Happy New Reading Year!
As I finally turned the page on 2021, it was nice to learn of new books coming this month by some of my favorite authors and/or books about interesting topics and personalities. Here are some books I look forward to this month:
A Narrow Door: A Novel by Joanne Harris on sale January 4
Now I'm in charge, the gates are my gates. The rules are my rules.
It's a powerful ttime for St Oswald's school. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to girls.
Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely forty, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered.
But Rebecca is here to make her mark. She'll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before. After all, you can't keep a good woman down.
This is a tale of psychological suspense and revenge at an elite grammar school where secrets run deep, one of three that Harris has written---Gentleman and Players and Different Class. Read this article to find out about her own experience teaching at an elite school.
Shackleton by Ranulph Fiennes on sale January 4
A new biography of Ernest Shackleton written by Ranulph Fiennes is the only man alive, to have traveled around the Earth’s circumpolar surface. He says “To write about Hell, it helps if you have been there.”
In 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton's attempt to traverse the Antarctic was cut short when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. The disaster left Shackleton and his men alone at the frozen South Pole, fighting for their lives. Their survival and escape is the most famous adventure in history.
Shackleton is a captivating new account of the adventurer, his life and his incredible leadership under the most extreme of circumstances. Written by polar adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes who followed in Shackleton's footsteps, he brings his own unique insights to bear on these infamous expeditions. Shackleton is both re-appraisal and a valediction, separating Shackleton from the myth he has become.
The Final Case: A novel by David Guterson on sale January 11
A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey—conservative, white fundamentalist Christians—are charged with her murder.
Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey’s case. An octogenarian without a driver’s license, he leans on his son—the novel’s narrator—as he prepares for trial.
So begins The Final Case, a bracing, astute, and deeply affecting examination of justice and injustice—and familial love. David Guterson’s first courtroom drama since Snow Falling on Cedars, it is his most compelling and heartfelt novel to date.
Was It Worth It? : A Wilderness Warrior's Long Trail Home by Doug Peacock on sale January 25
In a collection of gripping stories of adventure, Doug Peacock, loner, iconoclast, environmentalist, and contemporary of Edward Abbey, reflects on a life lived in the wild, asking the question many ask in their twilight years: “Was It Worth It?”
Recounting sojourns with Abbey, but also Peter Matthiessen, Doug Tompkins, Jim Harrison, Yvon Chouinard and others, Peacock observes that what he calls “solitary walks” were the greatest currency he and his buddies ever shared. He asserts that “solitude is the deepest well I have encountered in this life,” and the introspection it affords has made him who he is: a lifelong protector of the wilderness and its many awe-inspiring inhabitants.
With adventures both close to home (grizzlies in Yellowstone and jaguars in the high Sonoran Desert) and farther afield (tigers in Siberia, jaguars again in Belize, spirit bears in the wilds of British Columbia, all the amazing birds of the Galapagos), Peacock acknowledges that Covid 19 has put “everyone’s mortality in the lens now and it’s not necessarily a telephoto shot.” Peacock recounts these adventures to try to understand and explain his perspective on Nature: That wilderness is the only thing left worth saving.
Violeta [English Edition]: A Novel by Isabel Allende on sale January 25
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life will be marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling…
She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately, not one, but two pandemics.
Told through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.
Her Hidden Genius: A Novel by Marie Benedict on sale January 25
Marie Benedict writes about women who are forgotten or left in the background of important historic and scientific events.
Rosalind Franklin knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture—one more after thousands—she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens—the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what happens next, Rosalind could have never predicted.
Marie Benedict's next powerful novel shines a light on a woman who died to discover our very DNA, a woman whose contributions were suppressed by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind.
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