February Book Haul
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Hello Readers,
I know it doesn’t seem that long ago since my January book haul, but I have acquired a few more books for my Yearly TBR. My excuse, not that I need one, is that a couple of these books are going to be the Buddy Read Books for the Book Club I run and so I wanted to grab them along with a few others that I’ve been meaning to get.
So without further ado, here’s the books I purchased this month:
“But Louise you already have two copies of Dune!” I hear you cry! Well, yes, yes I do but those are special edition Hardbacks and while one of them is annotated, I wanted to grab a paperback copy for when I decide to re-read it. I find paperbacks much easier to read than heavy hardbacks, so unless I don’t want to wait to read a book in a series, or there’s a special edition hardback, I will usually get the paperback edition.
If you want to know what Dune is about and my full thoughts on it, you can find my review here.
This book has been on my radar for so so long and I felt it was time to finally pick it up. It’s also going to be the Buddy Read Book for my Book Club in March. It’s just less than 200 pages, so it’s a nice, short one for us to read together ~ not everyone in the club enjoys long books like myself.
Here’s the blurb from inside the book flap:
“Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
Red and Blue, two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions, strike up an unlikely correspondence. But what started as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more: something epic and romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
The discovery of their bond will mean their deaths. There’s still a war going on, and someone has to win that war. That’s how wars work. Right?”
This is another book that I’ve seen around for a little while and heard good things about. So I thought I’d pick it up and it’s probably going to be the Buddy Read Book for my Book Club in April. It’s apparently being adapted into a film as well, so it’ll be good to read the book before it comes out.
Here’s the synopsis from the back of the book:
“To understand my story, you first have to know about the girls I’ve been. And that starts with my delightful con artist mother - because I didn’t choose a life of deception, I was born into it.
Five years ago, I escaped and became Nora who has a nice, normal life in a nice, normal neighbourhood… Until this morning when I found myself at gunpoint in the middle of a bank heist with my ex-boyfriend and my new girlfriend (talk about awkward).
The first thing I thought was get down! The second thing - we’re all gonna die because I stopped to buy donuts on the way to the bank.
And the third thing? I’m the only one who can get us out of here alive.
Because the gunmen have no idea who I really am - that girl has been hiding for far too long.”
This is another book by Lauren James that I thought I’d give ago. I’ve read and loved The Quiet at the End of The World by her and last month I got The Loneliest Girl in the Universe. This one also sounded interesting and little different from the other two as from the synopsis, it feels slightly more Fantasy than full on Sci-Fi. So I’m interested to see what’s it’s like when I finally read it.
Here’s the synopsis from the back of the book:
“Gabrielle, Theo and Hester have grown up in an ecological catastrophe: climate change is making Earth uninhabitable. But when they join thousands of teenagers around the world in developing a strange new power - the ability to grow plants from their skin - it seems there may be hope for the planet after all.
However, plenty of profit-hungry organisations would like to exploit these so-called “Greenfingers” for their own means. As Gabrielle, Theo and Hester battle to master their new ability, and navigate first love and family expectations, can they outsmart the corporations and bring about a green rising?”
I saw my friend Pippa from Life of Pippa mention this children’s book on her social media. Pippa and I often have similar tastes in books and after learning more about this one, I thought I’d pick it up. What makes this book extra special is that not only does it have disability representation in it, as it is based around disabled people, but the author, Lisette Auton, is a part of the disabled community. So I’m sure the representation will be done accurately and with a lot of care and I’m really looking forward to reading this one soon ~ I’ll probably write a full review on it once I have.
Here’s the synopsis from the back of the book:
“I was Haven Point’s first Wreckling, but I certainly wasn’t the last. There are forty-two of us now, not including the mermaids…
Since Alpha Lux first washed up there as a baby, Haven Point has become a ramshackle home for any disabled person who needs somewhere to belong. Named after the way they make a living on the wild shore, the Wrecklings spend their days looting from passing ships with a little magical help from a mermaid clan and a lighthouse keeper with a kitten in his beard.
But beyond the boundaries of Haven Point, danger lurks.
It’s only a matter of time before the Wrecklings are forced to decide what kind of future they want… and what they’re willing to do to get it.”
I have a long term reading goal of picking up more Classics and while I have enjoyed reading British authors such as Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, I thought I’d broaden my choices a bit more and try some Russian Classics. So diving in at the deep end, I have picked up Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Both books are very chonky ~ one is over 900 pages and the other well over a 1,000! But I’ve learned over the past couple of years that I am not intimidated by big books and I actually love diving into a longer story. The editions I have are part of the Vintage Classics Russian Series and in time I’ll probably pick up the other titles in the series. Also, when I do eventually decide to read these, I’ll probably get the audiobooks from my library and read them along side that and any other book I am also reading ~ I won’t get anything else read if I don’t!
But for now here are the synopsis for both books from their book flaps:
Anna Karenina:
“Anna is a beautiful, intelligent woman whose passionate affair with the dashing Count Vronsky leads her to ruin. But her story is also about a search for meaning, and by twinning it with that of Levin, an awkward idealist whose happy marriage and domestic trials form the backdrop for a similar quest.”
War and Peace:
“From sophisticated St Petersburg soirées to breathless troika rides through the snow, from the bloody front line at Austerlitz to a wife’s death in childbirth, Tolstoy conjures a broad panorama of rich, messy, beautiful and debased human life. We follow the fates of open-hearted, impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his melancholy friend Prince Andrei and the enchanting Natasha Rostov, as history and fiction are combined in one of the wisest and most enthralling novels ever written.”
So those are all the new books I have added to my bookshelves in February. Have you read of any of them? I’d love to know your thoughts if you have.
Stay Safe. Read a Book.
L x
