This was a hefty book buying month. I spent a bit of the money I got kindly given for Christmas, and me and my husband went on a library book sale hop. Here are all the books I added to my collection in January 2020.
Forever, Interrupted
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Me and my husband have started a tradition of going to a book store at the end of December and choosing out a new book to kick off the year reading. I didn't know what I was in the mood for as I browsed the many, many, many shelves of Barnes&Noble so instead I chose to buy a book by my favourite author that I had yet to read. Forever, Interrupted tells the story of a newly married couple, Ben and Elsie, who tragically get torn apart after Ben dies in a bicycle accident. Elsie, the now widow, has to come to terms with losing the love of her life and developing a relationship with the mother-in-law she had yet to meet. In true TJR fashion, this is a beautiful portrait of a female friendship.
by Amanda Bennett and Lori Schiller ($6.99)
At seventeen Lori Schiller was the perfect child-the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had entered the horrifying world of full-blown schizophrenia. She began an ordeal of hospitalisations, halfway houses, relapses, more suicide attempts, and constant, withering despair. But against all odds, she survived. The cover of this non-fiction initially drew me in but the synopsis was too interesting to pass up.
by Elizabeth McKenzie (50¢)
This is marketed as an unforgettable look at the way we live now. A young couple on the brink of marriage—the charming Veblen and her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist—find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other’s dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à -tête with a very charismatic squirrel. This, again, was a cover buy at a little library sale section but I'm very interested after seeing the many positive things written about it online.
The Rules Of Magic
by Alice Hoffman ($4)
This is a prequel to one of my favourite witchy books Practical Magic (you may know it mostly as the movie starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman). This is about everyone's favourite characters, the Aunts, and their experience carrying around the curse of love as teenagers in bustling New York. I'm so excited to read this. I'm imagining that it's going to a strange mix of Practical Magic and Daisy Jones & The Six. Speaking of...
by Taylor Jenkins Reid ($1)
I've gone on and on about this book for almost a year now, so I won't bore you. Click HERE to read my full fangirling review. I had been on the hunt to buy this used, and was so happy to find it at my favourite library book store.
by Gail Honeyman ($1)
This is about a woman who struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But after a chance encounter with a stranger and a man at work forms a friendship with her, she begins to question whether life would be more worth living with a shake up. I adore this book and already owned it in paperback but it was rather roughly used so I couldn't pass up this new-looking hardback for $1.
Beloved
by Toni Morrison ($1)
Set after the American Civil War, this is a much-loved book inspired by the life of Margaret Garner, an African American who escaped slavery in Kentucky in late January 1856 by crossing the Ohio River to Ohio, a free state. This is a novel that I always had on my radar but lately it seems as though everyone is reading and loving it. I'm prepared for a weird modern classic that will either take a place in my heart, or will leave me feeling bewildered and out-of-the-loop. Yay!
Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness
by Susannah Cahalan ($1)
When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labelled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? This got brought to my attention after the movie adaption got put on Netflix. This sounds heart-wrenching, but I'm very much interested.
Barnes & Noble Classics ($5.50)
I'm in the process of collecting this set as I think the copies are a brilliant way of being able to read these classics. Not only is the font size doable, but the footnotes explaining certain dances, dishes, and old timey words help me read without having to stop and Google something. Here are my recent finds:
The Picture Of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthrone
Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen
Emma
by Jane Austen
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
by Jules Verne
Daisy Miller &Washington Square
by Henry James
The Picture Of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthrone
Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen
Emma
by Jane Austen
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
by Jules Verne
Daisy Miller &Washington Square
by Henry James
Transcription
by Kate Atskinson ($1)
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. She's wrong. I've never read a Kate Atkinson novel so that coupled with this intriguing synopsis made me pick it up instantly.
by Barbara Kingsolver (50¢)
Willa Knox has always prided herself on being the embodiment of responsibility for her family. Which is why it’s so unnerving that she’s arrived at middle age with nothing to show for her hard work and dedication but a stack of unpaid bills and an inherited brick home in Vineland, New Jersey, that is literally falling apart. In an act of desperation, Willa begins to investigate the history of her home, hoping that the local historical preservation society might take an interest and provide funding for its direly needed repairs. I honestly had no idea what this was about when I picked it up, I just recognised the cover from some positive Goodreads reviews. I'm going into this one slightly blind but excited!
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower: 20th Anniversary
by Stephen Chobsky ($9.95)
This is my all time favourite book, heck, I already own five copies. But when I heard that for the anniversary edition Chobsky had included an exclusive new letter by Charlie, I instantly bought it. Worth it? Every single penny. It was beautiful, I cried, and instantly wanted to reread the entire novel.
What books did you purchase in January? See anything that's on your TBR? I'd love to know!
2 comments
Ooh this is such a good book haul! I love that tradition that you and your husband have. What a fun way to kick off the new year! I bought a few books with some of the Amazon giftcards I got for Christmas: a new copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, since my family's copy was falling apart, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I've never read), and a favorite, Unmentionable, about what it took to be a woman in the Victorian age. It's really funny and informative. But I'll have to add a few of the books you got to my TBR list! :)
ReplyDeleteEmily | www.thatweirdgirllife.com
Awh, thank you! Both To Kill A Mockingbird and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are on my TBR for 2020, don't know how I've never read them, especially TKAM. I'll definitely check out Unmentionable, sounds interesting!
Delete