Technically these are not the very first books I have checked out from the library for 2019, but they are probably the first 2019 books (or new books lately published anyway). I was almost going to let the holds go as the weather has been tetchy and it is hard to find the energy at the end of the work day to trudge home from the library in the cold and dark and snow. But when Lyndsay Faye's The Paragon Hotel turned up in my list I had to go.
I had been reading about the book and read an interview with the author. It just sounds so good that I brought it home last night and started to read this morning and she hooked me. "Nobody" Alice James has such a compelling voice. She is funny and irreverent and sassy and I like her already. She has been traveling by train from Harlem in NYC to Portland--with a gunshot wound--or an almost septic graze on her torso from a bullet. If that sets the tone....
This weekend will be a long weekend with Monday as a day off from work for me in celebration o MLK Jr Day, and the weather is promising to be even colder and more snowy, so I may be stuck indoors whether I like it or not. Alice likely will be my main companion!
I have only barely glanced at the other books, but they all look like they will be fun to peruse. The book on the bottom is a juvenile book about President Washington's slaves which he "inherited" as a mere boy. Apparently Mount Vernon has been excavating the graves there and so this should be quite illuminating. A very different side of the President's life, which will be good to learn about.
I suspect I shall be sharing a teaser from the Faye novel. Good books to keep my mind off the dreariness of January!