Chapter 11 - Something New

As y'all know I love new books. I often will breeze through a book I have to read for book club just to get to a new book on my TBR pile. This year so far I have had the pleasure of reading eight new books along with the ten books I've read published before 2020. While not all of them have been wonderful, I do have a habit of picking books that I am pretty sure I'm going to like.

There are some authors whose writing I admire so much that I will read every new book they put out. Two of the authors I read are new ones for me with one of them writing primarily Young Adult fiction. I do rely on reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Bookmarks, two magazines dedicated to books, as well as suggestions from friends and customers.

By the way we are now partnering with Bookshop.org to bring these new books straight to you. All you need to do is click on the title to be directed to our Bookends Used Book Store page. We have these and many more available, all you have to do is search.

So here are the new books I've read this year.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - I had never read anything by Haig before and he writes a lot of Young Adult fiction which I don't necessarily read. The Midnight Library is a story about a young woman who is fired from her job the same day her cat dies. In contemplating her life she decides to end it all and finds herself between life and death in the Midnight Library. Here she is able to choose from all the lives she might have lived to see which fits her the best. This was recommended by Stacy my colleague at Bookends and was a book club selection for our Bookends group.

The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin - Benjamin has written several novelized accounts of famous people - The Aviator's Life about Anne Morrow Lindbergh and The Only Woman in the Room about Hedy Lamar, to name two. This story she sets in the Dakota territory in 1888 when a freak blizzard covered the prairie. The morning of the storm was unseasonably warm so many people went out without their winter coats. Many schoolteachers as young as 16 were faced with the impossible decision to release the children to find their way home or keep them in the school house as fuel was running out.

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel - Harmel's story takes place during World War II and was inspired by a true story of a young woman who was an expert forger and was responsible for saving many Jews during the Nazi occupation of France. As she became more adept at forgery, she decides she must somehow save the real names of the children she creates documents for. If you enjoy World War II fiction, you will love this.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah - Kristin Hannah is a terrific writer best known for The Nightingale, a World War II story about the French Resistance. Her latest books takes her readers back to Texas during the Dust Bowl. Elsa Martinelli lives on her in-laws' farm with her two children. As the drought and the 1930's Depression become more drastic she must decide to stay where she is or take her two children to, what she hopes will be, a better life. Hannah's descriptions of the devastation of the land and the horrors of the Depression are vivid.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett - Here is another author I had never read. Bennett's tale is about two light skinned black women who are twins. Running away from a difficult situation as teens they go to New Orleans and take whatever jobs they can find. How they take different paths in their lives and the impact it has on their children is at the heart of this story.

Do you have some favorite recently published books? Let me know!