Tales of a Book Addict

So this week I impulse ordered this one from Barnes & Noble:

Greer Kadetsky is a college freshman when she meets the woman who will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a pillar of the women’s movement for decades, a figure who inspires others. Hearing Faith speak for the first time, in a crowded campus chapel, Greer feels her inner world light up. She and Cory, her high school boyfriend, have both been hardworking and ambitious, jokingly referred to as “twin rocket ships,” headed up and up and up. Yet for so long Greer has been full of longing, in search of a purpose she can’t quite name. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites her to make something out of her new sense of awakening. Over time, Faith leads Greer along the most exciting and rewarding path of her life, as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory, and the future she’d always imagined. As Cory’s path, too, is altered in ways that feel beyond his control, both of them are asked to reckon with what they really want. What does it mean to be powerful? How do people measure their impact upon the world, and upon one another? Does all of this look different for men than it does for women?

With humor, wisdom, and profound intelligence, Meg Wolitzer weaves insights about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition into a moving story that looks at the romantic ideals we pursue deep into adulthood: ideals relating not just to woo we want to be with, but who we want to be.

At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the select figures and experiences that shape our lives. It’s about the people who guide and the people who follow – and how those roles evolve over time. And it acknowledges the flame we all want to believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time.

I also made the mistake of going to my grandmother’s house and going through her recently read books ….. oops!?!

One book this week, my BOTM selection:

This is a love story.

Mike Hayes fought his way out of a brutal childhood and into a quiet, if lonely, life before her met Verity. V was the first person to understand him. To love him. In return, Mike has dedicated his life to making her happy. He’s secured the right job; he’s found the perfect home; he’s sculpted himself into the physical ideal V has always wanted. He’s ready to start their blissful life together.

It doesn’t matter that V hasn’t been returning his e-mails or phone calls.

It doesn’t matter that she says she’s marrying Angus.

It’s all part of the secret game they used to play. As long as Mike watches V closely, he’ll see the signs. If he keeps track of her every move, he’ll know just when to come to her rescue…

Spellbinding and seductive, Our Kind of Cruelty is a darkly twisted love story – one that draws razor-sharp lines between love and obsession, between truth and perception, and dares you to pick a side.

This one came from my grandmother with her description of it as being “really good.” Harlan Coben has never let me down, so I’m sure it is really good!

Suburban New Jersey Detective Napoleon “Nap” Dumas hasn’t been the same since his senior year of high school, when his twin brother, Leo, and Leo’s girlfriend, Diana, were found dead on the railroad tracks – and Maura, the girl Nap considered the love of his life, broke up with him and disappeared without explanation. For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother’s death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he’s been looking for.

When Maura’s fingerprints turn up in the rental car of a suspected murderer, Nap embarks on a quest for answers that only leads to more questions – about the woman he loved, about the childhood friends he thought he knew, about the abandoned military base near where he grew up, and mostly about Leo and Diana – whose deaths are darker and far more sinister than Nap ever dared imagine.

So my local used book store is unfortunately closing down 😥 They had tried to sell it and had a buyer, but something happened and the sale fell through. You have NO IDEA how much I wanted to buy this bookstore. I would be in absolute heaven. So anyway, I stopped in there last Friday after work. The picture below is 26 books that I picked up in a big bag of thrillers. Kind of a blind date type of thing, it was all sealed up and sold for $10. I figured why not…. I did pretty good. I’ve read one of those already and three others I already own, but I figured 22 books for not knowing what I was getting was pretty good. Besides … some of these look really interesting – lots of new-to-me authors!  

And this stack are the books that I picked out myself off the shelves. 

I’m sure I’ll make another stop back in there before they close (in mid-May) …. but there were already big gaps in their shelves that hadn’t been there a month or so ago 😦 And now I will have to drive at least 2 hours in order to get to a used book store. That’s a bummer … we do still have a Barnes & Noble locally, but there’s just something about used bookstores that I love.