Jessbrarian

The Submission is thrilling me. It’s fictionalized but written about NYC post-9/11 in such a way I can imagine the events really taking place in real life NYC.

I guess I just summarized how many fictional writers want their books to be.

Real.

Even though they are fake.

Wow. Really getting to the good stuff here today.

The book was published 7 years ago which was the 10 year anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Yet, it brings me back to that time that I cannot believe it’s coming up on almost 20 years ago.

That doesn’t seem right.

Time is so fluid, untouchable, graceful and clumsy at the same time.

But wait – thank you, book for doing that!

Another huge part of this book is not just the time travel but it’s the fact that now with our current state of politics with a racism and discrimination in the air, the book (in which almost every character is reckoning with their own bias and prejudices) faces these topical issues.

This is why I am recommending The Submission be picked up immediately. It will help you understand more clearly our current times while further understanding our past times.

 

 

When I am finishing books quickly and always on to the next within 24 hours or less of finishing a read I call that a tear.

I am on a tear!!

It is the kinda tear where you grab a page from a book and not the kind that falls from your eye when you are crying.

So this tear has included The Heir. (it rhymes)

The Heir is by Susan Rieger

Other books on this tear include:

Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan (Yes – Saints for All Occasions was THAT good I immediately had to read another one of this authors right away. That itch was real!)

Daisy Jones and The Six (A Reese Witherspoon book club recommendation) by Taylor Jenkins Reid

and now I am in the middle of The Bright Hours by Nina Riggs.

This book is so sad. The writer is a late 30s woman, mom, wife, sister, daughter who is dying of cancer. And it is her memoir as she was dying. Yes. It goes there. It goes all the way in.

I remember someone telling me NOT to read it. How’s that for a book blogger? I take your recommendation and I throw it to the ground!!

I just tear up that non-recommendation!!

My recommendation that you should follow is to start right away on Saints for All Occasions. It will start your tear and you might even tear up!

 

 

So perhaps this is the year that I update more regularly. I don’t know yet.

Stay tuned!!

Until then, please note recommendations from my 2018 READ list:

The Lost Family by Jenna Blum

Educated by Tara Westolver

The Perfect Mother by Aimee Malloy

 

This subject title could be more creative but it’s definitely direct. I wanted to get directly to it so no time for too much SUBJECT LINE editing.

Lilac Girls: By Martha Hall Kelly

I read this book on a Caribbean vacation after I had picked it up at the Take a Book Leave a Book Library at the resort. Oh how I wish I had taken a photo of the view from this library.! It was dreamy. Lots of books to peruse with posh interior/exterior lobby. The breeze, the blue green shades of couches and mirrors and the beautiful shelves.

So I’m looking and looking and don’t see anything I have heard of until The Lilac Girls is there just waiting to be picked.

Well, what a pick!

This is a strong debut and a wonderful companion to my The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah love.

It’s a definite page turner, heart-wrencher. It reminded me of my post The Nightingale quest to read more World War II books. I’m on that quest again!

Now I’m in to the 4 grade approved Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales collection and enjoying it very much.

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

Yes! This month there has been a lotta reading going on. You know it. Well, you wouldn’t if you read this blog exclusively instead of talking with me in person. I update in real life. On the blog, not so much.

Here’s what I’ve read recently:

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg

Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Graphic Novels by Jennifer Holm and Matthew Holm – Sunny Side Up and Swing It, Sunny

Also in Book-Tober I will be visiting the independent book shop Books Are Magic in Cobble Hill for the first time. The first time of what I hope will be many times.

Brit Bennet who wrote The Mothers (What?! You haven’t read it yet?) will be speaking and reading.

 

I’m just gonna put this here and get to it.

11/22/63 she has been talking about for years!! That is going to the top.

 

the nix
underground railroad
commonwealth
the hate u give
another brooklyn
britt marie was here
salvage the bones
11/22/63
shrill
high dive
did you ever have a family

Reading!!

Amazing books the should be on everyone’s To Read lists:

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout. My favorite writer just wrote my favorite book! This is the one. My fave of my fave.

Faithful by Alice Hoffman. The biggest takeaway from this one is how have I NOT read any of her work prior to this? But this one, I just can’t stop talking about it, it’s supposedly one of her best. So, good for me and more so good for the world of readers who read it! It is a yummy one. A page turner with not much action but a lot of inner thoughts and almost existentialism with being overly wrought. That could be mostly because it is a tale of a young woman’s life from ages 17 until about 27.

Will anyone talk about it with me next time you see me IRL?! Pretty please. Thanks for that.

Currently reading: Superficial, More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries.

It’s super fun and the frivolity is sooo perfect after those two very provocative reads. Love when I get the order right. Bestseller, bestseller & bestseller!!

But I do not write blog posts a lot.

Just got done with Anita Shreve’s most recent. The Stars are Fire.

I love going into her worlds. This one was down and sad but she’s a fantastic writer and has fantastic plots about resilient women so you really can’t go wrong. I’d recommend this one with a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

You know what you are going to get with her. This isn’t a tome. It’s a story with a beginning middle and end. It has adults and kids. It has some flashbacks and it has some love and some hate. Feels like more hate in some ways because it is hostile in the most subdued way. Anita Shreve has a gift and I am so glad I’ve gotten to benefit from it over the years of reading many of her 18 novel. s

 

 

 

Of a bunch of books:

Essentialism

The Undoing Project

Dietland (still!)

Dead Wake (does it count if I have read one chapter?)

To be continued. . .