Tag: History

ARC, Books

Book 1,019: The West – Naoíse Mac Sweeney

Geoff W

Book cover of "The West" with Amazon Affiliate linkThis was a fascinating read. Mac Sweeney takes what you think you know about “Western Civilization” and attempts to flip it on its head via fourteen mini-biographies about historical figures, only a few of which I knew immediately.

I feel horrible it’s taken me this long to push my response out. The publisher reached out in January 2023. I blew past the publication date in May 2023, and finally read it in December 2023. So, I’m hanging my head, because it’s now taken me another month and a half to actually publish my response.

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Books

Book 932: Young Jane Austen – Lisa Pliscou

Geoff W

Book cover of "Young Jane Austen" with Amazon Affiliate linkI picked this up back in 2016 and it’s languished on my TBR Austen/Brontë shelf ever since. It came up on my random book generator spreadsheet when I was packing books for our vacation back in February but it was the last one on the list and it kept getting delayed.

So FINALLY I made myself read wedge it in between ARCs this month and realized I should’ve read it weeks ago because it could easily be read in one sitting.

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Books

Book 929: Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li

Geoff W

Book cover of "Portrait of a Thief" with Amazon Affiliate linkI’m punching myself for not reading this book earlier AND for goofing off (aka knitting and Minecrafting) while reading it instead of blazing through it as it deserved. I’ve been sitting on this since November of LAST YEAR when someone in marketing at the publisher reached out with it.* I forced myself to wait until late March/early April to read it because I had a feeling I would really enjoy it and that barely covers my enthusiasm for it.

The premise was fascinating to me even if I was a bit wary of the Boston setting (I have bad experience with books being set where I live/have lived), but international art theft by college students, critiques on colonialism, BIPOC author, and characters, discussion of diaspora, ummm obviously I was going to say yes to it. I found out while reading the acknowledgments, that this has already been optioned by Netflix and I cannot tell you how much I’m ready for that!

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Books

Book 924: Tell Me Our Story – Anyta Sunday

Geoff W

Book cover of "Tell Me Our Story" with Amazon Affiliate linkAfter reading Anyta Sunday’s adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels I knew I wanted to try one of her other contemporary novels without the Austen framework so when this arrived in my inbox I requested a copy of it.*

Tell Me Our Story is the tale of uptight, heavily burdened Jonathan, who stayed in his hometown to care for his younger sibling (gender-neutral, never clearly stated but doesn’t have to be) after their parents died, and David O’Hara, who fled town when they were younger because of his dad and, as we ultimately learn, Jonathan. They’re in some sort of social media competition and that’s the premise of the novel.

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Books

Book 913: Word Nerd – John D. Williams, Jr.

Geoff W

Book Cover of "Word Nerds" with Amazon Affiliate linkI have no idea where I stumbled across this book. At first, I thought it was The Allusionist or 99% Invisible podcasts, but can’t find any mention of it on their sites and there’s nothing on NPR, aside from a review which I usually avoid, points to where it came from. I also didn’t purchase it from Amazon or any other online book retailer, so I must’ve randomly picked it up in a physical store and not tracked the purchase.

I’m glad I picked it up though! Not because I play SCRABBLE, because I’m not great at it, but because it just had a great title and subtitle and I figured it’d be an interesting read and it truly was.

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