Happy Tuesday, star bits! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I spent it trying to cram as many books as I could into my brain pan. I received a plethora of incredible titles last week, which made it really hard to choose what to read. So I started about ten of them, ha ha, including White Cat, Black Dog: Stories by Kelly Link, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, Megan McDowell (Translator), The Ferryman by Justin Cronin, and Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson. You can see many of them here so you can get them down on your TBR. You know how I love to spread the word about upcoming books!
As for today’s books, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that I did not read many of today’s books that I enjoyed enough to pass along, so I am sharing three that I am excited to read. The good news is that after this week, publishing starts ramping up again for a huge fall, in which I have read so many of the books. So thanks for coming on this journey with me, and I promise, there will be more recommendations that I have read next week. You can hear about some of today’s new releases on this week’s episode of All the Books! where Tirzah and I discussed the best books we read for this week and more, including Complicit, Tumble, and Acting Class. And now, it’s time for everyone’s favorite game show: AHHH MY TBR! Here are today’s contestants.
Stories from The Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana
I can’t wait to pick this up, because you know how I love interconnected stories! Each of the stories in this debut collection is about a tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem. Fofana looks at their lives separately, including their hopes and dreams, as well as how their paths cross in the building.
The Honeys by Ryan La Sala
And I did start this dark YA thriller recently, because Danika gave it such a rave review on All the Books! and WOW was she right about the beginning. It opens with a teen trying to kill her brother in his bed, and then goes back to examine what could have driven her to such an act. The quest for answers will lead him to a prestigious summer academy, home of a mysterious group called The Honeys. I will definitely be getting back to this soon!
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis by Beth Macy
And last but not least, this important work of nonfiction. A few years ago, Macy examined the opioid crisis in America in Dopesick (which has since become an award-winning series). Now, in Raising Lazarus, she dives deeper into the epidemic, highlighting the people on the front lines working to combat the crisis and offer help to those who need it. I don’t know anyone whose life hasn’t been touched in some way by the opioid crisis, and I will definitely be buying a copy of this next time I’m at the bookstore.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
This week, I am reading What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall at the moment, but like I mentioned, I have about ten other books going, because I want to read everything all at once. Outside of books, I have been playing a bit of World of Warcraft in the middle of the night. It’s a great time to play! And the song stuck in my head is “Just Like Honey” by The Jesus and Mary Chain. I’m into listening to music from the 1980s while I play WoW and I started a playlist this weekend of songs I thought I’d like to hear and the next thing I knew, it had over 700 songs. You can listen here! And here is your weekly cat picture: Zevon is demonstrating how he is able to get away with murder: by being the cutest.
Thank you, as always, for joining me each week as I rave about books! I am wishing the best for all of you in whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! – XO, Liberty