I clearly read a lot of ARCs this month, most of what I can quote from here are audiobooks. There’s a theme about books and reading, which is nice, there hasn’t been one for a while, however accidental those themes are, I like when I can find one.
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
Wasn’t sanity like beauty, in the eye of the beholder?
Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane
Don’t knock voyeurism. American culture wouldn’t exist without it.
We walked off the bridge and headed east along the river path. It was early evening and the air was the color of scotch and the trees had a burnished glow, the smoky dark gold of the sky contrasted starkly with the explosion of cherry reds, lime greens, and bright yellows in the canopies of leaves stretched above us.
You Took the Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston
Yeah, no. If I started I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Justice Calling by Annie Bellet
A girl needs options. To me, video games are like shoes. But with more pixels and a plot.
“We could always nerd the guy to death, I suppose,” Levi said.
“Ooh, yeah, new torture technique. We’ll make him watch nothing but Highlander II and Star Trek V!”
Levi hit the brakes and executed the quickest three- point turn I ever want to experience ever, or make that never, again.
Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons) by Quenby Olson
(Diana’s husband, the sort who lived behind a newspaper or a book or any sort of reading wall that was meant to deter people from approaching in an oh- look- he’s- reading- I’ll- not- bother- him sort of way. This, of course, did not always work, as some people [re: Diana] took the presence of reading material to mean that the person reading was obviously bored and most likely pining away for the company of others [i.e., Diana when she was in need of a receptacle for her general complaints about life and motherhood] and would certainly have no compunction against setting aside their book with eagerness to listen.)
With a sigh that carried a lifetime’s weight of disrespect and disregard and several other words beginning with a similar prefix, Mildred picked up the last of her drooping toast and pushed her chair back from the table.
Mornings were never welcome. Mildred understood their place in the world; everything must have a beginning of some sort, and things like days and weeks and years and even time could not be exempt from that. But mornings weighed on her like a burden, like a trial to be endured before she could arrive at the legitimate part of the day, with the sun fully risen and the birds already digesting their ill-gotten worms.
“So.” Mr. Wiggan looked at her. But, oh, the amount of words, the pages of description and venting of thoughts and feelings and sympathies in that single syllable.
She didn’t much care for many of the books in the study. Neither her sister nor her brother-in-law were great readers, and so the volumes stored there served more as accessories to the room rather than how Mildred believed a personal library should exist: as pieces of the curator’s character, bound and shelved but available to be read again and again, like memories brought out and pored over until they were rounded down as smooth as pebbles.
Did one read books while travelling? Of course people read books while traveling. Books had no boundaries, no sense of home or place. They were the entire world, printed in a form one could slip into one’s pocket (Well, if the pockets were large enough, which they generally were not. Mildred made a pact with herself then and there to make certain that every future gown and apron she sewed for herself came complete with at least two pockets large enough and sturdy enough to carry most medium-sized volumes.)
The sound that issued from Mr. Simonon’s throat was not something that could easily be transcribed into written English. (German, no doubt, would have a word in its lexicon capable of expressing the particular kind of pain he was experiencing. But as Mr. Simonon was not familiar with that specific branch of Teutonic languages, his unintelligible and agonized warbling would have to suffice.)
Now that Mildred was sufficiently fed and rested after her exhaustion the previous day, her own anxiety took that as a sign that it should make a return, as if it feared she might be lonely without it.
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Growing up is terribly wonderful. But often it’s also wonderfully terrible.
He believed he had always tried to achieve peace and was sad that he so often had to find it at the end of his sword.
Death at Paradise Palms by Steph Broadribb
No one shouts to say Lizzie shouldn’t be there. They barely glance at her. That’s the benefit of being in your sixties – you’re seen as unthreatening and assumed to be doing what you’re meant to where you’re meant to be doing it. As she’s recently started to discover, assumptions like that make it so much easier to break the rules.
Golden Son by Pierce Bron
Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.
I would not have raised you to be a great man. There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one. I would have given you the quiet strength to grow old with the woman you love.
Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair.
He always thinks because I’m reading, I’m not doing anything. There is no greater plague to an introvert than the extroverted.
Please Return to the Lands of Luxury by Jon Tilton
“Books don’t just have stories on the inside.” Chloe smiled. “Some wear is beautiful. It shows the journey to this very moment.”
Adult Assembly Required by Abbi Wasman
When the body experiences a sudden shock, it actually freezes for one twenty-fifth of a second and then deploys intense psychological curiosity, mobilizing every neuron and nerve, every sense, every possible input to work out exactly what just happened. In a microsecond or two the brain gathers the intel, sorts it, analyzes it, cross-references it, and is ready to issue directions for what to do next. It’s a miracle, really, and while it might not definitively prove the existence of God, it certainly deserves an enthusiastic round of applause.
As always, the food made everything better. Dogs and good food, universal improvers.
“I expected adult life to be long stretches of mastery, occasionally interrupted by a steep learning curve of chaos and excitement. But I learned recently it’s the other way around.” She looked at Laura and shrugged. “But what can you do?”
Laura narrowed her eyes, “You’re very philosophical.”
Nina looked around for the waitress. “Nah. I’m clutching at straws like you. I’m simply older and more resigned to it.”
“To what?”
“To life.”
“You’re resigned to life?”
“Better than resigning from it.”
(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)
Bristol library exhibition of forgotten items left in books—I always enjoy these stories about odd things found in library books. (also, wow, is the BBC more comfortable with silence than US news. There’s no way that a US newscast wouldn’t impose a voiceover on those shots).
Grab a book, any book.
