragon
Red Mother with Child by Christian Lax
The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos
Tamba Child Soldier by Marion Achard
The Girl with Braided Hair by Rasha Adly
The Book of Second Chances by Katherine Slee
Disfigured by Amanda Leduc
Floating in the Neversink by Andrea Simon
Seven Sisters and a Brother by Marilyn Allman May
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita
The Paris Secret by Natasha Lester
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
The Hierarchies by Ros Anderson
The Change by Lori Soderlind
The Man in the White Linen Suit by David Handler
I Saw Three Ships by Bill Richardson
A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy
Wild Ride Home by Christine Hemp
The Book of Rosy by Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schweitert Collazo
The Devil to Pay by Liz Carlyle
How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences by Sue William Silverman
The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels
The Bitch by Pilar Quintana
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
Continental Divide by Alex Myers
The Road to Urbino by Roma Tearne
The Wanting Life by Mark Rader
Invented Lives by Andrea Goldsmith
Friends of the Library by Susan Cushman
In Praise of Paths by Torbjorn Ekelund
Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans
Heiress for Hire by Erin McCarthy
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur
The Royal Abduls by Ramiza Shamoun Koya
The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
The Expert's Guide to Driving a Man Wild by Jessica Clare
How to Eat by Thich Nhat Hanh
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Startled by His Furry Shorts by Louise Rennison
Love and Hunger by Charlotte Wood
Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify by Carolyn Holbrook
You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
In Our Midst by Nancy Jensen
On the Steamy Side by Louisa Edwards
The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah
The Second Home by Christina Clancy
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss
Unconditional Love by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Along Came Mary by Jo-Ann Mapson
The Big Quiet by Lisa D. Stewart
All My Mother's Lovers by Ilana Masad
The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
The Moonshiner’s Daughter by Donna Everhart
True North by Beverly Brandt
Betrayal at Ravenswick by Kelly Oliver
Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst
Wild Dog by Serge Joncour
Meet Me In Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz
Happily Ever After by Debbie Tung
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Her Last Flight by Beatriz Williams
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg
Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew
The Last Blue by Isla Morley
Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Finessing Clarissa by M.C. Beaton came from me for myself.

Yes, I am rather addicted to MC Beaton's frothiest works and I enjoy the School for Manners series. This one is about a clumsy young lady.

Marrying Harriet by M.C. Beaton came from me for myself.

Yes, I am rather addicted to MC Beaton's frothiest works and I enjoy the School for Manners series. This one centers on a prim and proper Miss and a rake.

Enlightening Delilah by M. C. Beaton came from me for myself.

Yes, I am rather addicted to MC Beaton's frothiest works and I enjoy the School for Manners series. A gorgeous young lady who had her heart broken and so breaks others' hearts is the challenge in this one.

Making Conversation by Christine Longford came for me from myself.

About a plain, young girl who cannot seem to master conversation, saying too much, saying too little, this has mostly languished in obscurity and current readers don't seem to like it very much but I enjoy being contrary so I'm looking forward to it.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: The Importance of Reading

With a mother like me, you'd think my children would realize how important it is to read, to read everything, and to read carefully. But like children the world around, they don't always pay attention to me. And here's the result:

Let me tell you what exactly you're looking at. When you move a boy child into college, the joke is that you hang up a flag and you're done. It's funny because it's essentially true. And my youngest is a huge flag fan so it's extra true of him. His college delayed move-in for the kids in the dorms by a month but when he finally did get to move in, the only decoration he cared about was the state of Ohio flag his girlfriend gave him. He can (and will) wax poetic on why the Ohio flag is the best state flag out there. So of course he took it from his room at home to hang in his dorm room. It took up one entire wall. But he had another wall that needed something so he decided he needed a state of North Carolina flag to hang there. I fully intended to buy and ship him one. Before I could, he had ordered one himself and sent me the above picture. In case it's hard to tell, that grey wrinkled thing at the bottom of the picture is his pillow. And it's just a standard size pillow. "My NC flag just arrived" and "It's 4x6 inches not feet" and "I'm a little upset." (By the way, I don't think he intended the humor of that last bit, a "little upset," but boy howdy did it make me howl with laughter.) When I finally talked to him, it turns out that he didn't read the description fully. Let that be a lesson to you. Reading is important. And mama told you so.

And before you ask, yes, I sent him a full sized North Carolina flag. Because I'm a good mom. He did hang the large flag but he also left up the itty bitty mini flag. Because it's also important to laugh at yourself.

Review: If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim

My biggest exposure to the Korean War was through M*A*S*H. I don't mean this to be funny or tongue in cheek but just to point out that Korea has been rather a blind spot in much of our learning here in the US. So I am always interested when I come across a book that will open up new worlds to me. Crystal Hana Kim's debut novel If You Leave Me, promised to show me a Korea during and post war that I had never seen before, through young characters whose normal lives have been upended and now must make the choice between love and security, survival and uncertainty, in a world not of their own making.

Haemi, her widowed mother, and her chronically ill younger brother fled their village home and live in a refugee camp on the coast. Life is hard, food is scarce, and medicine for her brother scarcer. One of the remaining joys of her life is to sneak out at night with her old friend Kyunghwan. She dresses as a boy and they get into mischief. But she is also getting older so not only does she face social disapproval for her antics, but she and Kyunghwan are becoming more and more aware of each other, their love for each other becoming more complicated. At the same time, Kyunghwan's wealthier cousin Jisoo decides to court the lovely Haemi, wanting to ensure that he has a family waiting for him when he returns from fighting in the civil war. Haemi has an impossible choice to make. In the end, she must forsake Kyunghwan and marry Jisoo for all he can offer her, her mother, and brother. But as the years go on, Haemi has to live with her choice and its consequences, as must her children and all those who love her.

Set from 1951-1967, the novel is told in chapters narrated by Haemi, Kyunghwan, Jisoo, Haemi's brother Hyunki, and eventually her daughter Solee, all in the first person. The reader sees first hand the bitterness, disappointment, and despair that pervade these characters in so many aspects of their lives. They've all been marked indelibly by the war and their circumstances: soul mates separated, education unobtainable, distant parents, and more. The price of war is far more than just physical. The novel is also broken into five parts between which are gaps in the story's timeline, allowing the characters to move into new situations without the intervening getting there. This does lessen the impact of Haemi's misery some but keeps the reader from having to feel as trapped and depressed in her role as mother and wife as Haemi herself does. She is the character around whom the other characters turn, even if she is not valued as she should be, and her unhappiness colors everything. Each of the characters is flawed and hard in ways that challenge the reader to work past, something that happens with varying degrees of success. Ultimately the story is a heartbreaking one, clear by the end that there was no other possible ending to the story, no other option when life extracts such a high price, requires such a sacrifice.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Readers and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

My daughter is a fan of time travel so when I saw this novella, I decided, as any good mom would, that I would get it for her and read it myself when she finished it. I should have taken note that she handed it back to me with a shrug and a "You can keep it." Not the world's biggest endorsement. And I have to say that I am sad to report that I agree with her assessment. Despite a promising premise, a lesbian Romeo and Juliet story set across time, a love story unbounded by our reality, This Is How You Lose the Time War just didn't deliver for me. (As it won this year's Hugo Award for a Novella, apparently those in the know disagree with me!)

On a dying world, an operative from the Agency finds a letter from Garden's agent. Red and Blue work for different entities in this all out war. They are supposed to be sworn enemies. Over vast quantities of time and space, traveling through different realities, these two post-human women have come across each other again and again, each agent trying to foil her opposite. Red and Blue slip through time backwards and forwards to make large and small impacts that will win battles for their respective sides and ultimately win the war. They are each other's equal and after catching sight of one another once upon a time, Blue writes to Red, offering respect and gratitude for the deadly game they have been engaging in. As they weave through time, they exchange more and more letters, offering tiny bits of their reality to each other and ultimately falling deeply in love, despite fighting for opposing sides. If they are found out, they cannot possibly survive.

The details of the world Red and Blue live in, many stranded as it seems to be, are left hazy and indistinct. Red and Blue themselves are also indistinct, giving no real sense of their characters beyond their desperate yearning for each other. Plot is minimal. All of this gives the entire novella an otherworldly, dream-like feel that can be frustrating to read. The language is lush, poetic, and descriptive but there's no there behind it; it all just becomes too much, too overwrought, too florid. Although the reader is told again and again that is would be catastrophic for Red and Blue to be discovered, there is never any actual sense of danger until the odd and sinister climax that comes out of the blue (yeah, bad pun). The unusual delivery of the letters between the two women is creative but does nothing beyond highlighting their repeated cleverness. In the end, I didn't care which side won the war. I had no idea what they were fighting for or over or even who the two sides really were. I didn't care about Red and Blue or their love. In fact, I didn't even care whether love won and this, I think, sums up why I didn't enjoy the novella. The reader should care. But after 198 pages, I just couldn't. And that's a shame because I think there was a kernel of something there. Maybe in another timeline.