Must Reads/TBR Update #CatchingUp

Hello everyone 😀 . Thank you for coming to see some of the must reads on my TBR. As we all know TBR’s fill up fast. Then they topple over, so we re-arrange them and find there is some more room available. So more books go on top. And repeat.

I have so many potentially excellent reads sitting on my shelf, not forgotten!, just waiting to be read. I have put together this post to share them with you and find out if anyone else has read the books to help me decide where to go first. Please comment if there are any particular books here that you loved or hated.

The Book by Keith Houston.

Published by: WW Norton.

Why I picked it up: I am constantly looking for great books about books. This seemed like it might be the ultimate one!

Synopsis: We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them?

In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages—of civilisations, empires, human ingenuity and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000 year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today. Sure to delight book lovers of all stripes with its lush, full-colour illustrations, The Book gives us the momentous and surprising history behind humanity’s most important—and universal—information technology.

Strange The Dreamer by Lani Taylor

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Why I picked it up: I have been seeing this up and down the blogger community all month. Thought I would take a look for myself.

Synopsis: The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around – and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance to lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries – including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

In this sweeping and breathtaking new novel by National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor, author of the New York Times bestselling Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy, the shadow of the past is as real as the ghosts who haunt the citadel of murdered gods. Fall into a mythical world of dread and wonder, moths and nightmares, love and carnage.

The Vinyl Detective: The Run Out Groove by Andrew Cartmel

Published by: Titan Books

Why I picked it up: I have recently read and reviewed book one in this series and loved it. Excited to get back in.

Synopsis: His first adventure consisted of the search for a rare record; his second the search for a lost child. Specifically the child of Valerian, lead singer of a great rock band of the 1960s, who hanged herself in mysterious circumstances after the boy’s abduction.

Along the way, the Vinyl Detective finds himself marked for death, at the wrong end of a shotgun, and unknowingly dosed with LSD as a prelude to being burned alive. And then there’s the grave robbing…

The Fix by David Baldacci

Published by: Pan Macmillan

Why I picked it up: Law fiction is the main reason I got into blogging in the first place, along with SF. I will always have a soft spot for Baldacci and Grisham.

Synopsis: Amos Decker, David Baldacci’s unique special agent, who suffered a head injury that resulted in giving him the gift of a remarkable memory together with a condition called synaesthesia, takes on another case in The Fix.

Walter Dabney is a family man. A loving husband and the father of four grown daughters , he’s built a life many would be proud of.

But then the unthinkable happens.

Standing outside the FBI Headquarters in Washington, D C, Dabney shoots school teacher Anne Berkshire in cold blood before turning the gun on himself.

One of the many witnesses is Amos Decker; a man who forgets nothing and sees what most miss.

Baffled by what appears to be a seemingly senseless and random killing, Decker is thrust into the investigation to determine what drove this family man to pull the trigger.

As part of an FBI special task force, Decker and the team delve into the lives of Dabney and Berkshire to find a connection that doesn’t seem to exist. What they do find are secrets that stretch back a lifetime and reveal a current plot of impending destruction that will send the world reeling, placing Decker and his team squarely in the crosshairs.

The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray

Published by: Canongate Books

Why I picked it up: Canongate Books are releasing some fantastic fiction recently. I loved the look and sound of this novel. Can’t wait to get into it.

Synopsis: Walter Dabney is a family man. A loving husband and the father of four grown daughters , he’s built a life many would be proud of.

The Lost Time Accidents is a bold and epic saga set against the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

Haunted by a failed love affair and the darkest of family secrets, Waldemar ‘Waldy’ Tolliver wakes one morning to discover that he has been exiled from the flow of time. The world continues to turn, and Waldy is desperate to find his way back.

In his ambitious and fiercely inventive new novel, John Wray takes us from turn-of-the-century Viennese salons buzzing with rumours about Einstein’s radical new theory to the death camps of the Second World War, from the golden age of post-war pulp science fiction to a startling discovery in a modern-day Manhattan apartment packed to the ceiling with artefacts of contemporary life.

Strange Magic by Syd Moore

Published by: Oneworld Publications

Why I picked it up: This isn’t my usual choice. But the artwork is stunning and the plot sounds entertaining. Plus Oneworld are consistently releasing awesome books.

Synopsis: Rosie Strange doesn’t believe in ghosts or witches or magic. No, not at all. It’s no surprise therefore when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run.

Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There’s the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for old bones, those of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there’s curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can’t decide if he’s tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating. It all adds up to looking like her plans to sell the museum might need to be delayed, just for a while.

Finding herself and Sam embroiled in a most peculiar centuries-old mystery, Rosie is quickly expelled from her comfort zone, where to her horror, the secrets of the past come with their own real, and all too present, danger as a strange magic threatens to envelope them all.

Gastrophysics by Charles Spence

Published by: Penguin Viking

Why I picked it up: Two reasons. You can never read enough non-fiction. And you can never learn enough about eating…

Synopsis: Why do we consume 35% more food when eating with one more person, and 75% more when with three? Why are 27% of drinks bought on aeroplanes tomato juice? How are chefs and companies planning to transform our dining experiences, and what can we learn from their cutting-edge insights to make memorable meals at home?

These are just some of the ingredients of Gastrophysics, in which the pioneering Oxford professor Charles Spence shows how our senses link up in the most extraordinary ways, and reveals the importance of all the ‘off-the-plate’ elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the placing on the plate, the background music and much more. Whether dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we’re tasting and influence what others experience. Mealtimes will genuinely never be the same again.

Read more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/295794/gastrophysics/#4yMWJOgfSOA4rmCK.99

The White Road by Sarah Lotz

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Why I picked it up: I was sent this by H&S and I loved the plot idea. And the artwork is stunning. I read the first few chapters and got hooked.

Synopsis: Adrenaline-junky Simon Newman sneaks onto private land to explore a dangerous cave in Wales with a strange man he’s met online. But Simon gets more than he bargained for when the expedition goes horribly wrong. Simon emerges, the only survivor, after a rainstorm trap the two in the cave. Simon thinks he’s had a lucky escape.

But his video of his near-death experience has just gone viral.

Suddenly Simon finds himself more famous than he could ever have imagined. Now he’s faced with an impossible task: he’s got to defy death once again, and film the entire thing. The whole world will be watching. There’s only on place on earth for him to pit himself against the elements: Mt Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

But Everest is also one of the deadliest spots on the planet. Two hundred and eighty people have died trying to reach its peak.

And Simon’s luck is about to run out.

The Massacre of Mankind by Steven Baxter

Published by: Gollancz

Why I picked it up: I am really excited about this. The most historic science fiction novel in years. Written by one of my favourite SF writers.

Synopsis: It has been 14 years since the Martians invaded England. The world has moved on, always watching the skies but content that we know how to defeat the Martian menace. Machinery looted from the abandoned capsules and war-machines has led to technological leaps forward. The Martians are vulnerable to earth germs. The Army is prepared.

So when the signs of launches on Mars are seen, there seems little reason to worry. Unless you listen to one man, Walter Jenkins, the narrator of Wells’ book. He is sure that the Martians have learned, adapted, understood their defeat.

He is right.

Thrust into the chaos of a new invasion, a journalist – sister-in-law to Walter Jenkins – must survive, escape and report on the war.

The Massacre of Mankind has begun.

Nabokov’s Favourite Word Is Mauve: The literary quirks and oddities of our most-loved authors by Ben Blatt

Published by: Simon & Schuster

Why I Picked It Up: I am constantly looking for great stories and tid-bits about great authors. This book just seemed to satisfy that quest. And the artwork superb :D.

Synopsis: Nabokov’s Favourite Word is Mauve is a playful look at what the numbers have to say about our favourite authors and their classic books. Journalist and statistician Ben Blatt asks the questions that have intrigued curious book lovers for generations: Does each writer have their own stylistic footprint? Do men and women write differently? What are the crutch words our best-loved authors fall back on? Which writer is the most clichéd? Spanning from Shakespeare and Jane Austen to fan fiction, JK Rowling and Stephen King, Blatt reveals the quirks and oddities of the world’s greatest writers. This is a lighthearted, humorous book that uses numbers to inform our understanding of words to enlighten, to clarify, and, above all, to entertain.

Thank you for stopping by to check out some of the awesome books I have waiting on my shelves. I am always taking suggestions so please feel free to leave a comment below about books that are in your TBR that you need to pick up soon! As usual with these posts, the publisher’s information and a direct link to the book in question are connected the relevant title/publisher name. So you are able to pack your already unstable TBR with a few more books :D.