Tag: Top Ten Tuesday Page 1 of 3

War has come to the supernatural world, and Amari’s two worst enemies are leading the charge.

Elaine Harlowe has manipulated her way into becoming prime minister, using her mind control ability to force the Bureau to take up her vicious grudge against magiciankind. Meanwhile, Dylan Van Helsing, the newly crowned leader of the League of Magicians—and Amari’s former partner—is after a destructive new power that would not only ensure the magicians’ victory . . . it would make him invincible.

With neither the Bureau nor the League safe for Amari, and her newly returned brother, Quinton, determined to keep her out of the fray, she and her friends decide to find a way to end the war on their own.

So when they learn that the only way to stop Dylan is to find powerful magical inventions known as Wonders, they go after them. But wielding these items comes at a terrible cost, and Amari will have to decide just how much she’s willing to sacrifice . . . because the Despicable Wonders will demand everything.

There’s a lot for Alston to accomplish in this third volume—I’m looking forward to seeing if he can pull it off.

Addison McKellar isn’t clueless—she knows she and her husband Dean don’t have the perfect marriage—but she’s still shocked when he completely vanishes from her life. At first Addison is annoyed, but as days stretch into a week and she’s repeatedly stonewalled by Dean’s friends and associates, her frustration turns into genuine alarm. When even the police seem dismissive of her concerns, Addison turns to her father’s old friend, legendary Memphis PI Porter Hayes.

Porter and Addison begin to dig deeper into Dean’s affairs and quickly discover that he was never the hardworking business owner and family man he pretended to be. As they piece together the connections between a hook-handed mercenary, one of Elvis’s former leading ladies, and a man posing as an FBI agent, it becomes clear that Dean was deeply enmeshed in a high-stakes web of international intrigue, and Porter and Addison aren’t the only ones looking for him.

Dean angered some very dangerous people before he disappeared—people who have already killed to get what they want—and they won’t hesitate to come after his family to even the score.

Been a long time since I read an Atkins novel that wasn’t featuring Spenser or Quinn Colson, it’ll be a good change of pace.

In the supernatural realms, there are creatures who belong to winter. I am not one of them. But like the coyote I can become at will, I am adaptable.

My name is Mercy Thompson Hauptman, and my mate, Adam, is the werewolf who leads the Columbia Basin Pack, the pack charged with keeping the people who live and work in the Tri-Cities of Washington State safe. It’s a hard job, and it doesn’t leave much room for side quests. Which is why when I needed to travel to Montana to help my brother, I intended to go by myself.

But I’m not alone anymore.

Together, Adam and I find ourselves trapped with strangers in a lodge in the heart of the wilderness, in the teeth of a storm of legendary power, only to discover my brother’s issues are a tiny part of a problem much bigger than we could have imagined. Arcane and ancient magics are at work that could, unless we are very careful, bring about the end of the world. . . .

It’s been two years since we’ve got the chance to check in on Mercy and the rest, that’s too long.

This has nothing to do with the last one…no werewolves or fae or anything. Just Sheriff Porter Beck back for his second novel.

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, doing the same lawman's job his father once did now that he's returned home after decades away. With his twelve person department, they cover a large area that is usually very quiet, but not of late. One childhood friend is the latest to succumb to a new wave of particularly strong illegal opioids, another childhood friend—now an enormously successful rancher—is targeted by a military drone, hacked and commandeered by an unknown source. The hacker is apparently local—local enough to call out Beck by name—and that means they are Beck's problem.

Beck's investigation leads him to Mercy Vaughn, the one known hacker in the area. The problem is that she's a teenager, locked up with no computer access at the secure juvenile detention center. But there's something Mercy that doesn't sit quite right with Beck. But when Mercy disappears, Beck understands that she's in danger and time is running out for all of them.

Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.

When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workers—and to show the higherups that he’s ready for a major promotion—Edwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwin’s impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.

It’s back to Arkansas for more noir from Cranor.

“Relish the day. If you’re not in awe, you’re just not paying attention.”

She hadn’t even been in the crowded pound a week, but she’d already developed a nickname, “Knucklehead.” As a puppy she destroyed property and precious clothes; as an adult she injured her owner, ruined romances… and changed the world-views of those around her.

Have you ever watched an animal and wondered how it thinks, how it sees the world, how it views you? And have you ever wondered what wisdom you might learn if you could see things as that animal does?

This unique book is many things: an amusing and moving memoir about a memorable dog, a poetic ode to a human-animal connection, and a serious philosophical, psychological, and spiritual inquiry into the lessons a man gleaned from the simple-minded brilliance of a teacher, a lover, a liver of life to the fullest… a Knucklehead.

There has never before been a book like “The Teachings of Shirelle.” Take a walk with this pooch, and you might never look at life, love, or yourself the same again.

The ancient forest realm of Sunweald is bordered on two sides by far mightier nations – a precarious situation. At its centre, the Sunweald Palace is home to the Lord Regent and the heir to the throne, together with numerous precious and powerful artefacts. The Palace is protected by the realm’s elite Shields, dedicated to guarding the royal line against all foes.

A group of vicious brigands called the Wildwood Reivers have been stealing arcane artefacts and smuggling them across the borders, out of Sunweald. And the objects they most desire are stored in the mystical Wyrm Vault, hidden away deep in the bones of the earth, within the walls of the Palace itself.

As political and religious tensions mount, Sunweald’s druids prepare to enact rituals for the Summer Solstice – but the Wildwood Reivers and their treacherous allies have other plans. It falls to Briar, the commander of the Shields, to defend the ancient corridors and secret tunnels of the Palace. The odds may be against her, but she’ll see every enemy head adorning a spike or she’ll die trying…

The tagline for this is what caught my attention, “A gender-flipped Die Hard set in a mysterious castle…” the rest of the description was just gravy

Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe) and his human partner PI Bernie Little are on to a new case, and this time they're entangled in a web of crime unlike anything they've ever seen before.

Their elderly next door neighbor, Mr. Parsons, thought he was doing the right thing by loaning his ne'er do well son, Billy, some money to help get himself settled. But soon, Mr. Parsons discovers that his entire life savings is gone. A run-of-the-mill scam? Bernie isn’t so sure that the case is that simple, but it's Chet who senses what they're really up against.

Only Billy knows the truth, but he's disappeared. Can Chet and Bernie track him down before it's too late? Someone else is also in the hunt, an enemy with a mysterious, cutting-edge power who will test Chet and Bernie to their limit—or maybe beyond. Even poker, not the kind of game they're good at, plays a role.

It’s Chet and Bernie…’nuff said.

Retired lawyer Andy Carpenter has run the Tara Foundation—the dog rescue organization named after his beloved golden retriever—for years. It's always been his calling, even as Andy's pulled into representing clients in court. His investigator, Marcus Clark, has been at Andy's side for a long time. Even though they've known each other for years, Marcus keeps his personal life a mystery.

So it’s a shock when Marcus arrives at the Tara Foundation with two strangers in tow. Turns out Marcus takes disadvantaged young men under his wing, gets them jobs, a place to live, and a chance at a different life. And they want a dog. Andy’s specialty. One of the young men, Nick Williams, instantly falls in love with one of the dogs, Daisy.

When there’s a mass shooting at Nick’s work, leaving six dead, all signs point to Nick. Marcus, who's never asked Andy for anything, asks Andy for help. Despite Nick's troubled background, Andy trusts his friend and takes the case.

A Marcus-centric (at least at the beginning) Andy Carpenter book? Yes, please.

Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.

This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

The title’s enough to make you think about picking this up, right? Or is that just me? The blurb makes me want to take it home.

It’s springtime in Cedar River, Texas. The annual Bluebonnet Festival is brewing and the whole town is in harmony. Juni Jessup and her sisters Tansy and Maggie thought opening Sip & Spin Records was going to be their biggest hurdle, but the Frappuccino hits the fan when the mayor drops dead—poisoned by their delicious coffee.

Since Tansy was the one to brew the coffee, and Juni was the unfortunate citizen who stumbled upon the mayor’s body, the sisters find themselves in hot water. Family is everything to the Jessups, so with Tansy under suspicion, the sisters spring into action.

Between the town festivities, a good old-fashioned treasure hunt, and an accidental cow in the mix, Juni will have to pull out all the stops to find the mayor’s killer.

I had a lot of fun with the first in this series and am eager to see how the return to this world works—is there a series here? (I hope and expect there is, I just want to see it in action)

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's investigation.

In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the deadly goings on now.

Theoretically, there’s a Craig Johnson/C.J. Box vibe to this, just a little more southwest from them. That’s enough to get me to take a second look. I just like the idea of a Nevada sheriff series.

It’s the sixth—and final—Red Rising book. What else do I have to say?

Oh, okay, fine:

The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains.

But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend.

Marooned far from home after a devastating defeat on the battlefields of Mercury, Darrow longs to return to his wife and sovereign, Virginia, to defend Mars from its bloodthirsty would-be conqueror Lysander.

Lysander longs to destroy the Rising and restore the supremacy of Gold, and will raze the worlds to realize his ambitions.

The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow, and Darrow needs the people he loves—Virginia, Cassius, Sevro—in order to defend the Republic.

So begins Darrow’s long voyage home, an interplanetary adventure where old friends will reunite, new alliances will be forged, and rivals will clash on the battlefield.

Because Eo’s dream is still alive—and after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.

When you’re in trouble, you call 911.

When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan.

Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don’t talk about him at all. 

He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York.

Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear.

He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city.

He’s the mayor’s private cop, the fixer, the first call when the men and women who protect and serve are in trouble and need protection themselves.

With conflicted loyalties and a divided soul, he’s a veteran cop still fighting his own private war. He’s a soldier of the streets with his own personal code. 

But what happens when the man who knows all the city’s secrets becomes a threat to both sides of the law?

There is nothing in this description that doesn’t scream “up my alley” and when you add the name “Reed Farrel Coleman” to that? I’m practically salivating.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.

With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

Cosby’s take on a serial killer novel has got to be fantastic. Throw in a small town sheriff being the one on the hunt and the racial politics that have got to be mixed in, and I just can’t wait to dive in.

Neil Bennett, a highly sought-after wedding photographer, knows all about romance and happily ever afters—for everyone but himself. As a chronic hypochondriac pushing forty, Neil has convinced himself that marriage and children just aren’t in the cards for him.

But then fate throws Neil a curveball when his 12-year-old god-daughter Chloe shows up at his door after being abandoned by her mother. She has nowhere else to go and suddenly, Neil's bachelor lifestyle is thrown into disarray as he grapples with endless sensitive and awkward situations that come with caring for a preteen girl in his small apartment.

As Neil questions whether he's ready to flip his world upside down, there's a glimmer of hope when he meets Jenna Kaplan, a young and ambitious interior designer. She has her own quirks and idiosyncrasies that might just make them perfect for each other—and the ideal parents for Chloe. Suddenly, Neil has to face the possibility that he, too, can have his happily ever after... if he doesn't screw things up.

When Hanover sent me the link to pre-order this book, I clicked on it, ordered the book and then I read the description. If Hanover wrote it, I’m reading it. But I’d be willing to read this no matter who wrote it.

Billy Perkins is happy. And why wouldn’t he be? He loves his job as an independent music teacher and his apartment in Baltimore above a record shop called Charm City Rocks. Most of all, he loves his brainy teenage son, Caleb.

Margot Hammer, on the other hand, is far from happy. The former drummer of the once-famous band Burnt Flowers, she’s now a rock-and-roll recluse living alone in New York City. When a new music documentary puts Margot back in the spotlight, she realizes how much she misses her old band and the music that gave her life meaning.  

Billy has always had a crush on Margot. But she’s a legitimate rock star—or, at least, she was—so he never thought he’d meet her. Until Caleb, worried that his easygoing dad might actually be lonely, cooks up a scheme to get Margot to perform at Charm City Rocks.

It’s the longest of long shots, but Margot’s label has made it clear that any publicity is an opportunity she can’t afford to miss. When their paths collide, Billy realizes that he maybe wasn’t as happy as he thought—and Margot learns that sometimes the sweetest music is a duet.

Norman’s another one of those insta-buy authors for me. The above description sounds like it’s going to hit on all his strengths.

As if being a woman sheriff in the West Virginia coal fields wasn’t tough enough, Mary Beth Cain’s life is complicated by the fact that the local hillbilly crime syndicate is run by her mother, Mamie. It’s an association that, along with Mary Beth’s head-busting ways, has her staring down a corruption investigation when she gets a surprise visit from Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Connelly.

Twenty years earlier, Patrick was Mary Beth’s high school sweetheart, but they broke up because Mary Beth couldn’t cut the loose ties she maintains with her villainous family. Now Patrick’s worked out a deal to wipe Mary Beth’s slate clean if she’ll just do one thing: arrest her brother, Sawyer, who is the cult leader of a booming anti-government militia that’s been giving the Feds headaches.

It’s an offer Mary Beth refuses until Sawyer’s followers blow up a federal courthouse and G-men start swarming into town, preparing for a siege of the commando’s compound. Suddenly Mary Beth is tasked with trying to head off a bloody, Waco-style massacre and the question isn’t whether she should arrest her brother, but if she can do it in time.

Apparently this is my summer of small-town sheriffs. Huh. Okay, then. Ugly legal problems + ugly family problems + ugly community problems should equal a heckuva read.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a recent widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit.

One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who desperately needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam. Of course, Loretta obliges—after all, what are grandmothers for, even grandmothers who still haven’t gotten a simple “thank you” for a gift sent weeks ago. Not that she's counting.

By morning, Mrs. Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta's life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim.

In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs. Plansky follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in Romania to get her money and her dignity back—and perhaps find a new lease on life, too.

Any Spencer Quinn series is going to get my attention—but the idea of a seventysomething widow headed to Romania to track down a phone sammer? Sounds too good to resist.

Had you tuned in to the small television station KTMA on Thanksgiving Day, 1988, you would have been one of the few witnesses to pop culture history being made. On that day, viewers in and around St. Paul, Minnesota, were treated to a genuine oddity, in which a man and his robots, trapped within a defiantly DIY sci-fi set, cracked jokes while watching a terrible movie. It was a cockeyed twist on the local TV programs of the past, in which a host would introduce old, cheaply licensed films. And though its origins may have been inauspicious, Mystery Science Theater 3000 captured the spirit of what had been a beloved pastime for generations of wags, wiseacres, and smartalecks, and would soon go on to inspire countless more.

The Worst We Can Find is a comprehensive history of and guide to MST3K and its various offshoots—including Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic, and The Mads Are Back—whose lean crew of writers, performers, and puppeteers have now been making fun of movies for over thirty years. It investigates how “riffing” of films evolved, recounts the history of these programs, and considers how a practice guaranteed to annoy real-life fellow moviegoers grew into such a beloved, long-lasting franchise. As author Dale Sherman explains, creative heckling has been around forever—but MST3K and its progeny managed to redirect that art into a style that was both affectionate and cutting, winning the devotion of countless fans and aspiring riffers.

Just to feel well-rounded, I’d better include a Non-Fiction book. Sure, the non-fiction book is about MST3K and those things that that have sprung from it, so it should be fun and scratch a particular geeky itch of mine.

Yup. This is a big thing that gets in the way of reading. Writing posts, formatting posts (which takes far too much time), brainstorming posts, researching for posts (not that I do that much, as you well know), cross-posting, blog hopping, social media promotions, and other various preparations (graphics, coming up with questions)…

Doom scrolling, falling down Youtube holes, scrolling through Twitter, Facebook posts from friends/acquaintances/strangers I hope never to meet…it’s just far too easy to lose precious reading time to them.

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m inching toward the half-century mark, and am not as young as I used to be. Staying up to 2 in the morning with a good book isn’t something I can do 2-3 days a week. Maybe two times a month (but I pay for it the next day!). I can’t even make it past 11 sometimes.

After a long day of work (see below), I frequently don’t have the energy to open a book, and picking up the remote control to zone out for a bit is so much easier. Also, Jeopardy! makes me feel smart often enough to keep watching. As everyone has noted for the last few years, there’s too much good stuff being produced to keep up with it all, but I try. But when I can find the self-control to turn the idiot box off, my reading does go way up.

That’s 8, count ’em, 8 hours a day that I cannot read. That’s a third of every day—what a pain!

…but that’s at least 4 hours a day for audiobooks!

Most of the time, they’re great reading companions—snuggled up on my lap, curled up next to me, or laying at my feet, exuding calm and peaceful contentment while I indulge. But they can also be counted on for things like…needing to go outside in the middle of a pivotal/climactic scene. Wanting to play when I’m wanting to spend time with a book, or insisting that the hand holding the book be the one to provide the required scratches (there’s a reason I call our lab mix “an inconvenient pup”). What would I do without them?

Family members, friends, acquaintances, my wife’s friends/acquaintances…people I don’t know half as well as I should like, and those I like less than half as well as they deserve. Their number seems to be increasing in the last couple of years, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that.

Okay, so far—other than the night I was waiting for news on his birth and couldn’t focus on anything—he hasn’t really damaged the reading so far. But he will, so he gets a spot on the list. He’ll actually probably move up to #2, but that’s just theoretical, so we’ll give the spot to his aunt and uncles.

Three sons, one daughter, and a daughter-in-law. I cannot tell you how many hours this group has stolen from my reading time in 2023 alone. Since 1998 when the first of them made their appearance? Countless more. Whether they need to talk about something important, something incredibly trivial, something I don’t care about (which can apply to either of the first two categories, I should add), want to do something, want some help, or just want to goof around. Their desires and my reading time frequently clash. While I have, and will continue, to grumble about it…I wouldn’t have it any other way and I hope they all continue interrupting and keeping me away from books for many years to come. (not that I’ll say that to them)

There is no one I’d rather put a book down for. And no one who takes my grumbling about putting a book down better. She’s also the greatest enabler of my book-buying/hoarding habit, so I’m not complaining, I’m simply describing that she keeps me from reading.

To be fair, I’m frequently the biggest hindrance to her reading as well—especially if I want to read her a great line from my current read or talk about an interesting/great/horrible point. So it evens out in the end.

Sally Kimball is the best athlete in Encyclopedia Brown’s school, and becomes his partner, bodyguard, and best friend. She’s able to pick up on things he misses, too—I loved all these stories as a kid, but the ones where Sally proved more clever or resourceful than her partner were always more entertaining. When you consider that Sally was introduced in 1963, she seems all the more remarkable.

From the moment we meet her in Spiral Castle, Eilonwy shows more wits and fighting spirit than almost any of her male companions. Also the shortest temper. Taran may be the central character and hero of the series—but it’s the Princess who drives him, often shows him the way to go, and commits some of the greatest acts of heroism.

Turtle is too smart for her own good, and shows very little wisdom or tact at the beginning of the novel. By the end, she’s grown. She’s not only sensitive and considerate, but she’s subtle and sly. A lot of her heroism is seen in what she doesn’t do—and what she does under the radar both during the novel’s main events and afterward.

“Hero” is literally one of her titles, she has to go here, right? Toby is one of those reliable heroes, always ready to put the lives, safety, and welfare of others (including some enemies) before her own. She’s taken on beings with much greater power than her own—or her allies—and has found ways to come out on top. Not unscathed (sometimes very scathed), but with some sort of victory nonetheless.

I’m afraid I’m going back to this well too often in lists like this, but she was literally the second name that came to mind for this list.

She’s so great they literally had to change the alphabet for her. The variety of mysteries Millhone tackled was wider than most of her (fictional) peers, which definitely sets her apart. One of the best in the tradition.

Murph is a non-powered human who is fairly skeptical about magic when we meet her—and can’t even see some of the most dangerous threats to her. But she’s now faced off against supernatural forces that have brought down nations. She never loses her essential humanity and compassion throughout—nor her commitment to justice and doing the right thing.

Kitty just wants to live her life and do her job—but her curiosity and perspective as a werewolf push her to pull back the curtain on supernatural beings in the US (and the world). She follows that up by bringing down a vampire who’s been plotting for centuries to become the most powerful being on the planet. Not bad for a gal who did call-in radio.

Clarice is thrown far into the deep end before she’s even an agent, basically as bait. But she goes rises to the occasion and does things that people with experience, age, and training far above hers can’t.

Mercy is an agent of chaos, she’s an idealist, she has more guts than brains sometimes (and she’s pretty smart), and like so many of these heroes, she stands up to beings who dwarf her power on a regular basis without thinking about it because it’s the right thing to do to protect her city, her pack, or her family.

That title is pure Barry—a little silly, maybe a little lazy, but funny. The book was largely pieces of wisdom that Barry is passing on to his daughter and grandson. More of the advice is helpful than you might think, it’s all worth listening to. The rest of the book ain’t bad, either.

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about this audiobook (and some others written by Barry), click here.

Sure, we’ve all seen the jokes/memes, etc. about “Have you eaten, Grandma? vs Have you eaten Grandma?”, it’s using it with the subtitle phrase “Life-Saving Importance” that grabbed my attention (and it was worth it—a fun and helpful guide to grammar, etc.)

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about this book, click here.

This title for the collection of bookish-themed strips from the webcomic Sheldon isn’t the best part of the collection, but it always makes me grin. I’ve read the thing from cover to cover a handful of times, and have read bits and pieces of it frequently—I’m a big fan of Kellett’s work and this is among his best.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who picked up this book because of the title alone—I’m not even sure that I read the blurb for it. I’m so glad I did, it was full of heart, charm, and humor—and leaves you craving baked goods (magic-free, preferably).

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about the audiobook, click here.

When you see the title, you imagine that this is a parody of a book listing or something, right? It can’t be a real book. Ahh, but it is.

The title tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this odd source of affirmation and encouragement.

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about this book, click here.

It was someone sharing a poem from this book that caught my eye, but it was the title that cinched it for me—I had to give these poems a try. It’s the last clause that did it.

After reading these, I don’t think any problems were created or cured, but I got a nice break from them for a little bit.

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about this book, click here.

It’s the specificity of the percentage that did it for me. I’m not sure what it is about the 46 that works, but it does.

A man with a perfectly nice life loses perspective when a he gets a new neighbor that shares his first name. Suddenly he’s the “old” Dave to all his friends—and “new” (with an implied “improved”) Dave seems to have a better life—46% better. It’s a funny and sweet novel about realizing how green grass on your side of the fence is.

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about this book, click here.

I didn’t like this book as much as the title, but the title still works for me. You can hear the lament/whine… After a one-night stand, Jason Strider has to go on a quest to get his jeans back. Hilarity (theoretically) ensues.

In case you’re curious about what I’ve written about this book, click here.

I mean, who doesn’t? This subtle little reminder about our shared humanity comes from this collection of newspaper strips in 1972. It’s one of the earliest Doonesbury collections, the humor (as I recall) isn’t quite as refined as it would become—but maybe hits the targets better.

I think it’s the “Boink” that sells this title for me—if it had been another sound, I don’t know if it’d would’ve clicked for me.

This Calvin and Hobbes collection is just wonderful, which is a tautology, sure. I just can’t think of anything else to say.

I think it was Lee Goldberg’s tweets about this book that convinced me to give the series a try, so I’m really looking forward to diving in (many months after I anticipated reading it!)

When Sheriff Bree Taggert discovers the body of a young woman floating near the bank of the Scarlet River, a note in her abandoned car suggests suicide. The autopsy reveals a different story. Holly Thorpe was dead long before she dropped off the bridge and hit the water.

As Bree and her investigator Matt Flynn delve into the case, secrets in Holly’s personal life complicate their efforts to solve the murder. Holly left behind a volatile marriage, an equally divisive relationship with her sister, and an employer whose intimate involvement with Holly was no secret. Each one has a motive for murder.

When Holly’s sister is terrorized by a stalker’s sick prank, and the prime suspect turns up dead, everything Bree was sure of is upended and her case goes off the rails. When the killer strikes close to home, Bree and Matt must race to solve the murders before one of their own becomes the next victim.

Is this my typical kind of read? Nope. Like almost everything I was recommended in that 12 months 12 Books 12 Friends challenge, this is a little outside my zone (but adjacent to it). Figure it’ll be fun.

The twenty-sixth century. Humanity has expanded beyond Earth’s system to hundreds of planets that colonists now call home. But the United Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command is struggling to control this vast empire. After exhausting all strategies to keep seething colonial insurrections from exploding into a full-blown interplanetary civil war, the UNSC has one last hope. At the Office of Naval Intelligence, Dr. Catherine Halsey has been hard at work on a top-secret program that could bring an end to the conflict…and it starts with seventy-five children, among them a six-year-old boy named John. And Halsey could never guess that this child will eventually become the final hope against an even greater peril engulfing the galaxy—the inexorable confrontation with a theocratic military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant.

This is the electrifying origin story of Spartan John-117—the Master Chief—and of his legendary, unstoppable heroism in leading the resistance against humanity’s possible extinction.

It was love at first chapter for me and Madison Kelly last year, will the relationship flourish here?

It’s a perfect San Diego fall­—cool and crisp with bright blue skies. But not everything is right in the sunny idyll dubbed “America’s Finest City.” Young journalist Barrett Brown has been missing for a week, and her boyfriend hires private investigator Madison Kelly to find her. Right away, Barrett reminds Madison of a younger version of herself: smart, ambitious, and a loner.

As she launches her investigation, Madison realizes that Barrett’s disappearance is connected to a big story she was chasing–and she sets out to walk in Barrett’s footsteps to trace her whereabouts. As the trail grows colder, things begin to heat up between Madison and Barrett’s boyfriend. But he doesn’t seem to be telling everything he knows, and Madison gets the feeling that her every move is being watched. What dirty secrets lie at the heart of Barrett’s big lead?

If Madison can’t get to the bottom of the case in time, she could be in line to become the next victim.

When this came out, I simply had no time (and, frankly, no inclination) to jump on the tidal wave of readers. But I’ve always been curious. Prompted by Allyson y Johnson, I’ve decided to take the plunge.

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness.

Angela’s Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt’s astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

A few months ago, I was browsing NetGalley when I should’ve been hacking away at my TBR and saw the words, “Friday Night Lights meets Mare of Easttown” and hit “Request” without reading anything else. Thankfully the rest of the description looked good, too.

Annie McIntyre has a love/hate relationship with Garnett, Texas.

Recently graduated from college and home waitressing, lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business—a private investigation firm—by her supposed-to-be-retired grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan’s misgivings.

When a waitress at the café goes missing, Annie and Leroy begin an investigation that leads them down rural routes and haunted byways, to noxious-smelling oil fields and to the glowing neon of local honky-tonks. As Annie works to uncover the truth she finds herself identifying with the victim in increasing, unsettling ways, and realizes she must confront her own past—failed romances, a disturbing experience she’d rather forget, and the trick mirror of nostalgia itself—if she wants to survive this homecoming.

A publicist working with Hellmann emailed me about this a couple of weeks ago. He hasn’t steered me wrong yet, had to give this a shot.

With little work during the pandemic, Chicago PI Georgia Davis agrees to help the best friend of fellow sleuth, Ellie Foreman. Susan Siler’s aunt died suddenly after her Covid booster, and Susan’s distraught mother wants the death investigated.

However, Georgia’s investigation is interrupted by a family trip to Nauvoo, Illinois, the one-time Mormon heartland. It’s there that her life unexpectedly intersects with the runaway spouse of a Mormon Fundamentalist. Back in Evanston, after Georgia is almost killed by a hit and run driver, she discovers that she and the escaped woman look remarkably alike.

Is someone trying to kill Georgia because of her death investigation case? Or is it a case of mistaken identity? And how can Georgia find her doppelganger before whoever wants them both dead tries again?

This impulse buy back on Independent Bookstore Day last year (or some other event at Rediscovered Books) has been sitting ignored on my shelf for months. Which is where “Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge” comes in–this fits the April prompt, so it finally gets some attention.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.

April’s book for the 12 Books Challenge is close to my typical kind of read, but looks high-falutin’ enough to be a bit out of the norm for me.

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family—which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother—he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years.

Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

I haven’t actually read the description below until this point (and I really only glanced at it enough to copy and paste accurately), all I need to know is that this is the 9th Peter Grant/Folly/Rivers of London book and I’m in.

The London Silver Vaults—for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a paparazzi convention.

Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace—only that’s what happened.

The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light, and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit.

Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London’s tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North!

And Peter must solve this case soon, because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s about to encounter something—and somebody—that nobody ever expects…

This is another one from the publicist mentioned in #6. I can’t imagine I’d have even heard of this without him.

It is the summer of 1971 and Liz takes care of her four sisters while waiting to meet the sixth Murphy child: a boy. And yet, something is not right. Adults tensely whisper in small groups, heads shaking. Her younger sister, Rose seems more annoying, always flashing her camera and jotting notes in her notepad. The truth is worse than anyone could imagine: an entire family slaughtered in their home nearby, even the children. The small rural community reels in the aftermath. No one seems to know who did it or why. For Liz, these events complicate her already tiring life. Keeping Rose in line already feels like a full time job, and if Rose gets it in her head that she can solve a murder… The killer must be someone just passing through, a random horror. It almost begs the question: where do murderers live?