WWW Wednesday – January 26, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

I just started The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe (2021). This is a young adult novel recommended by uber-high school librarian, Barb Fecteau, in which the daughter of a con artist is taken hostage in a bank heist. Oh, and did I mention she is involved in a multi-gender love triangle and the other two angles are locked up with her? There’s a lot going on in this book, which was just nominated for an Edgar Award as one of the year's best YA Mysteries.

My book group is reading Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (2015), which I began last night. We all greatly enjoyed The Splendid and the Vile, his book about WWII, and I have a particular interest in the Lusitania due to one of my favorite fictional characters traveling on it (spoiler: she survived). The audio version is narrated by Scott Brick whose voice I know well – he has recorded over 800 books, mostly suspense but quite a bit of nonfiction too.

What did you recently finish reading?

I just completed Love at First Spite, a debut rom com by Anna E. Collins (2021) about a woman who finds out her fiancé was cheating on her right before the wedding and starts plotting her revenge, but she gets distracted by the dark, brooding architect at the firm where she works . . .  Revenge! Enemies to lovers! Secret workplace romance! This book was funny and sexy and may end up being my favorite January read.

Starfish by Lisa Fipps (2021), which I read last week for my de Grummond Book Club, was recognized Monday as a Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association (the Printz Award is for excellence in literature written for young adults). Here is a link to all the winners, if you have not seen it.

I finally read Countdown by Deborah Wiles (2010), first in her 60s trilogy, which I had out from the library for weeks. It is set during the Cuban missile crisis and vividly recreates the stress of that time from the perspective of a military family. This seemed more autobiographical than Anthem (book 3), which was one of my favorite books of 2021.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Next, I am looking forward to Midnight in Everwood (2021), which is a retelling of The Nutcracker. I thought it was a children’s book but it is described as an adult gothic, for fans of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus - intriguing. I just got Arthur Ransome & Captain Flint’s Trunk by Christina Hardyment (1984) from the library, which is for diehard Swallows and Amazons fans who wonder if the places described in the books really exist in the Lake District (I wouldn't characterize myself as diehard but I have reread most of the books more than once and own a complete set - maybe I am a diehard!). The endpapers are extremely cool: the front is a map of the area with the real place names and the one at the back has the names given by the children. Well, you know what they say, “Better drowned than duffers if not duffers won’t drown.” That may be my favorite literary quote, or at least top ten. Hmmm, there’s a future post!

Sunday afternoon I got an email that the Harvard Coop was having a promotion: buy one hardcover book, get a second one free! When I got out of work at 5, I drove to Cambridge, found a parking place several blocks away from the Coop, and dashed through the chilly night to the second-floor fiction section (no one dared get in the way). It was harder to find two books I wanted than one would have expected! I already owned or had read several possibilities and I only had about 15 minutes to ponder. I finally bought two books for my sisters, one of which is a new mystery called The Maid by Nita Prose (2022), which I had on reserve at the library and has been getting great reviews. The Coop has consolidated to one building, which made me sad, as its textbook business has declined due to the Internet (I have to admit I don’t think I have bought a single new textbook while in graduate school: some were used and some I was able to get from the library, so I am one of those hurting the textbook business.  Textbooks and their publishers need to make a living just like everyone else).