@ Your Library
The first month of 2022 is almost over. I am enjoying not walking home in the dark as we gain more light each day. But the weather is still cold and I like nothing better than curling up in the eveings under a blanket and a cat or two and reading, knitting and or playing games. So, I was very excited to get the book The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Matsukawa. It is a fantastical tale about a cat who demands the new owner of a secondhand bookstore help him save books from neglectful owners. A fun quick read for book lovers of all stripes.
Stories about books, libraries and readers are almost always wonderful, which means I am looking forward to the newest Invisible Library title which just released by Genevieve Cogman. The Untold Story will require Librarian spy Irene to figure out the truth about the library and why it was created originally and why Alberich betrayed the Library.
Other titles about books I thoroughly enjoyed include The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix, Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern and The Last Chance Library by Freya Sampson. I am still looking forward to reading The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams and Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine.
If you like reading about winter or snow and ice there are plenty of titles to keep you reading including the memoir Skiing in to the Bright Open by Liv Arnesen on her solo journey to the south pole. Dead by Dawn by Paul Doiron is a new Mike Bowditch mystery set in Maine in December with Mike fighting for his life after being ambushed on a dark road and crashing into a frozen river. Marcia Muller’s newest Ice and Stone, a new Sharon McCone mystery, is set in the wilds of northern California. Staying with the California theme, but not the snow try Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski for a moving, tragic, funny and quirky novel about a group of individuals on a road trip to San Francisco with passengers who are all disheartened souls making a final journey.
Continuing with the thriller, mystery theme try The Left-Handed Twin by Thomas Perry. Jane Whitefield is a rescue artist, she helps people disappear and start a new life, but her most recent to seek her services arrives with a lot of trouble following, including the Russian mob who quickly figure out who Jane is and how valuable she might be. Only Jane or her persuers will emerge from Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness alive.
I have read and mentioned several novels lately about war and they have often focused on its impact on women. Two more fictional stories about war’s impact on women include Sisters of the Great War by Suzanne Feldman about the First World War and Three Sisters by Heather Morris (author of Tattooist of Auschwitz) about the Second World War.