It's Monday 2/11! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Beautiful white, fluffy snow is falling outside this morning. This is the first of two storms heading our way. My husband hates when it snows, but I grew up in the snowbelt (Rochester, NY), and I like it. It’s just right here in Delaware – a few small snowfalls each winter, with some warmer days in between! I’m planning to go for a snowy walk around the neighborhood after I finish this post.

Believe it or not, I had more computer problems last week, after my crisis on Monday was resolved. Now, whenever I try to update my iPod, iTunes locks up, I can’t connect to WiFi, and everything comes to a screeching halt. Thankfully, restarting seems to reset the WiFi, BUT…this means I have been unable to load any new audiobooks onto my iPod – talk about a crisis! Luckily, I found one still on there that I hadn’t listened to yet, but I need to resolve this problem ASAP.

Here are the books (and audiobooks) we’ve been reading this week:

• I finished my next review book for Shelf Awareness, Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson, a Booktopia author from last year. I read and enjoyed his thriller, All the Beautiful Lies, last year for the annual event. This one is also a thriller, about a woman who discovers she’s living next door to a murderer. The problem is that no one believes her because she has a history of mental illness that once included paranoia and false suspicions. The real suspense comes from the fact that he knows that she knows! I enjoyed this page-turner that’s due out on March 5.
• Next, I turned to one of my TBR books that I’ve been dying to get to: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2017 and was on every Top Ten list that year. I am so glad I finally got to it because it is just as amazing as everyone said. It’s historical fiction but with some fantastical twists added. For instance, the Underground Railroad is a literal railroad underground! Also, each state that Cora, a runaway slave, travels through on her way north has its own unique identity and approach to slavery and race relations. Much of it is chilling and some of it is brutal, but it is also a completely compelling and captivating novel. 
• So, on audio, I couldn’t listen to The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh as planned last Monday because I couldn’t get it onto my iPod. Luckily, I realized I still had The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea on my iPod – I had hoped to read it for Nonfiction November and ran out of time. This works out well because I just pitched a book column to Shelf Awareness for Cinco de Mayo that includes this book (and was accepted by my editor), so I needed to read it anyway. It’s the true story of an attempt in 2001 by 26 Mexican men to cross the border into Arizona through a desolate stretch of desert known as the Devil’s Highway. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction and is certainly relevant to the immigration controversies and challenges rocking our nation right now. I’m not very far into it yet, but it’s fascinating so far.
• My husband, Ken, is reading a paperback I gave him for Christmas: Edge by Jeffrey Deaver. Though we both love Deaver’s Lincoln Rhymes series, this is a stand-alone novel, so we were intrigued by it. He is finally recovered from all his recent traveling, so he’s able to stay awake for more than a few pages at a time now!
• Our son, Jamie, 24, is now reading the FINAL book 14 of The Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. This one weighs in at a hefty 1168 pages! He loves this series and has been looking forward to the conclusion. He says this last book is action-packed right from the first chapters, he’s down to the last 200 pages, and he’s loving it.

Blog posts from last week:

Middle-Grade Review: The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson – mystery, history, and realistic fiction all rolled into one!

Fiction Review: Less by Andrew Sean Greer – warm, insightful, very funny novel about love & life

Graphic Memoir Review: Form of a Question by Andrew Rostan – coming-of-age memoir by a young man who realized his dream of appearing on Jeopardy!

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog’s page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?