(Featured image: “All Quiet in the Library” by Emma Block)
The Literary Hoarders are die hard library lovers (Library Hoarders?)! We love, depend, rely and pretty well grew up in our libraries. We utilize so much that our libraries have to offer!
And I’ll admit to treating the “Place a Hold” option at my library almost like a game, seeing how fast can I put the titles that are “on order”, on hold so that I can be the very first person to crack that book open. Total book nerd confession: it gives me such a thrill! Being the first person to open it also ensures there are no questionable stains, items, and marks in them, or questionable uses for the book other than reading them. I try hard to make it look like it’s still brand new when I’m finished with it too. (Recently, author Claire Fuller wrote an article about “The Weird Things People Leave in Books” for Publishers Weekly and it left me stunned and really icked out! (And entire taco? Bacon? Bologna?) Now I for sure hustle with the “on order” listings!)
Sometimes all those books we’ve put on hold, treating it like a Christmas wish list, come tumbling in all at once. I know this isn’t something that only happens to only us, but it’s like another game we play. “How many books came in this week for you all at once?” I think the most recent winner was Hoarder Elizabeth with 6 books coming in all in the same week. :-) Our trigger fingers obviously get the best of us!
Anyway, I was looking through the items I have “On Hold” today noticing that one or two may arrive for me in the next couple of weeks, and I thought to share the titles I have on this list. Currently, I have 8 titles on hold:
I am going to assume the first to come in will be Mary Walsh’s Crying For the Moon, since it’s release date is this week. I’m completely looking forward to reading this one! I think Mary Walsh is a Canadian comedic genius. With this teaser about the “unforgettable Maureen Brennan, a young woman coming of age in late 1960s St. John’s, Newfoundland”, it has me highly anticipating this debut novel.
Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais was pitched to the Hoarders for review by G.P. Putnam, but given as a PDF Netgalley e-book. No to the PDFs! So happily, this one is coming to our library soon, so I’ll be able to read and review without getting all frustrated over a PDF document! :-) Touted as, “Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.” Sounds like something we need to read right? (Way off topic, but I watched the biopic, Amelia, over the weekend, starring Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart and Richard Gere as G.P. Putnam. I had no idea they were married! ;-) )
I saw Heretics blurbed somewhere and it immediately piqued my interest! An historical mystery that has all the makings of a Hoarder hit (hopefully!), “In 1939, the Saint Louis sails into Havana with Jewish refugees seeking asylum. From the docks, nine-year-old Daniel Kaminsky watches as the as his parents are kept on the vessel. But the Kaminskys have a treasure that they hope will save them: a Rembrandt portrait of Christ. Inspector Conde is back to investigate the story of this lost painting.”
The Vanishing Futurist is one I had never heard of before the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction longlist came out. Now that it made the shortlist, I figured it was something that I might want to read. I recommended the library order this one in (that’s also a nice little option I’ve been using with more frequency lately!! I used it for Heretics too.) after seeing the shortlist announcement. It sounds like something I’ve never read before, so it should be an interesting reading adventure. A governess in revolutionary Russia devoting herself to the “charismatic inventor, Nikita Slavkin, she’s inspired by his belief in a future free of bourgeois clutter, alight with creativity and sleek as a machine.” This one reminds me for some reason of the 2012 Man Booker longlisted title, The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman. Maybe because of the cover? Maybe because of the quirkiness of the description? (I haven’t read The Teleportation Accident though.)
Now, I’m not really sure where or when I saw the description for Ferocity by Nicola Lagioia, or what had me checking to see if the library had it in. It was something they had on order, which I thought was an interesting coincidence, so I placed it on hold. It isn’t released until October, so I’ll still be waiting some time before this one comes available. “Winner of the 2015 Strega Prize, Italy’s preeminent prize for fiction, Ferocity is a cinematic suspense novel that also addresses vital social questions, a combination of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, filtered through the fierce Mediterranean vision of Elena Ferrante.” (I’m thinking perhaps a combination of Flynn, Franzen and Ferrante (ha!) was what first piqued my interest?)
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. This long awaited (20 years after The God of Small Things!) new novel by Roy made sure I threw a hold on it. I own The God of Small Things, but you guessed it, haven’t read it yet (I know! I know!) but this new one sounds just as beautiful and is such an anticipated release that it must be read!
I’ve seen a great deal of buzz surrounding Sarah Schmidt’s See What I Have Done so I just had to check to see if the library was bringing this one in. “In this riveting debut novel, See What I Have Done, Sarah Schmidt recasts one of the most fascinating murder cases of all time into an intimate story of a volatile household and a family devoid of love.” A fictional story about Lizzie Borden, plus that arresting cover had me sold!
New Donal Ryan! I saw this announced on Twitter and immediately got the trigger finger ready. Another quick read – All We Shall Know is only 192 pages – I’m guessing we’ll be treated to another character study over a plot-heavy story. Ryan writes these stories with stunning characters that stay on my mind long after finishing – I’m still thinking of Johnsey from The Thing About December.
These are just the books I’ve put “On Hold” but don’t really capture all the books I’m highly anticipating reading soon. Either the library doesn’t show them as being on order, or I’ve got them as e-books or requested on Netgalley, they were sent as beautiful book mail etc., etc. All.The.Books!
Also, there are a few books that I’ve recommended (such a nifty function!), but they aren’t showing in the catalogue yet, only the message that they will order them. So yay! Those ones are:
Books editor Fanny Blake, picked out the best new books for the month of April for the magazine Women & Home. The Valentine House was on this list and intrigued by it, I looked it up on Goodreads. Family saga? Okay! I immediately went to the Recommend a Title and am pleased to see the library is bringing this one in!
I’ve had my eye on The Tidal Zone for awhile now, and it keeps appearing on my radar. Plus, there’s another cover that is so arresting and haunting! Are You Sleeping‘s description had me at “Serial meets Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood in this inventive and twisty psychological thriller about a mega-hit podcast that reopens a murder case—and threatens to unravel the carefully constructed life of the victim’s daughter.” Sold! Let Go My Hand is one that author John Boyne gave 5-stars to: “Let Go My Hand is a darkly comic and deeply moving twenty-first-century love story between a son, his brothers and their father. Through these vividly realized characters, it asks elemental questions about how we love, how we live, and what really matters in the end.”
That’s a lot of library love!
What do you have on hold at your library?
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