This is the first year in the last four or five that I have not participated in my public library's winter reading program for adults. I've amassed a number of book bags from these programs, but I knew this year I had too many other books I wanted to read in January. Now I find out there will be a drawing for a color Nook for those who participate! Somehow I don't think I can squeeze in five library books before the end of the month, but it would be fun to win one (or at least have the chance to win one).
I've also not been borrowing many books as it's been so cold, snowy and icy that I've preferred to just stay warm at home rather than face the elements walking to the library. Normally I am happy to walk and very much enjoy it, but the longer I live in the midwest, the less I seem to tolerate extremes in the weather. So of course I had to pick the coldest day of the year yet to bring these home last night!
So, I think this is my first stack of library books of the new year. I'll mention the top book in a moment, but let me tell you about the other four first.
I've not read Sara Hylton before, but she seems to write about a period I like quite often. Flirting with Destiny begins in 1914 and is about four friends from privileged families whose plans after school are drastically altered with the outbreak of war.
I plan on reading more of Andrew Taylor's Lydmouth mysteries, but this standalone caught my eye. The Anatomy of Ghosts is set in Jerusalem College, Cambridge in 1786 and seems as much a ghost story as a murder mystery. He won the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for it.
Peter Helton's Falling More Slowly, on the other hand, seems a straightforward police procedural set in Brighton, which introduces Detective Inspector Liam McClusky.
Kate Taylor's A Man in Uniform seems to be a combination historical fiction, mystery and tale of espionage. This story, which centers on France's Dreyfus Affair, takes on quite a lot, but I've been in the mood for some good historical fiction. Maybe this is just what I'm looking for?
I had to share a photo or two of the book on the top of the pile, 13, rue Thérèse, by Elena Mauli Shapiro. I knew vaguely what it was about when I requested it, but I had no idea it would come with illustrations. This is a story within a story. Louise Brunet, a Parisienne, has lived through two world wars. She lost her lover in the first war, marries a man who works with her father, and has a passionate attraction for her neighbor. Her story is told through the mementos found in a box many years later. The keepsakes in the photos are actually Shapiro's, who was born and raised in Paris. The real-life Louise Brunet owned the box and its contents, but after her death no one claimed them. They ended up in Shapiro's possession.
I thought this was very clever, so I hope it lives up to my expectations. It reminds me a little of the Griffin and Sabine stories, but here the story is the focus with the illustrations as embellishments, yet the artifacts are what inspired the story in the first place. I was just contemplating which new book to pick up and start reading, and apparently I've found it.