Tag Archives: Book Suggestions

Book Suggestions: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!

I’ve been making an effort to read more African American literature, and also to select books that fit our CMLE 2018 Reading Challenge! Americanah fulfills both these requirements, and I’m finding it incredibly interesting. I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about Nigerian culture and also more about the immigrant experience. The writing is really witty and observant, so I’m enjoying this one so far!

From Goodreads: “As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America. There she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Thirteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger. But after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?

Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today’s globalized world.”

Book Suggestions: The Pope of Palm Beach

The Pope of Palm Beach, by Tim Dorsey

This is book #21 in Dorsey’s series – and every one will make you laugh out loud! The main character is Serge A. Storms – hyperactive, lover of Florida history, adventurer and explorer. Every book is Serge and his sidekick, Coleman, driving and exploring cool things from Florida’s history. They pull into a new town, and….wackiness ensues.

Oh. And Serge is a serial killer.

Not like *that* kind; he very specifically only kills bad people. And he’s amazingly creative about it. People generally don’t get shot in these books. Instead, in each book Serge spends time carefully thinking up punishments for people that fit their individual crimes. An alligator poacher is fed to a pool of alligators; evil bankers who stole people’s pensions are poisoned by bath salts in a Jacuzzi; he removes the safety device on a bungee swing ride and a gangster is thrown to his death.

As an added bonus, this book is all about books and the publishing industry. And, we get another example of Serge’s passion for librarians! (Smart chicks who like books: Really, aren’t they everyone’s type???)

If you need a beach-style book, that will make you laugh out loud as you read, with a dose of interesting Florida history mixed in for some educational value – these are the books for you! And if you like audio books, I really like these in that format – Oliver Wyman’s deadpan delivery adds to the laughter in every book.

From Amazon: “No one worships the Sunshine State as much as Serge A. Storms. Perpetually hunting Floridian arcana and lore, he and his permanently baked sidekick, Coleman, are on the road again. This time they’re on a frenzied literary pilgrimage that leads them back to Riviera Beach, the cozy seaside town where the boys spent their formative years.

Growing up, Serge was enthralled by the Legend of Riviera Beach, aka Darby, a welder at the port who surfed the local waves long before the hot spots were hot. A god on the water, the big-hearted surfer was a friend to everyone—the younger surfers, cops, politicians, wealthy businessmen and ordinary Joes—a generosity of spirit that earned him the admiration of all. Meanwhile, there was a much murkier legend that made the rounds of the schoolyards from Serge’s youth—that of the crazy hermit living in a makeshift jungle compound farther up the mysterious Loxahatchee River than anyone dared to venture.

Then Serge moved away. But never forgot.

Now he’s back, with those legends looming larger than ever in the rearview mirror of his memory. As his literary odyssey moves north from Key West, closer and closer to his old stomping grounds, Serge digs into the past as only Serge can. Along the way, he unintentionally disturbs some long-forgotten ground, attracting the attention of a cast of villains that only Florida can produce.

As the body count grows, so does the list of questions:

Why are the guys in the hard hats worried about the monkeys? When do you hack a motel air-conditioner? How does Coleman get high with cat toys? Who is expecting the dildo? And will book tours ever be the same after Serge decides to check one out?

Told in alternating flashbacks between Serge and Coleman’s childhoods and the present day, The Pope of Palm Beach is a witty and deliciously violent delight from the twisted imagination of Tim Dorsey.”

Book Suggestions: Doll Bones by Holly Black

We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!It’s so fun to pick books from Overdrive, because it exposes you to titles you may never have normally seen! This book was one of those finds, and I’m just about finished with it.

Doll Bones by Holly Black has a freaky-looking doll on the cover, and the story is just as delightfully creepy. It’s middle grade fiction and about three friends dealing with some of the tough parts of being a young teenager – trying to  figure out where you “fit in,” strict guardians, mean siblings, separated parents, and of course, a quest to bury a potentially haunted doll.

The main character is Zach, who has a fantastic imagination and loves making up stories with his neighborhood friends Alice and Poppy. He is also a member of the basketball team and is struggling to accept his father back into his life.

The book has some very real descriptions of the expectations and definitions of masculinity and how parents and peers reinforce those expectations, particularly onto others that may not fit the traditional mold. There’s also a lot of humor in the story, including some great Lord of the Rings references. Plus, a Carnegie library and it’s pink-haired librarian play an important role! I’m definitely enjoying this book and recommend it to you!

From Goodreads: “Zach, Poppy and Alice have been friends for ever. They love playing with their action figure toys, imagining a magical world of adventure and heroism. But disaster strikes when, without warning, Zach’s father throws out all his toys, declaring he’s too old for them. Zach is furious, confused and embarrassed, deciding that the only way to cope is to stop playing . . . and stop being friends with Poppy and Alice.

But one night the girls pay Zach a visit, and tell him about a series of mysterious occurrences. Poppy swears that she is now being haunted by a china doll – who claims that it is made from the ground-up bones of a murdered girl. They must return the doll to where the girl lived, and bury it. Otherwise the three children will be cursed for eternity . . . “

Book Suggestions: Bonfire

We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!

This week I read the book Bonfire, by Krysten Ritter. You might recognize her name from her acting work on Veronica Mars, Breaking Bad, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, Jessica Jones, and more.  I love her acting work, and wanted to see how she did as a writer. My verdict? It’s pretty good! Not amazing, but most first-time writers struggle to find their voice. I’m not deeply interested in lawyer books; but for sure if you are – this would be a good one to read.

From Amazon:

“It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small-town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands.

But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town’s most high-profile company and economic heart, Abby begins to find strange connections to Barrens’s biggest scandal from more than a decade ago, involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her closest friends—just before Kaycee disappeared for good.

Abby knows the key to solving any case lies in the weak spots, the unanswered questions. But as she tries desperately to find out what really happened to Kaycee, troubling memories begin to resurface and she begins to doubt her own observations. And when she unearths an even more disturbing secret—a ritual called “The Game”—it will threaten reputations, and lives, in the community and risk exposing a darkness that may consume her.

With tantalizing twists, slow-burning suspense, and a remote rural town of just five claustrophobic square miles, Bonfire is a dark exploration of what happens when your past and present collide.”

 

Book Suggestions: Spontaneous

Check out Spontaneous, by Aaron Starmer!

We love to read books, and to talk about books. Check out our entire series here! Need more book chatting and suggestions in your life? Listen to our Books and Beverages podcast!

I like to read YA books- but they have to be interesting. This book fulfilled that qualification, without a single doubt! I read this over two days – the second evening I stayed up way too late to finish it because I couldn’t put it down. Like some of the other commenters, I did not love the ending – but I’d still read it again because it was so interesting.

Mara, the main character, is a senior in high school. She’s smart and sarcastic – always good things for a protagonist. A kid in her math class suddenly explodes one day – a big shock to everyone. The second kid exploding was also a shock. So was the third kid. By the time a dozen have exploded, the FBI are involved along with all kinds of other individuals and organizations who are trying to figure out how these kids are spontaneously exploding.

From Amazon:

TIME magazine Top 10 YA & Children’s Book of 2016!
An ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection

With all the perfectly lovely young adult novels out there, you decided to check this one out? It’s got spontaneously combusting teenagers in it, dude. Not the slow burning type either. We’re talking the randomly exploding variety. Seniors in high school just walking along, heading to class, whistling Beyoncé, when—WA-BAM!— they’re suddenly dripping off the lockers.

Is that really something you’re into?

Confession: I’m actually kinda into that too. So, now that we’ve established we’re both thoroughly weird and, I assume, thoroughly open-minded, we can give it shot, right? Let’s at least read the opening chapters of this bad-boy and see if it features some of the more intriguing elements such as…

–       Exploding teenagers (obviously).
–       Hallucinogenic mushrooms.
–       Pyromaniacal boyfriends.
–       Triplet toddlers in powder blue suits.
–       Amur leopards and doomsday preppers.
–       A foul-mouthed female POTUS.
–       Ashtanga yoga.
–       ­Youtube sensations.
–       Self-driving Priuses.
–       Rogue FBI agents.
–       Mad scientists.
–       Homecoming.
–       Spring break.
–       Prom.
–       And … Jennifer Lawrence.

Notice how I put Jennifer Lawrence last. She’s in the book, so it’s not cheating. And hey, if it takes America’s most beloved movie star to sell this thing, then that’s what it takes.

So, in closing: Jennifer Lawrence.”