I can barely open my email these days, or look at the new books lists on the library's website or browse even just a tiny bit online before I am bombarded by books that catch my eye and my desire to go hide away (far away) and read by a sunny window in a quiet room. The sunny window is not always in reach, but the desire remains and you know me--I am always trying to squeeze just one more book into my reading pile. Here are five new books and five older (from my stacks) books that have been on my mind lately.
The Paris Hours by Alex George -- Okay, what did I say about not wanting war stories? Oh well, sometimes I can't resist after all. Technically this is 'between' the wars! Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city’s most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they’ve lost."
The Body Double by Emily Beyda -- I love dopperganger stories! "A dark, glittering debut novel, The Body Double is the suspenseful story of a young woman who is recruited by a stranger to give up her old life and identity to impersonate a reclusive Hollywood star."
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia -- This sounds really unusual--maybe a story that is not new but in a different setting that makes the story seem 'fresh'? "From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes a reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel, a story about an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico—and the brave socialite drawn to its treacherous secrets."
Watching from the Dark by Gytha Lodge -- "One crime. One witness. One question . . . Why didn't he call the police? When a vibrant young woman is murdered while on a video chat, a small-town detective wades into a circle of friends and lovers with dangerous secrets. Aidan Poole logs on to his laptop late at night to Skype his girlfriend, Zoe. To his horror, he realizes that there is someone else in her flat. Aidan can only listen to the sounds of a violent struggle taking place in the bathroom--and then the sound of silence. He is desperate to find out if Zoe is okay. But then why is he so hesitant to call the police? When Aidan's cryptic messages finally reach them, Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens and his team take the case--and discover the body. They soon find that no one has a bad word to say about Zoe, a big hearted young artist at the center of a curious web of waifs and strays, each relying on her for support, each hiding dark secrets and buried resentments. Has one of her so-called 'friends' been driven to murder? Or does Aidan have the biggest secret of them all?"
Things I Never Told You by Kelly Rimmer -- "A poignant post-WWII novel that explores the expectations society places on women set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything once believed to be true. With her father recently moved to a care facility, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She's even more shocked at what's behind it--a hoarder's mess of her father's paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house. As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her late mother's handwriting. Beth and her siblings grew up believing their mother died in a car accident when they were little more than toddlers, but this note suggests something much darker. Beth soon pieces together a disturbing portrait of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and a husband who bears little resemblance to the loving father Beth and her siblings know. With a newborn of her own and struggling with motherhood, Beth finds there may be more tying her and her mother together than she ever suspected."
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The new books above I am looking forward to getting my hands on eventually. But the books below are close at hand, mostly on bedside stacks and I find myself wanting to reach for one or two and start reading now (rather than waiting to finish something else first--my worst bookish-reading habit). Most of these have been shelf sitters for a while. I think the Barker on the top is the newest acquisitions.
Come Tell Me Some Lies by Raffaella Barker -- This reminds me of I Capture the Castle. "Gabriella lives in a damp, ramshackle, book-strewn farmhouse in Norfolk with her tempestuous poet father and unconventional mother. Alongside her ever expanding set of siblings and half-siblings, numerous pets and her father's rag-tag admirers, Gabriella navigates a chaotic childhood of wild bohemian parties and fluctuating levels of poverty. Longing to be normal, Gabriella enrols in a strict day school, only to find herself balancing two very different lives. Struggling to keep the eccentricities of her family contained, her failure to achieve conformity amongst her peers is endearing, and absolute."
Conversation Piece by Molly Keane -- Will this be the year I get back to reading Molly Keane's work? "When Oliver visits Pullinstown, he is introduced to wild days of hunting and shooting, and to characters like his cousins, with their passion for horses and trickery, and Sir Richard, elderly, but a match for his headstrong offspring."
The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann -- I read Invitation to the Waltz several years back and this is a sequel of sorts. "Taking up where An Invitation to the Waltz left off, The Weather in the Streets shows us Olivia Curtis ten years older, a failed marriage behind her, thinner, sadder, and apprently not much wiser. A chance encounter on a train with a man who enchanted her as a teenager leads to a forbidden love affair and a new world of secret meetings, brief phone calls and snatched liaisons in anonymous hotel rooms." I am mostly just in the mood right now for a Virago of any sort, but she popped out at me when I was looking at my VMC bookcase.
Chronicle of a Last Summer by Yasmine El Rashidi -- Although this is not translated but written in English (and I want to read more translated fiction this year), I like the sound of the story and have picked this up more time than I can remember. "A young Egyptian woman recounts her personal and political coming of age in this brilliant debut novel. We meet her across three decades, from youth to adulthood: As a six-year old absorbing the world around her, filled with questions she can’t ask; as a college student and aspiring filmmaker pre-occupied with love, language, and the repression that surrounds her; and then later, in the turbulent aftermath of Mubarak’s overthrow, as a writer exploring her own past. Reunited with her father, she wonders about the silences that have marked and shaped her life."
The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp by Eva Rice -- I loved Eva Rice's novel The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and hope this is equally as charming. I Had to have it when it first came out (how many years ago . . .), and really need to get around to read. "Country girl Tara is whisked off to '60s London to become a star; there she is dressed, she is shown off at Chelsea parties, photographed by the best. She meets songwriters, singers, designers, and records her song. And she falls in love - with two men. Behind the buzz and excitement of her success, the bitterness between her elder sister Lucy and her friend Matilda haunts Tara. Their past friendship is broken and among the secrets and the strangeness of both their marriages, the past keeps on reappearing."
So I am finishing Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room and it is really, really good, but it is not a feel good happy sort of story. It is bleak and makes me happy to have a quiet, boring, very conventional life. She is such a good writer that she can make a story set mostly in a women's prison both compelling and engaging. However, I think I need something gentle and comforting to follow.
So I leave you with a (very easy) question for the weekend. What is your favorite charming/comforting read? Something newly encountered or an old favorite?