Svetlana's Reads and Views

  Title of the book: Finding Normal; Sex, Love and Taboo in Our Hyperconnected World  Author: Alexa Tsoulis-Reay Publisher: St. Martin's Press Publishing Date: 2022 ISBN: 978-1-250-27919-4 Summary: Alexa Tsoulis-Reay's Finding Normal is an author's up close tour of people who are using the Internet to challenge the boundaries of what's taboo and what it means to be normal. Based on a popular series of candid interviews conducted for New York magazine’s human science column—"What It's Like"—Finding Normal explores the ways that real people are using the Internet to find community, forge connections, and create identity in ways that challenge a variety of accepted sexual norms. Ranging from the atypical to the shocking, each story in Finding Normal intimately immerses the reader in the world of a person who is grappling with a unique set of circumstances relating to sexuality. Finding Normal at once celebrates the power of our current media moment for helpin...

Name of Book: Notes on an Execution Author: Danya Kukafka ISBN: 978-0-06-305273-4 Publisher: William Morrow Type of book: countdown, prison, 1973- 2019, vignettes, women, serial killers, lives unlived, second person, chances, aches, determination, friendship, loyalty, abuse, control, choices, keepsakes, Vermont?  Year it was published: 2022 Summary: In the tradition of Long Bright River and The Mars Room, a gripping and atmospheric work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life—from the bestselling author of Girl in Snow. Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him. Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story...

  Title of the book: Red is My Heart Author: Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur Publisher: Gallic Books Publishing Date: 2022 ISBN: 9781913547370 Summary: How can you mend a broken heart? Do you write a letter to the woman who left you - and post it to an imaginary address? Buy a new watch, to reset your life? Or get rid of the jacket you wore every time you argued, because it was in some way ... responsible? Combining the wry musings of a rejected lover with playful drawings in just three colours - red, black and white - bestselling author of The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain, and renowned street artist Le Sonneur have created a striking addition to the literature of unrequited love. Sharp, yet warm, whimsical and deeply Parisian, this is a must for all Antoine Laurain fans. Author Info: Antoine Laurain (born 1972) is a French author. He previously worked as a screenwriter and antiques dealer. His first novel "The Portrait" was published in 2007 and he achieved wide international a...

Name of Book: A Thousand Steps Author: T. Jefferson Parker ISBN:9781250793539) Publisher: Forge Books Type of book: summer of 1968, LSD, drugs, hippies, California, Laguna Beach, cops, mystery, parties, death survival, relationships, war, missing person, work, guns, rescue, teenagers,  Year it was published: 2022 Summary: A Thousand Steps is a gripping thriller, an incisive coming-of-age story, and a vivid portrait of turbulent time and place by three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker. Laguna Beach, California, 1968. The Age of Aquarius is in full swing. Timothy Leary is a rock star. LSD is God. Folks from all over are flocking to Laguna, seeking peace, love, and enlightenment. Matt Antony is just trying get by. Matt is sixteen, broke, and never sure where his next meal is coming from. Mom's a stoner, his deadbeat dad is a no-show, his brother's fighting in Nam . . . and his big sister Jazz has just gone missing. The cops figure s...

  Name of Book: Honor Author: Thrity Umrigar ISBN: 978-1-61620-995-7 Publisher: Algonquin  Type of book: 1990s, 2018, India, return, journalism, questions,  Muslims in India, privilege, relationships, honor, burning, poverty, classicism, metropolitan areas, decisions, family, hiding, forced conversions  Year it was published: 2022 Summary: THE NEW REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK FOR JANUARY! In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide. Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart...

Name of Book: Nazare Author: JJ Amaworo Wilson ISBN: 978-1-62963-908-6 Publisher: PM Press Type of book: dictatorship, fishing village, magic, foretelling, fantasy tropes, coming of age, growing up, witches, various languages, heroes, heroines, Balaal, rule, rebellions, plotting, comedy and seriousness, animals, nature  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: Nazaré tells the story of a peasants' revolt in the polyglot city of Balaal. The story begins with a miracle. A homeless boy sees a whale washed up on the beach. He alerts the local fishermen, and soon the whole town is trying and failing to push it back into the ocean. With just the boy left to accompany the whale now in its dying throes, a freak wave pulls the creature back into the sea. This is an omen. Change is coming. The boy and the washerwoman who adopts him cobble together a ramshackle army of fishermen, shopkeepers, lapsed nuns, anarchist bats, and an itinerant camel. They attempt to end the reign of the dictator who ru...

  Name of Book: Out Fron the Following Sea Author: Leah Angstman ISBN: 9781646031948 Publisher: Regal House Publishing Type of book: New England, pariah, religion, Native Americans, outcast, leadership, British vs French, witchery, 1680s, ship, travel, marks, brands, marriage, relationship, sin, church, community, bible,  Year it was published: 2022 Summary: Out Front the Following Sea is a historical epic of one woman’s survival in a time when the wilderness is still wild, heresy is publicly punishable, and being independent is worse than scorned — it is a death sentence. At the onset of King William’s War between French and English settlers in 1689 New England, Ruth Miner is accused of witchcraft for the murder of her parents and must flee the brutality of her town. She stows away on the ship of the only other person who knows her innocence: an audacious sailor — Owen — bound to her by years of attraction, friendship, and shared secrets. But when Owen’s French ancestry finds...

 Name of Book: A Bend in the Stars Author: Rachel Barenbaum ISBN: 978-1-5387-4628-8 Publisher: Type of book: 2000, 1914, science, eclipse, Russia, Latvia Riga, trains, army, desertion, Judaism, medicine, music, stars, equation, race, Einstein, war, love triangle, choices, secrets  Year it was published: 2019 Summary: All the Light We Cannot See meets The Nightingale in this literary WWI-era novel and epic love story of a brilliant young doctor who races against Einstein to solve one of the universe's great mysteries. In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the Czar's army tightens its grip on the local Jewish community, Miri Abramov and her brilliant physicist brother, Vanya, are facing an impossible decision. Since their parents drowned fleeing to America, Miri and Vanya have been raised by their babushka, a famous matchmaker who has taught them to protect themselves at all costs: to fight, to kill if necessary, and always to have an escape plan. But n...

Name of Book: Dust off the Bones Author: Paul Howarth ISBN: 978-0-06-307600-6 Publisher: Harper Part of a Series: Sequel to Only Killers and Thieves Type of book: Australia, 1885-1908, relationships, brothers, survival, travel, PTSD, family, honor, history, Native Police, treatment of Aboriginals, homosexuality, secrets Year it was published: 2021 Summary: The author of the acclaimed Only Killers and Thieves returns to turn-of-the-century Australia in this powerful sequel that follows the story of brothers Tommy and Billy McBride, the widow of their family’s killer, Katherine Sullivan, and the sadistic Native Police officer Edmund Noone  In 1890, estranged brothers Tommy and Billy McBride are living far apart in Queensland, each dealing with the trauma that destroyed their family in different ways. Now 21, Billy bottles his guilt and justifies his past crimes while attempting to revive his father’s former cattle run and navigate his feelings for the young widow Katherine Sullivan. ...

 Title of the book: Conquistador Voices; Francisco Pizarro and his brothers, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Hernando de Soto; The Spanish Conquest of the Americas as Recounted Largely by the Participants Author: Kevin H Siepel Publisher: Spruce Trees Press Publishing Date: 2015 ISBN: 978-0-9786466-3-9 Summary: The Spanish Conquest: What Really Happened? If your knowledge of the so-called Spanish Conquest is limited to the shallow, neatly packaged narrative you found in your schoolbooks, be assured that you can get a real grip on these events now, because this two-volume series tells the tale from the viewpoint of the people who were actually there--including, in some cases, native peoples. It reads like the written version of a modern film documentary, with newly translated 500-year-old "sound bites" stitched together by the author-narrator in such a way as to create a seamless and compelling story. In these two volumes you will find neither a defense of the conquistadors nor a ...

  Title of the book: Conquistador Voices: Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortes; The Spanish Conquest of the Americas as Recounted Largely by the Participants Author: Kevin H Siepel Publisher: Spruce Tree Press Publishing Date: 2015 ISBN: 978-0-9786466-2-2 Summary: The Spanish Conquest: What Really Happened? If your knowledge of the so-called Spanish Conquest is limited to the shallow, neatly packaged narrative you found in your schoolbooks, be assured that you can get a real grip on these events now, because this two-volume series tells the tale from the viewpoint of the people who were actually there--including, in some cases, native peoples. It reads like the written version of a modern film documentary, with newly translated 500-year-old "sound bites" stitched together by the author-narrator in such a way as to create a seamless and compelling story. In these two volumes you will find neither a defense of the conquistadors nor a politically correct polemic against them. The...

  Name of Book: A Sword Among Ravens Author: Cynthia Ripley Miller ISBN: 978-1-64719-001-9 Publisher: Book Locker Part of a Series: 3rd book in The Long-Hair Saga, On the Edge of Sunrise and The Quest for the Crown of Thorns prequels Type of book: travel, continuation, 447, 455, Rome, war, Middle East, intrigues, Jerusalem, relationships, stops, changes, lives, curses, stories, secrets  Year it was published: 2020 Summary: In a grave, on the edge of a Roman battlefield, an ancient sword has been discovered. Legend claims it belonged to King David of Israel and carries a curse—those who wield it will tragically die—but not the chosen. AD 455. Arria Felix and her husband, Garic the Frank, have safely delivered a sacred relic to Emperor Marcian in Constantinople. But now, Arria and Garic will accept a new mission. The emperor has asked them to carry the sword of King David of Israel to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem where Arria will dedicate it in her murdered fath...

Book wise, 2022 is starting out promising, although with all my heart I desire Bryn Turnbulls newest book about Grand duchess Olga titled  THE LAST GRAND DUCHESS. I am definitely looking forward to my reads, be they new to me authors or old favorites. There are plenty of fascinating places for me to visit these next several months just from 2022 releases alone ( alas no Bryn Turnbull novel either!) : Russia, India, France, England, Argentina and a new to me country, Switzerland. Of course USA is included, and also nonfiction. Without further adieu, here is my list:  Possible reads:  Flight of the sparrow by Amy Belding Brown Friendswood by Rene Steinke  The Burgess boys by Elizabeth Strout Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum  Goodbye Again by Mariah Stewart  Honor by Thrity Umrigar  A thousand steps by T. Jefferson Parker  The readers room by Antoine Laurain  Vladimir by Julia May Jonas  The Basel killings by Hansjorg Schneider  Silver ...

 Out front the following sea- Leah Angstman  SR: December 27th 2021 FR: January 9th, 2022 A BEND IN THE stars- Rachel Barenbaum  SR: December 9th, 2021 FR: January 9th, 2022 Atomic Annie- Rachel Barenbaum SR: January 9th, 2022 FR: January 25th, 2022 Antoinettes sister- Diana Giovinazzo SR: January 25th, 2022 FR:  Never coming home- Hannah Mary McKinnon SR: January 30th, 2022 FR:  The STRANGE case of the Dutch painter- Timothy Miller SR: January 25th, 2022 FR:  A thousand steps- T. Jefferson Parker SR: January 25th, 2022 FR: January 30th, 2022 Goodbye Again- Mariah Stewart SR: January 9th, 2022 FR January 25th, 2022 Honor- Thrity Umrigar  SR: January 11th, 2022 FR: January 25th, 2022 Nazare- JJ Amaworo Wilson SR: December 17th, 2021  FR:  January 6th, 2022 Nonfiction: Finding normal- Alexa Tsoulis-Reay SR: January 6th, 2022 FR: January 11th, 2022