The women's Prize for Fiction longlist is coming shortly. I will likely have not read a single book on the list, but I am always curious about what might show up. I might have some books on my TBR or am waiting for them at the library. Mostly I am always happy to discover a few new books to add to my wishlist (or buy or borrow now list).
While I am not one to even guess at what might be listed, I do like seeing what other readers are predicting. Although I don't subscribe to any Youtube bloggers (vloggers?--I think they are very courageous to put themselves out there, which I could not imagine myself as an introvert doing), there are a handful I will click on if I see a new post. Sometimes when I am doing some tedious data entry at work it is fun to listen to them share their bookish discoveries, or in this case their predictions.
Mostly I jotted down titles of books that I have not heard of or that are somewhere on the outer edges of my radar that maybe I should take a close look at. So, whether they will make the cut or not, I am now going to add to my wantlist:
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy. I have an earlier book by her and this one, about motherhood, has been getting a lot of attention of late.
Lagos Wife by Vanessa Walters comes out in the US in May in paperback. I like a good story of suspense, and this one sounds very promising. "Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a handsome husband, a palatial house in the heart of Lagos, and a glamorous group of friends. She left gloomy London and a troubled family past behind for sunny Lagos, becoming part of the Nigerwives--a community of foreign women married to Nigerian men. But when Nicole disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her alleged perfect life start to show."
My library has a copy of Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie, and I think my request is waiting for me at the library now. This is a story of women's friendship, which sounds at times fraught but ultimately a strong bond in the end. I suspect I will have a little stack of new library finds to share at the end of the weekend ...
And I did order two new to me books that I could not resist so have some good book mail coming in the next few weeks from the UK. Cathy Sweeney's Breakown, is a splurge but I can't easily resist Irish writers these days. Should I admit that I find this story somewhat relatable in my own way? "One winter morning on an ordinary day in contemporary Dublin, an ordinary middle-class woman wakes up in her ordinary suburban home. Her husband is next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby. Without thinking much about it, she walks out the front door and never comes back. She travels first by car, then train, then ferry. Along the way, she finds herself in service stations and shopping centres, hotel bars and hairdressers - and in the beds of strange men. Finally, forty-eight hours later, alone in a cottage in Wales, the woman faces up to what she has been ignoring inside herself, her family, modern society: signs of breakdown."
And, although new to me, this book has been getting a lot of hype in the UK it seems. I am eager to get a copy of Jennie Godfrey's The List of Suspicious Things. One blurb calls it a " superb look at childhood, at growing up, at starting to see the world around you", and another " A touching paean to lost innocence and the comfort of friendships." The setting is 1979 Yorkshire. I am a sucker for a good coming of age story for sure!
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This weekend's new release movie is one I have been looking forward to. Perfect Days, directed by Wim Wenders has gotten very good reviews and the film is one of the International nominees for an Oscar award.
I think I am very late to the party, but I have started watching the fourth season of True Detective: Night Country. I am a great fan of Jodie Foster and I have heard lots of good things about--suspense and supernatural. Going by the first episode, I think this is a show I will need to give all my attention to and not just have it on as background viewing. I have not watched any of the previous seasons but will have to backtrack as a friend said it was one of the best TV shows they have come across in general.
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As for listening, I am a fan of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. If you have already watched True Detective you might be interested in listening to this (beware, they share spoilers, so I will go back to it later).
And keeping on theme the newest Read or Dead Book Riot podcast is also about this new True Detective season and they give reading suggestions for after you finish watching. (This will be weekend listening for me).
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I'll be visiting the library for my holds.
And as I have finished a few books, I get to pick a couple of new ones. I am trying hard not to continue starting new books pell mell which always gets me into trouble (as in too many books on the nightstand to reasonably think I can read at once, but I still continue to try!). But more about that later.
Have a wonderful weekend, friends!