Skip to main content

Booking Through Thursday


It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. today, so I know at least some of you are going to be as busy with turkey and family as I will be, so this week’s question is a simple one.

What books and authors are you particularly thankful for this year?

I’m thankful for a lot of books and authors, some of which are new to me and some of which are old favorites. Elizabeth Chadwick is an author I “discovered” about a year ago, and since then I’ve read nine of her well-written and researched novels. This year I also discovered the books by Susanna Kearsley, which are always good, creepy reads for a rainy fall afternoon. Along the same lines are the novels of Mary Stewart; a bit trashy, but good fun nonetheless. I’m also thankful for the Morland Dynasty series, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, which I discovered this year as well. And, last but not least, the beautiful books that are published by Persephone: excellent women’s fiction and nonfiction, presented in those beautiful dove-gray covers and endpaper (be careful, their website is dangerous!). So far this year I’ve read The Priory, Monica, Miss Buncle’s Book, and The Making of a Marchioness. Persephone’s books never fail to surprise and delight, and I look forward to reading more from them in the future. I'm also thankful to those publishers who ever so graciously offer me advance review copies (Wolf Hall comes to mind)... or send them to me when I beg them! And thanks also to you (few) readers of this blog... thanks for reading along!

Comments

Sherrie said…
Hi!
I haven't read any of your authors. I'll have to check them out. Have a great day!

Sherrie
Just Books
http://sherriesbooks.blogspot.com/2009/11/booking-through-thursday_26.html
Anonymous said…
I'm thankful for the authors whom I have discovered and re-connected this year. I don't want to give away the top 10 books of the year yet so I just highlight the authors.

I'll foray into the Persephone series next year. It seems to have so many promising titles! Happy Thanksgiving! :)
Gwendolyn B. said…
I'm thankful to have been exposed to a lot of new authors and to have expanded my reading horizons. I'm particulary grateful that my old favorites are still hard at work, too! I recently read A DUTY TO THE DEAD by Charles Todd - the beginning of a new series. And the next Ian Rutledge book by the "Todd Team" is due out: THE RED DOOR, at the end of December.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Heidi said…
I'm quite thankful for your posts this year -- especially the Persephone titles. I was completely unfamiliar with them until your postings and I'm looking forward to a 2010 TBR pile that includes several of them. Thanks!
Anonymous said…
I love it when a book is well researched... and you can't turn down a good trashy novel. And those reprints are so pretty!

My answer is over here. Happy Thanksgiving!
Novel Insights said…
I would like to read Wolf Hall, and I need to put some Persephone books on my list!

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

Review: Mariana, by Monica Dickens

Mariana is the story of one young girl’s growth towards adulthood during the 1920s and ‘30s. The book begins when Mary Shannon is eight, and traveling with her somewhat flighty mother to Charbury, her grandparents’ house; and continues up through the time that Mary is twenty-four and waiting to hear news of her husband from the war. Monica Dickens (a great-granddaughter of Charles) depicts Mary’s maturation to adulthood with perfection. The reader sympathizes with Mary as she experiences the ups and downs of relationships and careers—experimenting with both seems to be pretty characteristic of Mary, as she grapples a bit with identity and independence. And yet, there isn’t the usual amount of teenage angst that one usually finds in a novel about growing up, which I found to be very refreshing. Mary is a sweet and sometimes naïve girl, but at the same time, she’s also wonderfully sarcastic towards her peers. She’s hard to like at times, but in an odd way, I found myself sympathizing wi...