Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is 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.

We Own the Sky by Luke Allnutt.

The book is being released by Park Row on April 3, 2018.

Amazon says this about the book: “We looked down at the cliff jutting into the sea, a rubber boat full of kids going under the arch, and then you started running and jumping through the grass, dodging the rabbit holes, shouting at the top of your voice, so I started chasing you, trying to catch you, and we were laughing so hard as we ran and ran, kicking up rainbow showers in the leaves.”

Rob Coates feels like he’s won the lottery of life. There is Anna, his incredible wife, their London town house and, most precious of all, Jack, their son, who makes every day an extraordinary adventure. But when a devastating illness befalls his family, Rob’s world begins to unravel. Suddenly finding himself alone, Rob seeks solace in photographing the skyscrapers and clifftops he and his son Jack used to visit. And just when it seems that all hope is lost, Rob embarks on the most unforgettable of journeys to find his way back to life, and forgiveness.

We Own the Sky is a tender, heartrending, but ultimately life-affirming novel that will resonate deeply with anyone who has suffered loss or experienced great love. With stunning eloquence and acumen, Luke Allnutt has penned a soaring debut and a true testament to the power of love, showing how even the most thoroughly broken heart can learn to beat again.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

America for Beginners by Leah Franqui
Vanishing Twins by Lea Dieterich
Tenemental by Vikki Warner

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love by Per J. Andersson
The New York Time Footsteps by various authors
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
Mean by Myriam Gurba
The Widow Nash by Jamie Harrison
The Wangs Vs. the World by Jade Chang
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

Reviews posted this week:

nothing

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

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Unslut by Emily Lindin
This Far Isn't Far Enough by Lynn Sloan
The Hounds of Spring by Lucy Andrews Cummin
Paper Boats by Dee Lestari
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies
A Handful of Happiness by Massimo Vacchetta and Antonella Tomaselli
Swimming with Elephants by Sarah Bamford Seidelmann
As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman
Dates from Hell and Other Places by Elyse Russo
Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard
The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
Love Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed
A Song for the River by Philip Connors
Daditude by Chris Erskine
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt
Beautiful Music by Michael Zadoorian
Still Life with Monkey by Katharine Weber
America for Beginners by Leah Franqui
Vanishing Twins by Lea Dieterich
Tenemental by Vikki Warner

Monday Mailbox

It was my birthday this past week and I didn't hold back on celebrating myself with a book or five. ;-) This past week's mailbox arrivals:

On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher came from me as a birthday present to myself.

The story of an elderly woman, who after dying, cannot pass to the other side without unburdening her soul, this is not a unique premise but I do enjoy these stories so I'm hoping this one is as captivating.

The Whitsable High Tide Swimming Club by Katie May came from me as a birthday present to myself.

Swimming is in the title. Just for that I'm a goner, but I'm also looking forward to this tale of a group of women who swim together and help each other navigate life.

The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club by Chrissie Manby came from me as a birthday present to myself.

I love to cook so I enjoy the heck out of feel good books about others learning to cook and becoming friends in the process.  This should be exactly my cup of tea.

The Year of Surprising Acts of Kindness by Laura Kemp came from me as a birthday present to myself.

How can you pass up a book about acts of kindness happening in a small Welsh village? Obviously I can't and I'm looking forward to this sure to be heartwarming novel.

The Hidden Cottage by Erica James came from me as a birthday present for myself.

Even adult kids can derail a parent, even one who appears to have it all together, and I can't wait to read about this very premise in this one.

Early Work by Andrew Martin came from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

A comic novel about a would be writer and his messy, undirected post-college life? Sign me up!

Mysterium by Susan Froderberg came from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

I have a strange fascination with mountain climbing so this novel of an expedition that evokes Dante's Inferno promises to be completely and totally gripping.

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.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is 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.

The Summerhouse by the Sea by Jenny Oliver.

The book is being released by HQ on April 24, 2018.

Amazon says this about the book: Every Summer has its own story…

For Ava Fisher, the backdrop to all her sun-drenched memories – from her first taste of chocolate-dipped churros to her very first kiss – is her grandmother’s Summerhouse in the sleepy Spanish seaside town of Mariposa.

Returning for one last summer, Ava throws herself into a project her grandmother would be proud of. Café Estrella - once the heart of the sleepy seaside village - now feels more ramshackle than rustic. Just like Ava, it seems it has lost its sparkle.

Away from the exhausting juggle of London life, Ava realises somehow her life has stopped being…happy. But being back at the Summerhouse by the sea could be the new beginning she didn’t even realise she needed…

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

Beautiful Music by Michael Zadoorian
Still Life with Monkey by Katharine Weber

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love by Per J. Andersson
The New York Time Footsteps by various authors
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
Mean by Myriam Gurba
The Widow Nash by Jamie Harrison
America for Beginners by Leah Franqui

Reviews posted this week:

I'll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos
Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam

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

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Unslut by Emily Lindin
This Far Isn't Far Enough by Lynn Sloan
The Hounds of Spring by Lucy Andrews Cummin
Paper Boats by Dee Lestari
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies
A Handful of Happiness by Massimo Vacchetta and Antonella Tomaselli
Swimming with Elephants by Sarah Bamford Seidelmann
As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman
Dates from Hell and Other Places by Elyse Russo
Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard
The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
Love Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed
A Song for the River by Philip Connors
Daditude by Chris Erskine
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt
Beautiful Music by Michael Zadoorian
Still Life with Monkey by Katharine Weber

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal came from Tor.

After a meteor wipes out the eastern seaboard and the government in 1952, the race to colonize space accelerates and a female pilot mathematician is among those leading the charge. This alternate history science fiction sounds really intriguing.

A Child in Burracombe by Lilian Harry came from me as an early birthday gift to myself.

About a village that embraced orphans during the war and one little girl who needs their acceptance and support, this sounds charming and is the prequel to a series that sounds lovely and warm too.

Conditional Love by Cathy Bramley came from me as an early birthday gift to myself.

I do love British romances and this one about a woman who can only inherit, and thereby have the means to build her own home, by meeting the father she's never known sounds about perfect.

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.

Review: Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam

Who Is Rich? Is Rich merely the main character of Matthew Klam's novel? Is the question about him?  It must be.  But what about its other facets?  Is it a financial question? Is it a creative and spiritual question? In fact it is all of these and yet the complexity of this seemingly simple question and its answers cannot save this novel and this main character from themselves.

First, Rich Fischer is a whiny jerk as he examines his life. He is now (merely) an illustrator who once created a critically acclaimed graphic memoir that has netted him a consistent job teaching cartooning at a New England arts conference summer camp. This gives him the chance to escape his deteriorating marriage, his two small but needy children, and the drudgery of everyday life, and to indulge in an affair for the second year running with Amy, a wealthy bored housewife at the conference. After a winter of sexting and pent up lust, Rich is anxious to see what happens when they see each other in the flesh again.  But this second summer is destined to be a disappointment, as is immediately evident not only from Amy's accident on the first day but also from the tenor of Rich's musings.

A novel about a week at an arts conference, infidelity, marriage, parenting, and angst has the potential to really be something. And this novel is in fact something. Unfortunately, that something is dull. It is meandering and plotless and suffers from stream of consciousness narration originating inside the head of a character the reader doesn't much like, giving us a front row seat to the petulant and unpleasant Rich. His reflections on the life he is so dissatisfied with inspire annoyance rather than sympathy for a man who found early fame but now wonders if settling down to a conventional and dull, domestic life has snuffed his creative spark. His observations about Amy, the woman he is so obsessed with are primarily centered around her money and her horrible husband so that it's hard to believe he truly feels much of anything for her, much less passion. He is snarky, snottily superior, and scornful about her life even while eating himself up with jealousy over her money and acting like an ass in his own personal life.  His reflections on his wife Robin and the state of their marriage are no less unkind and callous.  There is no indication of anything appealing about Rich that would justify anyone, even a bored housewife, being interested in him and certainly this reader feels the same way. Rich's mid-life crisis is boring and the novel as a whole wallows rather than being driven by passion, choice, and a creative, interesting life.  If you want to spend time with a deeply unhappy, sulky, overly introspective character who is clearly disappointed with his life and choices, more power to you; you should pick up this book. Unfortunately, I personally was happiest when I turned the last page and closed the cover on Rich's bumbling existential struggles.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for sending me a copy of this book to review.