New Arrivals!

So many new books, I’m not even going to tell you about them all! I won a total of 4 books (3 from Dutch publishers/websites and one from an English publisher). I also visited a second-hand book market where I got six books. Only six, but I’m getting more choosy! These were either on my wishlist or I had heard good things about them. Also, they were all in good condition – I noticed that having so many unread books, the ones that aren’t so nice anymore end up at the bottom of the pile.

Some of the books I will discuss in my Dutch New Arrivals post, as the books are by Dutch (or untranslated-to-English) writers and not necessarily interesting on Leeswammes’ Blog.

Books for review

This Bright River by Patrick Somerville

I got this book from Hatchette publishers via Netgalley, and I read it already. Its was a good read, 4 stars.

From the publishers’ website: “Lauren Sheehan’s career in medicine came to a halt after a chain of violent events abroad. Now she’s back in the safest place she knows-St. Helens, Wisconsin-cut off from career, friendship, and romance.

Ben Hanson’s aimless young life has bottomed out after a series of bad decisions, but a surprising offer from his father draws him home for what looks like his final second chance. In Wisconsin, he finds his family fractured, still unable to face the truth behind his troubled cousin’s death a decade earlier.

As Lauren cautiously expands her horizons and Ben wrestles with his regrets and mistakes, their paths intersect. Could each be exactly what the other needs? Or the last thing in the world either one can handle?”

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Books I won

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

I won this from a Dutch magazine, Esta. I was really pleased with this book, because I had only recently read and reviewed Sister by the same author. I liked it, but some people said Afterwards is better.

From the website of the publishers: “There is a fire and they are in There. They are in there . . .

Black smoke stains a summer blue sky. A school is on fire. And one mother, Grace, sees the smoke and runs. She knows her teenage daughter Jenny is inside. She runs into the burning building to rescue her.

Afterwards, Grace must find the identity of the arsonist and protect her family from the person who’s still intent on destroying them. Afterwards, she must fight the limits of her physical strength and discover the limitlessness of love.“

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Joy by Jonathan Lee

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’m a fan of UK publisher Windmill books. Their books have never disappointed yet. For Joy I also have great hopes, as I read and enjoyed another book by this author a few years ago, Who is Mr Satoshi?.  I won this book via a Twitter giveaway.

From the website of the publishers: “‘Did she jump? Did she fall? Will she wake?’

On an ordinary Friday afternoon in the office, talented young lawyer Joy Stephens plummets forty feet onto a marble floor.

In the shadow of this baffling event, the lives of those closest to her begin to collide and change in unexpected ways. There is Dennis, her disgraced husband, who finds consolation in books; her colleague Peter, whose refuge is a mix of hedonism and hard work; Barbara, Joy’s prickly PA, who’d be content if only she could get away to New York; and Samir, Joy’s hygiene-obsessed personal trainer, who escapes into exercise routines and other, stranger rituals. In a sparkling glass office in London’s Square Mile – a place bursting with flirtations, water cooler confrontations and dangerous amounts of abject boredom – each of them is forced to question what they’ve witnessed, and to face past moments that have defined Joy’s life, as well as their own. ”

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From the library

Beloved by Toni Morrison

A book for my Around the USA in 90 Days challenge (Delaware, Georgia and Kentucky, hopefully). It was already on my TBR, and I am looking forward to finally reading it.

From the back of the book (translated from the Dutch): “Escaped slave Sethe kills her little daughter Beloved out of desperation and fear, and to save her from slavery. But Beloved comes back as an angry spirit and terrorises her mother’s life. Eventually, the Sethe’s second daughter manages to lift the curse from this family.”

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Blood Lure by Nevada Barr

Another book for my Around the USA in 90 Days challenge (Montana, and maybe one or two other states). I’m reading it now and it’s OK. 

From Dutch on-line booksellers bol.com: “The laws of nature take a murderous turn in this spellbinding addition to the bestselling series featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. Anna returns to the West, where she is sent on a training assignment to study grizzly bears in Waterton/Glacier National Peace Park. But when daybreak finds a boy missing and a camper dead, Anna must track the beast stalking the trails as she becomes involved in a gripping wilderness life-or-death mystery.”

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Girl Reading by Katie Ward

I got this book for the Girl Reading read-a-long by Rikki’s Teleidoscope and Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. I’ve started and abandoned this book. There are several short stories in this book, but I didn’t find the first two very interesting. With the third one, I got so impatient, that I gave up. I’m not keen on short stories, and these in particular didn’t interest me at all. If you have read this or want to read it, check out Rikki’s post.

From the author’s website: “Seven portraits.  Seven artists.  Seven girls and women reading.

A young orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena, and an artist’s servant girl in 17th-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles.  A young woman reading in a Shoreditch bar catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture, and a Victorian medium holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure.

Each chapter of this richly textured debut takes us into a perfectly imagined tale of how each portrait came to be, and as the connections accumulate, the narrative leads us into the present and beyond ― an inspired celebration of women reading and the artists who have caught them in the act.”

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Books I bought

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

A book from my wishlist. I read The Possibility of an Island by this author (twice) and that’s a very futuristic novel, which I greatly enjoyed if not totally understood. This one is even more daunting, I think! From a second-hand book market.

From amazon.com: “An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.”

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Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Also from the second-hand book market. Now it seems that these are stories. I was not aware of that. I picked up the book without looking at it much, because I seemed to remember that this book is the favorite novel of one of my blogging friends (please announce yourself, I’m not sure who it was). As I’m not so keen on stories, I probably will approach this book one story at a time, rather than trying to read it all in one go.

From amazon.com: “These eight stories by beloved and bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life. Here they enter the worlds of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. Rich with the signature gifts that have established Jhumpa Lahiri as one of our most essential writers, Unaccustomed Earth exquisitely renders the most intricate workings of the heart and mind.”

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Have you read any of these books? Which of these would appeal to you?