Last Book Haul of the Year!

Hi Readers! How are you all? Well, I forgot to tell you about all the books I bought in November. So, here’s a combo post of my recent book purchases last month & this month. I do a lot of research into buying books now that I have read my fair share of bad books. So, I am hoping that from all these EIGHT BOOKS, I will enjoy at least more than half of them! Check out the fab list!

~~LINCOLN IN THE BARDO BY GEORGE SAUNDERS~~

This historical fiction novel has been on my TBR for a long time. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2017. It has all three aspects about a novel that I LOVE: Historical Fiction. War. Literary Award Winner. Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.”

~~LOVELY WAR BY JULIE BERRY~~

While Lovely War may not be as popular as some of the other war-based historical fiction novels, I am really looking forward to reading it. I think it will be completely different from the books I have read in the same genre, mainly because of the romantic quotient into it. Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“It’s 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when Hazel and James first catch sight of each other at a London party. She’s a shy and talented pianist; he’s a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. When they fall in love, it’s immediate and deep–and cut short when James is shipped off to the killing fields.

Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who’s played Carnegie Hall, he’s a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that’s before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who’s already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans.

Thirty years after these four lovers’ fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.”

~~SHUGGIE BAIN BY DOUGLAS STUART~~

This year, I followed the Man Booker Awards pretty closely. I checked who made it to the longlist, the shortlist & then finally who won. As you all must know, Shuggie Bain won the Man Booker Prize in 2020 & I instantly ordered the book! The story seems full of emotion & portrays the realities of life. Once I start reading this book, I am sure it will hold all of my attention! Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Edouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.”

~~GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER BY BERNARDINE EVARISTO~~

I think every person on Goodreads has read ‘Girl, Woman, Other’. It has been on my list forever. I had started reading it on e-book once, but soon I realized this is the kind of book I can read better when I have a copy of it. So, here it is finally & I will get to it soon! Another win is that it won the Man Booker Prize in 2019! Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“Teeming with life and crackling with energy — a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.”

~~THE NIGHT CIRCUS BY ERIN MORGENSTERN~~

The Night Circus is the one book that has intrigued me for quite a while, and so I finally decided to order it. I have high expectations from it & will probably read it soon-ish! Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.”

~~THE NAMESAKE BY JHUMPA LAHIRI~~

I think most of you now know that I absolute love Jhumpa Lahiri. I read ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ and ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ & loved both of them! I am really looking forward to reading this one. I am pretty sure once I start reading this, I will finish it in a couple of days. Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail — the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase — that opens whole worlds of emotion.”

~~THE WAY OF KINGS (PART ONE) BY BRANDON SANDERSON~~

Technically, I bought this book for my brother. But, he has pestered me enough for me to accept reading this book. The reviews are amazing & I am pretty sure once I start the first book, I will want to read the entire series right away. But, I am waiting for the motivation to hit just right. The Goodreads blurb is ironically to big to read, so you can just check it out here!

~~DANCE, DANCE, DANCE BY HARUKI MURAKAMI~~

Finally, two new Murakami books to the pile! Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami’s idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance.”

~~BIRTHDAY GIRL BY HARUKI MURAKAMI~~

And this is super short & cute book. Check out the blurb from Goodreads:

“She waited on tables as usual that day, her twentieth birthday. She always worked Fridays, but if things had gone according to plan on that particular Friday, she would have had the night off.

One rainy Tokyo night, a waitress’s uneventful twentieth birthday takes a strange and fateful turn when she’s asked to deliver dinner to the restaurant’s reclusive owner.

Birthday Girl is a beguiling, exquisitely satisfying taste of master storytelling, published to celebrate Murakami’s 70th birthday.”

So, that’s all for now, folks! With these additions, the unread pile on my bookshelves have totaled up to TWENTY ONE!!

Until next time,