This week's
Top Ten Tuesday topic is about the book releases we're looking forward to for the rest of 2017. I had a shockingly hard time putting this list together; apparently many of the books that caught my interest came out in the first half of the year -- though I did mange to come up with a list of 8. There are a few more books that've caught my eye enough to land on my maybe-to-read list, but since this was a TTT about our
most anticipated releases, I decided to stick with the ones I'm actually really looking forward to and will definitely be reading. What books are you looking forward to the rest of the year? (Can you believe 2017 is almost halfway over already?!)
June 6: I've been interested in this historical fiction novel since I first spotted that gorgeous cover months ago!
From Goodreads: Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890s, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, "The Essex Serpent"has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.
They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart.
August 22: "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry" was one of my favorite books of 2014. Zevin's new book sounds extremely different from the charming, bookworm-friendly "Fikry," but intriguing nonetheless.
From Goodreads: The book's heroine is Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida who makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss ‑‑ who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married ‑‑ and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn’t take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. A novel about a world that continues to want to define what women are and what they can, and cannot, do, "Young Jane Young" follows three generations of women, plus the wife of the Congressman. Told in varying voices through e-mails and even a Choose Your Own Adventure section, it captures not just the mood of this particular, highly charged moment but is an accessible, witty, smart take on the double standards that are alive and well and waiting to trip up ordinary and extraordinary women alike.
September 12: I liked Ford's "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," but maybe not enough to make a point to read his other books. The blurb for his new novel, however, hooked me instantly at "Seattle's epic 1909 World Fair"!
From Goodreads: For twelve-year-old Ernest Young, a charity student at a boarding school, the chance to go to the World's Fair feels like a gift. But only once he's there, amid the exotic exhibits, fireworks, and Ferris wheels, does he discover that he is the one who is actually the prize. The half-Chinese orphan is astounded to learn he will be raffled off -- a healthy boy to a good home. The winning ticket belongs to the flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel, famous for educating her girls. There, Ernest becomes the new houseboy and befriends Maisie, the madam's precocious daughter, and a bold scullery maid named Fahn. Their friendship and affection form the first real family Ernest has ever known -- and against all odds, this new sporting life gives him the sense of home he's always desired.
But as the grande dame succumbs to an occupational hazard and their world of finery begins to crumble, all three must grapple with hope, ambition, and first love.
September 26: I know, I know, Dan Brown is looked-down-upon in the book blogging community. But I, for one, enjoy his Robert Langdon adventures, and I'm excited to take the next one!
From Goodreads: (The least-informative summary ever...) In keeping with his trademark style, Dan Brown interweaves codes, science, religion, history, art, and architecture into this new novel. "Origin" thrusts Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon into the dangerous intersection of humankind’s two most enduring questions, and the earthshaking discovery that will answer them.
October 3: I found Doughty's first book, her memoir "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Creamtory," to be fascinating, informative and thought-provoking. If you want readable nonfiction, check her out!
From Goodreads: Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather’s mummified body. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones’ bones from cremation ashes. With curiosity and morbid humor, Doughty encounters vividly decomposed bodies and participates in compelling, powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in America. Featuring Gorey-esque illustrations by artist Landis Blair, "From Here to Eternity" introduces death-care innovators researching green burial and body composting, explores new spaces for mourning -- including a glowing-Buddha columbarium in Japan and America’s only open-air pyre -- and reveals unexpected new possibilities for our own death rituals.
October 10: I've read every one of Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily historical mysteries, and I'm really looking forward to the 12th installment because it's set in Russia! Over the past year or so, I've gotten much more interested in reading books set there, and I'm always excited to meet back up with one of my favorite literary heroines.
From Goodreads: When the body of a prima ballerina is discovered in the snow, Lady Emily races through Saint Petersburg to solve the murder, while a ghostly dancer appears to take the lost ingenue's place.
October 24: Joe Hill has recently become one of my favorite authors! I don't usually read short stories or novellas, but I'll definitely be checking this book out -- and it comes at the perfect time for some spooky fall reading!
From Goodreads: A collection of four novellas (Snapshot, Rain, Loaded, Aloft) tells stories involving shards of sharp crystals that inexplicably begin to fall from the sky, a parachuter suddenly marooned on a solid cloud, a mentally unhinged security guard, and a camera that erases memories.
November 14: I've been looking forward to another book by Andy Weir since I read "The Martian" years ago! His new book sounds more like a traditional sci-fi novel, which I'm thrilled about now that I've become a big fan of the genre.
From Goodreads: Jazz Bashara is a criminal.
Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.
Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.
