January Book Haul!

Posted On January 19, 2021

Hi Readers! How is you reading going this year? I found out that there’s a movie adaptation of Firefly Lane coming on Netflix, and so I had to read Kristin Hannah’s book before that. This is how my January haul kind of started. But, I ended up reading Firefly Lane on e-book, because the book’s delivery was after the movie release date! Anyway, I am just looking for literally any excuse to buy & hoard books!

These books have been on my TBR since forever. So, obviously no regrets! I haven’t exactly planned on which to read first. Check out the Goodreads blurb & rating! I will read these & post a book review soon, I hope.

 

~~MILKMAN by ANNA BURNS~~

Goodreads Rating: 3.56/5

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 352

Award: Book Prize (2018)

In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes ‘interesting’. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous.

Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences

 

~~MY DARK VANESSA by KATE ELIZABETH RUSSELL~~

Goodreads Rating: 4.04/5

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 373

Award: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction & for Debut Novel (2020)

Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

 

~~A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA by ISABEL ALLENDE~~

Goodreads Rating: 4.07/5

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 336

Award: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2020)

From the author of The House of the Spirits, this epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home.

A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile, and belonging, A Long Petal of the Sea shows Isabel Allende at the height of her powers.

 

~~THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by RICHARD OSMAN~~

Goodreads Rating: 4.09/5

Genre: Mystery

Pages: 382

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

 

~~10 MINUTES 38 SECONDS IN THIS STRANGE WORLD by ELIF SHAFAK~~

Goodreads Rating: 4.09/5

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 312

Award: Booker Prize Nominee (2019)

An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour

‘In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila’s consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away…’

 

~~THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL by ELIF SHAFAK~~

Goodreads Rating: 3.84/5

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 368

Award: Orange Prize Nominee for Longlist (2008)

From one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken writers, a novel about the tangled histories of two families.

In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the “bastard” of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya. A secret is uncovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres. Full of vigorous, unforgettable female characters, The Bastard of Istanbul is a bold, powerful tale that will confirm Shafak as a rising star of international fiction.

 

~~CITY OF GIRLS by ELIZABETH GILBERT~~

Goodreads Rating: 4.04/5

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 496

Award: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2019)

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

 

~~BEARTOWN by FREDRIK BACKMAN~~

Goodreads Rating: 4.25/5

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 432

Award: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2017)

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

 

The irony is, despite buying so many books, I have only read on my e-book this month. I am going to try really hard to read the unread books on my bookshelf before reading e-books! Have you read any of these books? Any suggestions on which I should read first? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Until next time,