Get Lost in Literature

Today's Tuesday Top Ten subject is Cozy Reads (Share books that give off a cozy vibe, whether through atmosphere, setting, or some other factor. Please tell us why they’re cozy for you, too!)  I won't make it to ten today, settling for five books that I found to be especially cozy reads. 1.   The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking. One of the coziest books I've ever read, all about living in the world's coziest country, Denmark. If your idea of a cozy is a candlelit room, a warm hearth, a cup of hot cocoa, pastries, and a good book... That's Hygge for you. And that's apparently what makes Denmark the happiest country in the world. 2.   The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. The story takes place on "the edge of the Russian wilderness" and while a snow storm in the Russian forest sounds super chilly, the idea of kids sitting round the fireplace getting told folktales by their nurse while the snow falls outside is super warm. Also as luck wo...

 The older Strike got, the more he’d come to believe that in a prosperous country, in peacetime – notwithstanding those heavy blows of fate to which nobody was immune, and those strokes of unearned luck of which Inigo, the inheritor of wealth, had clearly benefited – character was the most powerful determinant of life’s course. PI Robin Ellacott is approached by cartoonist, Edie Ledwell, who has been harassed to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Edie rose to fame when her an her boyfriend Josh Blay created The Ink Black Heart, for YouTube and it generated a massive following with a devoted fanbase, complete with overly obsessed superfans. One fan in particular, screen name Anomie, has devoted their life to ruining Edie's, harrassing her through social media and using an online game to help whip the fandom into an angry mob hell bent on punishing the cartoonist. Edie's desperate to learn Anomie's true identity. Robin turns down the case and, a few days later, Edie Ledwell is...

  "The hotel room was pain and noise and chaos. Victor came to, dazed, trapped between the school lab and the hotel room, Angie's scream in his head and Sydney's in his ears. Sydney? But the girl was nowhere to be seen..." The book blurb for this story, describe Victor and Eli as "brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys..." but that's an understatement. Victor and Eli are psychopaths who meet in college; they're both geniuses, top of the class, with the world at their fingertips and they're both hungry for power. Victor is a loner, who's world famous psychologists parents have abandoned him for book tours, leaving him to his studies in neuroscience. He doesn't try to fit in, he doesn't want to... But he finds himself drawn to Eli- a charismatic, athletic, pre-med student, who enjoys being the center of attention. Working together, they figure out that the key to having all the power they want is surviving . I love an antihero story, and here...

 “Every morning is an afterlife. Every evening, I die anew in the trenches amid nightmares of artillery finding their target.” Beacon23 is a “lighthouse,” a one-man space-station anchored on the fringes of an asteroid field, there to guide space travelers safely through danger. The man who runs Beacon 23 is nameless, one of many stationed to a solitary life, making sure NASA’s never fail Beacon’s never fail… Until one day, his does. So this book will delight sci-fi nerds. If it’s space travel, intergalactic war, and aliens that you like, this book has it. If you like explosions, quick impulsive decisions, and crazy characters, this book’s got those. It’s a fast read, if you like that kind of thing, and if you do, that’s okay and this book’s for you. But if you’re the type of reader who likes to read a little deeper, this one might also be for you, too. Beacon 23 appears to be anti-war propaganda wrapped in a fast-paced space opera. The main character who’s real name is never reveal...

  The main characters of this story aren't particularly likable. Which perhaps is motivation to keep reading, that the main characters are realistically human. Tom is a bit of a narcissistic dick and his wife Abby comes off as cold and oblivious. Both parents were left broken when their daughter was kidnapped. Abby turned to the church in her time of need and Tom obsessively continued investigation into his daughter's disappearance. Overall, there was an easy flow to the writing style even as the subject matter was grim. At times I wondered if Uncle Buster was really necessary to the story, mostly he just seemed a little cliché and some of his conversations felt like a waste of time. I kept turning the page, wanting to know answers to questions like "what happens next?" and "how does it end?" so it absolutely hit its suspense quota. After four years apart, Tom finally gets what he wants: Caitlyn comes home. It's not enough. She's not the same, how co...

...there is no you there is no me there is only we we we we we..." There's quite a bit going on in this book. Elisa Esposito is a mute woman working as a janitor at a government research facility in 1960s Baltimore. Colonel Richard Strickland has been put in charge of an expedition to the Amazon to capture a river creature the local tribes are worshiping. The creature is captured and brought to the research facility, tying Strickland and Elisa's lives to its own. The writing is sharp, the story is fast paced, the characters are well thought out. If you just want a really good story to fall into this is a good one. Woman meets monster, woman wants to save monster. What could go wrong is as intriguing as what could go right. It goes a touch further, I think, riddled through with political statements using the way things were to point out how things are. A mute woman, a gay senior, a black woman, and a Russian spy are standing between the creature and its absolute destruction...

  "The moments that define lives aren't always obvious. They don't always scream, LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there's no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren't always protracted, heavy with meaning." I am really enjoying this, but I've got a thing for anti-heros...  * Thursday Quotables  invented by  Bookshelf Fantasies . 

  "Screams, then a shout.  The sound is muffled, muted, like it's coming down a tunnel.  Then a face appears at the window, twisted in an expression of absolute terror." High up in the mountains, a tuberculosis hospital is getting a face lift. It's been transformed into a five star hotel, with a minimalist design aesthetic, that echos the clinic it used to be and creepy medical themed artwork because who doesn't want to look at anatomy diagrams and archaic surgical tools when they're vacationing on Mt. Middle of Nowhere. Elin Warner and her boyfriend Will, have just been invited to celebrate her brother Isaac's engagement to her childhood friend Laure. She hasn't seen either person in years, cutting off social ties after the death of her younger brother. After Elin's panic attacks start effecting her job performance, she takes an extended sick leave, leaving her with no excuse not to attend the engagement party.    The hotel creeps her out almost i...

  "It's great to live free of the other sheep until you hear the wolves howl." Kate Holland and her husband Dan move to Greenloop, a small neighborhood nestled in the forest beneath Mt Ranier. Greenloop is advertised as both, the antithesis of the evils created by city living, and the future of housing development. Smart homes built in the middle of nowhere, running off of bio-gas and solar panels, with drones dropping groceries into the backyards. It's the perfect place to live if you're looking to reconnect with nature... Until a volcanic eruption leaves the residents of Greenloop isolated... and hunted. This is not WWZ . I found it a little slow to start where WWZ was disturbing from the first page. I also found the Journal entries and character interviews so much like WWZ I wondered if the writing style was a crutch. ( It sold well once before, right? ) It was preachy in some locations, which I wouldn't have minded ( because I happen to agree with Max Br...

  "Hygge is humble and slow. It is choosing rustic over new, simple over posh and ambience over excitement." Denmark has been voted one of the happiest nations in the world, and that's largely attributed to their concept of Hygge. Hygge is all about creating a quiet and warm atmosphere and taking time to enjoy the simple things in life. I feel like the book spoke to me on a personal level, as the secret to Denmark's happiness includes a lot of things I already enjoy doing. I'm no stranger to curling up with a hot cocoa and a good book or a night out by a campfire. It's always been important to me to make time to connect with nature, and it seems strange to me that others refuse to leave their houses... Now I find there's an entire country who believes this is the correct way to live. It seems Denmark took, what I always considered to be the introvert's way, and made it into a social event. In this I missed the mark, as I struggle to find connections in...

 Today's Top Ten Tuesday hosted by  hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl  was listed as "Freebie." I've chosen to list my Top Ten Favorite Movie Adaptations.  1.  A Time to Kill by Josh Grisham. A terrible crime is committed by White Supremacists and followed by a swift act of vengeance by a grieving father. This is one of the rare occurrences where the movie is better than the book.  2. Jaws by Peter Benchley. A monster shark is terrorizing the beach just in time for 4th of July. Probably the only shark movie that isn't B-rated. Peter Benchley was good, but Steven Spielberg was better. 3. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Two kids with dark secrets and a serial killer terrorizing the suburbs. There were two movie adaptations of this, Let the Right One In was the Swedish version, and later the US produced one called Let Me In.  I've seen the both. If you're going to watch one, pick the Swedish version (with English subtitles). It was ...

  “We were so tired of death and destruction. We wanted to do something beautiful.”   The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis , by Eliizabeth Letts   When I was in college, I was asked to write an essay about WW2, but I could write about any aspect of it. I wanted to write about horses. That essay never got written. The statistics on how many horses were gunned down were staggering. No one wants to read that. I don't actually know what subject I chose. It was largely forgettable. I have forgotten it.   Now here's a book about horses in WW2, that is unforgettable. Elizabeth Letts had better luck with her research than I did with mine.  During WW2, Germany was running low on horse power and the Nazis were developing a top secret eugenics program to breed the ultimate military horse. But without native stock, they began stealing the four legged national treasures from countries they were occupying. The gro...

Book Blogger Hop 15th - 21st  - Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, do you prefer listening instead of reading? (submitted by Elizabeth @  Silver's Reviews ) I almost never listen to audiobooks. I like the idea of them, but I lack the attention span. What should be enjoyable story time is really just white-noise to my ears. I absolutely prefer reading. I like being able to put the story together in my head, visualize the place, the time, the people. If a story is really well written, I like being able to stop intermittently and think about what I just read and why the author felt compelled to write it. I want to savor each word like freshly baked cookies. Which do you prefer?

  "I left the police force in Norfolk so I wouldn't have to deal with this sort of crap," Williams began. "My ex-wife got me to move here for the peace and quiet. Damn, was that woman wrong! No wonder we got divorced."  - Hour Game by David Baldacci I'm trying a mystery on for size this week. I'm early on in it, it's a little cliche, kind of funny, and I'm hoping full of suspense. Thursday Quotables hosted by   Bookshelf Fantasies

I only did 6 of my 10 for Top Ten Book Covers That Feel Like Summer  ( Submitted by Ellie @  Curiosity Killed the Bookworm )/ But these were the first titles that popped into my head.  Hero by Walt Morey  Holes by Louis Sachar  What Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown  THe EightyDollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts  Songmaster by Orson Scott Card  By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder I apologize for the shoddy formatting, this post was spur of the moment on a sleepless night.  * Top Ten Tuesday   hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl , formerly hosted by   The Broke and Bookish.   A topic is assigned every Tuesday and bloggers create their own top ten list for the topic. Feel free to link me to you TTT posts. I hope you are all having sunny summer days doing the things you wouldn't get to do in winter.

  "I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world." The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, is a retelling of Homer's Iliad . The story is narrated by Patroclus, a young prince who is nothing that a prince should be, undersized and seemingly untalented in every way, he begins his life as his father's disappointment. After another child dies, Patroclus is sentenced to exile; sent to live out the rest of his childhood in King Peleus' household as an orphan being trained for war.  Young prince Achilles, is Patroclus' polar opposite. The son of King Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis, he is his father's honor and the pride of his kingdom. He is beautiful, bold and brilliant, destined by Fate to be "the best of the Greeks," doted on by all who meet him. Everyone wants to be his friend, but Achilles only has eyes for one...

  "We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other." The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Finally made time to read this one. I'm halfway through and I can't understand why I waited so long. It's a beautiful dream. Thursday Quotables @  Bookshelf Fantasies

The Interprovincial Medical Institute has taken it upon itself to protect us, from ourselves. A parasitic orgnaization, it infects young minds and turns selected children into doctors. It monopolizes the medical profession entirely, forcing its human hosts into a co-dependent relationship. Baron de Verdira, a cruel ruler in a desperate countryside, is heavily reliant on the Institute's expertise to keep himself alive. His old doctor died under mysterious circumstances and it will be up to his replacement to unravel the horrors in Chateau de Verdira, just as a bitter winter descends. The baron's new doctor discovers a dangerous parasite infestation, other than its own. A strange creature with probing black legs, that's quietly propagating and subsequently killing its hosts. As the doctor investigates the newly discovered parasite, she begins to realize there is more infecting the residents of Verdira than parasites.  Leech by Hiron Ennes is being market as a "debut...

I've been a way for a few weeks, out in the garden and doing some re-landscaping. I thought I'd foiled the bun-buns a few years ago, by planting animal resistant and poisonous plants. But the newest batch of babies figured out that while the greens may be bitter and somewhat poisonous, the blossoms are still sweet. Today's Top Ten Tuesday List was Top Ten Books with a Unit of Time in the Title.  I am skipping this week, my mind drew a blank and I couldn't commit the time. But if you're participating, be sure to drop by  That Artsy Reader Girl  and join her link up. I think, technically, this is last week's topic, but since each Hop covers the span of a week, I'm sneaking it in today.  Book Blogger Hop   3rd - 9th   - What is your method for writing reviews - do you write immediately after reading, wait a few days, or write as you are reading? (submitted by Elizabeth @  Silver's Reviews ) I take notes as I'm reading, on the them...

  “Who is she?” said Inarë, and smiled in the most unsettling way. “Why, she’s the fury of the stars." Kira Navarez, is a xenobiologist. It's her job to make sure that newly discovered planets are safe for colonizaton, as humanity expands life across the galaxy. Stationed on a moon, Adrasteia, she's close to ending her career of shuttling through space looking for life on other planets, ready to settle down and start a family. (That doesn't go as planned.) Accidentally, she finds Life. An entity, known as The Soft Blade, part alien parasite and part nanotechnology, bonds with her body inadvertently starting an intergalactic war that only she has the power to end. (Personal opinion) Sometimes, I perceive the science-fiction genre as having more masculine themes than feminine ones, and sometimes when female characters appear their character is cheapened by their inability to survive without their main love interest. (end personal opinion) Christopher Paolini earns my res...

  “She wanted to say 'I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage'...” This book was probably my most ambitious read of the year. A story over 900 pages, that covers decades of life. The characters were richly fleshed out: Tom Mason who dreams of building the greatest cathedral England has ever seen. Philip, youngest Prior of a defunct monestary, determined to raise it to glory. Young noble lady Aliena, betrayed, assaulted, robbed of her home, and fighting back for her rights in a time that favors patriarchs. William Hamleigh, cunning and cruel, who can't decide whether revenge or power is more rewarding. This story was a fine example of how characters should drive a plot and not be controlled by a preconceived notion of what should happen. Ken Follet crafted a world on paper where the characters didn't just live a little; they breathed and they bled into the soul of the book. I cried when they cried, I hoped when they hoped. My review does not do ...

"Make friends with fear, Lucien always said, because it will not go away, and it will destroy you if left uncontrolled." I'm a long time fan of the film, just reading the book for the first time. The story takes place in rural, 1980s Mississippi, where two men brutally assault a ten year old girl. Her father, Carl Lee Hailey, believes they'll get away with it because his daughter is black while the perpetrators are white... and he seeks revenge. Jake Brigance is a criminal lawyer who is called to represent Mr. Hailey and defend him from the ultimate punishment: death. I've never been to Mississippi so I can't say as to whether or not the public racial tensions depicted in this book are entertainingly cliche or disturbingly spot on. Segregation legally ended, but in the hearts of the citizens of Clanton, it ended too soon. White on Black on White crimes invite protests, Klansmen, excessive use of the N-word, more violence, and the National Guard... It also illu...

Book Blogger Hop Do you drink tea or coffee while reading? (submitted by Billy @  Coffee Addicted Writer ) My preference is actually for hot chocolate. I'll occasionally swap out the hot chocolate for a non-caffeinated herbal tea, and on hot summer days, swap out the hot beverage for a tall glass of chilled lemonade. What's your literary beverage of choice?

  "It isn't selfish to protect yourself from abusive people." No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull No, it's really not. Thursday Quotables @  Bookshelf Fantasies

There is something wrong with my brain when it comes to connecting long-term human dialogue, to a story I can follow.  I first discovered this problem with radio broadcasts.  As a kid, my dad always had a radio outside on hot summer days, blasting the Red Sox game for the whole neighborhood to hear. I could sit in the stands and watch a baseball game, or sit in front of the television, but I never could bring the announcers voice into my mind's eye to hear the game.  Alternatively, my mother not only could listen and understand the broadcasts, she once told me she actually preferred listening to football and baseball on the radio. She'd get excited about some call made during a Patriot's game during a car ride, and be unhappy when I didn't know what was happening, never-mind which team it was happening too. I made a friend, who was older than myself, but shared my love of reading. Her thing was English Mysteries. She also liked to read "whatever the kids are readin...

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is: Books I Was SO EXCITED to Get, but Still Haven’t Read. I considered skipping today, because I couldn't think of a single title to add to the list... And then something inside me went, "C'mon, be honest..." My eyes glanced sideways at the two reusable shopping bags in the corner of my room, loaded up with books. It feels weird, and maybe a little shameful that I had to have these books, and there they sit. But I take comfort knowing, that this topic is proof: I am not alone. 1. Norwegian by Night , by Derek B Miller 2. Salvage the Bones , by Jesmyn Ward 3. The Yard , by Alex Grecian 4. Vicious , by VE Schwab. 5. The Sanatorium, by Sara Pearse 6. The Song of Achilles , by Madeline Miller 7. The House Next Door , by James Patterson 8. Hour Game , by David Baldacci 9. Classic Stories , by Edgar Allen Poe 10. A Thousand Splendid Suns , by Khaled Hosseini I'm waiting on some hot summer weekends, to spend lounging in a lawn chair, t...

  "We're Miss Peregrine's peculiar children," said Bronwyn. "You know what," said Enoch. "That doesn't sound quite right anymore." You've got that right, Enoch. When I reviewed Library of Souls , I opened with the words, "The final installment of Miss Peregrine's, was a surplus of ebb and flow..." I felt like book 3 was comparatively lacking the magic and intrigue of the first two books, and neither book 3 or 2 had the charm of the first novel. It was the final installment and a part of me was relieved to have an ending... Quite obviously, Ransom Riggs wasn't ready to let go because the story continues on. (I know, I know, no one is making me read it.) Book 4 came as a surprise to me, not just because it exists when it shouldn't, but because I almost wish the book had been marketed as a new series for the same characters. Jacob and the Peculiars' original story arc is complete and this is something new. Long at la...

T. Kingfisher's  What Moves the Dead,  is a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's, The Fall of the House of Usher.  I've never read anything by T.Kingfisher before, I couldn't resist the temptation offered by this ARC from NetGalley. I'm a longtime Poe fan, and The Fall of the House of Usher is my favorite. Alex Easton, a retired Gallacian soldier, receives a letter from his childhood friend, Madeline Usher. The letter is urgent, she doesn't have long left to live and now her brother's health is failing as well. He rides out to the House of Usher, to find the manor decrepit; its occupants too poor to maintain it, and too sickly to leave it. An American surgeon, Dr. James Denton, has been called to treat the Ushers' strange malady, but admits to not knowing what it is or how to help them. As Alex tries to help his friends, he begins to realize there is more to the mystery than meets the eye. Out on the heath, the animals are acting strangely... The first two par...

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl , today's topic is Top Ten Bookish Characters (these could be readers, writers, authors, librarians, professors, etc.) I quite like when writers write books with bookish characters and plots, so I'm super excited about this topic. 1.  Liesel Meminger in  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak . An orphan growing up in Nazi Germany, Liesel covets books above all else. 2.  Clay Jannon in  Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan . Clay's just been hired to work at the 24 Hour Bookstore, where strange customer ask for even stranger books. 3.   Mori Phelps in  Among Others by Jo Walton . Mori is the daughter of a witch, who finds refuge from her family tragedy with science fiction novels. 4.   Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a college student, discovers a strange book at his school's library. As he tries to uncover the book's secret's he is eventually led to an ancient library hidden below the earth ...