What’s On Hold at your Library?

It’s that time again for a round of “What’s On Hold at your Library?” :-)

Even though the number of books at home is staggering, we find we just can’t help ourselves and roam through the stacks inside our public libraries too.

My On Hold pile isn’t actually too bad at the moment – it’s only 10 books. ;-)  Let’s take a peek at what’s currently on that list shall we?

Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti

For fans of Elena Ferrante, Fredrik Backman, and Paulo Coelho comes the international sensation about the friendship between two young Italian boys from different backgrounds and how their incredibly strong connection evolves, changes, and challenges them throughout their lives.

A modern Italian masterpiece, The Eight Mountains is a lyrical coming-of-age story about the power of male friendships and the enduring bond between fathers and sons. “There are no more universal themes than those of the landscape, friendship, and becoming adults, and Cognetti’s writing becomes classical (and elegant) to best tell this story .

First Person by Richard Flanagan

I was blown away by Flanagan’s (so worthy) Man Booker winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North, so I’m all over the chance to read his latest.

A young and penniless writer, Kif Kehlmann, is rung in the middle of the night by the notorious con man and corporate criminal, Siegfried Heidl. About to go to trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million, Heidl proposes a deal: $10,000 for Kehlmann to ghost write his memoir in six weeks.

But as the writing gets under way, Kehlmann begins to fear that he is being corrupted by Heidl. As the deadline draws closer, he becomes ever more unsure if he is ghost writing a memoir, or if Heidl is rewriting him—his life, his future. Everything that was certain grows uncertain as he begins to wonder: who is Seigfried Heidl—and who is Kif Kehlmann?

By turns compelling, comic, and chilling, First Person is a haunting journey into the heart of our age.

Mary Cyr by David Adams Richards

New David Adams Richards! (Mary Cyr’s cover is a BookAlikes to at least 4 other books though.)

A fresh new novel from a Canadian literary legend–this time with an extraordinary and unforgettable woman protagonist who is sure to become one of the great characters in our literature.

Mary Cyr opens in Mexico, just as a disaster strikes a small town: a coal-mine has collapsed, with thirteen men trapped inside. Less than forty-eight hours later, the authorities summarily decide to abandon all hope of finding survivors and seal up the mine entrance–willfully oblivious to the half-dozen souls still breathing below ground. Shortly after that, a thirteen-year-old Mexican boy, Victor, is discovered dead in the hotel room of a Canadian visitor–a 45-year-old woman, and heiress to a vast fortune, who goes by the name Mary Cyr.

Thus begins this shocking, brilliant and compelling novel–a late-career tour de force by one of our most unique and powerful writers.

Mr. Flood’s Last Resort by Jess Kidd

Now…this actually has two titles! In the UK it’s called The Hoarder. Originally I thought Jess Kidd was releasing a wonderful two-book bonus for us this year! But no, it’s just the one book, but with two different titles. Hoarder Elizabeth has already ordered this one direct from the UK, so her copy is coming as The Hoarder. I’m first in line at the library to read it as Mr. Flood’s Last Resort. 

From the award-winning author of the “supernaturally skillful debut” (Vanity Fair) Himself, a spellbinding romp about a caretaker and a cranky hoarder with a secret—complete with skulking saints, unresolved disappearances, greedy heirs, and a firecracker neighbor determined to get to the bottom of it all.

Full of charming eccentricities, twisted comedy, a whole lot of heart, and Jess Kidd’s “lyrical, lush, and hugely imaginative” (Sunday Express Magazine) prose, Mr. Flood’s Last Resort is a mesmerizing tale that will make you re-examine the space between sin and sainthood, reminding you that when all is said and done, the most important forgiveness that we can offer is to ourselves.

Radiant Shimmering Light by Sarah Selecky

I really enjoyed Selecky’s story collection, This Cake is for the Party, so I’m eager to read her debut novel!

A sharply funny and wise debut novel about female friendship, the face we show the world online and letting your own light shine, from the Scotiabank Giller Prize–shortlisted author of This Cake Is for the Party.

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

I’m eagerly waiting for this one!

From the internationally bestselling author Sarah Winman comes an unforgettable and heartbreaking novel celebrating love in all of its forms and the little moments that make up the life of an autoworker in a small working-class town.

This is almost a love story. But it’s not as simple as that.

With beautiful prose and characters that are so real that they jump off the page, Tin Man is a love letter to human kindness and friendship, and to loss and living.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

So while I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Borrower, and I haven’t read The Hundred-Year House yet (but it sits on my shelf patiently waiting for me), I did really love Makkai’s story collection, Music for Wartime. So The Great Believers is highly anticipated!

A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Makkai.

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDs epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, he finds his partner is infected, and that he might even have the virus himself. The only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.

Yale and Fiona’s stories unfold in incredibly moving and sometimes surprising ways, as both struggle to find goodness in the face of disaster.

Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey

I loved Elizabeth is Missing, so when I heard that Emma Healey had a new one coming I quickly threw a hold on it at the library!

Jen’s fifteen-year-old daughter goes missing for four agonizing days.

When Lana is found, unharmed, in the middle of the desolate countryside, everyone thinks the worst is over. But Lana refuses to tell anyone what happened, and police draw a blank. The once-happy, loving family return to London where things start to fall apart. Lana begins acting strangely: making secretive phone calls, hiding books under her bed, sleeping with the light on.

As Lana stays stubbornly silent, Jen sets out to solve the mystery behind her daughter’s disappearance herself…

Tangerine by Christine Mangan

I cannot stop looking at this cover! There is just something about it that is so arresting!

Tangerine is a sharp dagger of a book—a debut so tightly wound, so replete with exotic imagery and charm, so full of precise details and extraordinary craftsmanship, it will leave you absolutely breathless.

The Italian Teacher, by Tom Rachman

I haven’t read Rachman’s debut, The Imperfectionists, but I have read and really loved, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers. So adding The Italian Teacher to the TBR was a no-brainer. Funny thing though, I was notified I won a copy from a Goodreads Giveaway, but it’s not made its way to me yet. Until then, I’ll keep my hold on it so that I can be the first person to read it when it comes in to the library and just in case my own copy remains missing.

Rome, 1955

The artists are gathering together for a photograph. In one of Rome’s historic villas, a party is bright with near-genius, shaded by the socialite patrons of their art. Bear Bavinsky, creator of vast, masculine, meaty canvases, is their god. Larger than life, muscular in both figure and opinion, he blazes at art criticism and burns half his paintings. He is at the centre of the picture. His wife, Natalie, edges out of the shot. From the side of the room watches little Pinch – their son.

What makes an artist? In The Italian Teacher, Tom Rachman displays a nuanced understanding of twentieth-century art and its demons, vultures and chimeras. Moreover, in Pinch he achieves a portrait of painful vulnerability and realism: talent made irrelevant by personality. Stripped of egotism, authenticity or genius, Pinch forces us to face the deep held fear of a life lived in vain.

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Now it’s just going to be very important that all 10 don’t flood in at the same time! Hoarder Elizabeth is drowning right now in messages from her library with all the books that are arriving for her almost daily! Seemingly all at once! ;-)

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Another fantastic feature my library offers is the ability to request books to order that aren’t appearing in their catalogue. I’ve really taken advantage of that opportunity in these past couple of days! I’ve already used 6 of my 10 “Recommend a Title” suggestions for the month. What did I recommend?

An Unremarkable Body, by Elisa Lodato

This one could have / should have been on my Beautiful Book Covers post!

With the heart of a memoir and the pace of a thriller, An Unremarkable Body reveals an overwhelming desire to make sense of an unfulfilled life – and to prove that an unremarkable body does not mean an unremarkable life.

In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, by Jennifer Haupt

Now, I know I already have this in e-book format, but I will probably want to read it in paper format, so now I have that opportunity when the library orders it in.

Follow the intertwining stories of three women from diverse backgrounds, all searching for family and personal peace in post-genocide Rwanda. At the heart of this inspiring novel that bestselling author Wally Lamb calls “an evocative page-turner” and Caroline Leavitt calls “blazingly original” is the discovery of grace when there can be no forgiveness.

The End of Music, by Jamie Fitzpatrick

I first heard about this one from Naomi at Consumed by Ink and she said it was a lot like Most Everything You Please, by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole, a book I recently read and loved.

In The End of Music, Jamie Fitzpatrick’s two mesmerizing, interwoven narratives circle the lives of Joyce, a modern young woman navigating the fraught social mores of a small town in its post-war heyday, and her son, Carter, more than fifty years later, whose days as an aspiring rock star are over. As Joyce’s memories of the past begin to escape her, her son’s past returns to haunt him. Brilliantly and unflinchingly revealing the inner lives of his characters, Fitzpatrick offers an extraordinary novel, with two startling twists, about women, men, and reckoning with the past.

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by Nova Jacobs

This description perfectly sums up why I’m interested in this one:

The Family Fang meets The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in this literary mystery about a struggling bookseller whose recently deceased grandfather, a famed mathematician, left behind a dangerous equation for her to track down—and protect—before others can get their hands on it.

Ecstasy, by Mary Sharratt

This one is on my Beautiful Book Covers post! I already own Illuminations by Mary Sharratt (yes, it sits still unread!) but Hoarder Elizabeth has already read it and really enjoyed it, so I knew this one would be a must read too.

In the glittering hotbed of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Vienna, one woman’s life would define and defy an era.

Part cautionary tale, part triumph of the feminist spirit, Ecstasy reveals the true Alma Mahler: composer, author, daughter, sister, mother, wife, lover, and muse.

The House of Birds, by Morgan McCarthy

This is one the library actually declined. :-( They just say they won’t be ordering this one. It’s not a recently published one, it was published in 2016, but I love the description of it and it’s been on my TBR since I first heard about it:

Morgan McCarthy’s THE HOUSE OF BIRDS is a beautiful and bewitching story of love, war and second chances that will be adored by readers of Kate Morton, Louisa Young and Virginia Baily.

Oliver has spent years trying to convince himself that he’s suited to a life of money making in the city, and that he doesn’t miss a childhood spent in pursuit of mystery, when he cycled around the cobbled lanes of Oxford, exploring its most intriguing corners.

When his girlfriend Kate inherits a derelict house – and a fierce family feud – she’s determined to strip it, sell it and move on. For Oliver though, the house has an allure, and amongst the shelves of discarded, leather bound and gilded volumes, he discovers one that conceals a hidden diary from the 1920s.

So begins a quest: to discover the identity of the author, Sophia Louis. It is a portrait of war and marriage, isolation and longing and a story that will shape the future of the abandoned house – and of Oliver – forever.

Bummer they can’t order this in… Well, looks like this will be one I just have to purchase.

What’s on hold at your library? Does your library have a “Recommend a Title” option? Do you take advantage of it if they do?