reading

49d

New on my #blog: "Books reviewed: October 2025."
https://itinerantlibrarian.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/books-reviewed-october-2025/

My monthly wrap up of #reviews.

#BookReview #books #reading #AlchemicalThoughts #Bookstodon
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47d

📚 Hole in the Sky by: Daniel H. Wilson

On the Great Plains of Oklahoma, in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, a strange atmospheric disturbance is noticed by Jim Hardgray, a down-on-his-luck single father trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter, Tawny. At NASA’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, astrophysicist Dr. ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/hole-in-the-sky

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #thrillers #suspensefiction #indigenous

On the Great Plains of Oklahoma, in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, a strange atmospheric disturbance is noticed by Jim Hardgray, a down-on-his-luck single father trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter, Tawny. At NASA’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, astrophysicist Dr. Mikayla Johnson observes an interaction with the Voyager 1 spacecraft on the far side of the solar system, and she concludes that something enormous and unidentified is heading directly for Earth. And in an undisclosed bunker somewhere in the United States, an American threat forecaster known only as the Man Downstairs intercepts a cryptic communication and sends a message directly to the president and highest-ranking military brass: 'First contact imminen't.

A gripping sci-fi thriller—and Native American First Contact story—from the New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse, Daniel Wilson, who is a Cherokee Nation citizen and works as a threat forecaster for NASA.

This is where Daniel Wilson's fascinating novel begins. Heliopause is a real place—the very outer edge of our solar system where the sun's solar winds are no longer strong enough to keep debris and intrusions from bombarding our system. It is the farthest edge of our protected boundary (it was recently crossed by Voyager), and the line beyond which space experts look for extraterrestrial presences.

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47d

📚 The El by: Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

An ordinary day in August 1979 dawns hot and humid in Chicago. Teenager Teddy is living with his dad after being kicked out of his mom’s house due to his gang activity. But Teddy has thrived in the Simon City Royals, and today, he'll be helping to lead a posse of the group's younger members south across the city...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-el

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #indigenousfiction #crimefiction

An ordinary day in August 1979 dawns hot and humid in Chicago. Teenager Teddy is living with his dad after being kicked out of his mom’s house due to his gang activity. But Teddy has thrived in the Simon City Royals, and today, he'll be helping to lead a posse of the group's younger members south across the city to Roosevelt High School to attend a gathering of gangs forming “the Nation”—a bold new attempt at joining forces across racial lines. This holds particular importance for Teddy, as his branch’s only Indigenous member.

But when the meeting breaks up in gunshots and police sirens, Teddy must guide the Royals back across hostile territory, along secret routes and back alleys, and stop by stop on the thundering tracks of the El. In the face of violence from rival gangs and a secret Judas in the Royals’ ranks, Teddy is armed only with a potent combination of book smarts and street smarts, and by the guiding spirit of Coyote, who has granted him the power to glimpse a future only he may survive to see.

Immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of the author’s beloved city, The El will transport you to that singular sun- and blood-soaked day in Chicago. It is a love letter to another time, to a city, and to a group of friends trying to find their place and make their way in a world that doesn’t want them.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CHIRBY AWARD IN FICTION - From the co-editor of the bestselling anthology Never Whistle at Night, a semi-autobiographical nov

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47d

New on my #blog: "My 5 Warhammer 40,000 Starter Books"
https://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2025/11/my-5-warhammer-40000-starter-books.html

#books #reading #WH40K #ItinerantLibrarian #writing #bookstodon #Warhammer40K
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48d

📚 Lessons in Chemistry by: Bonnie Garmus

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality....

https://bookblabla.com/book/lessons-in-chemistry

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #feministfiction #humorous #generalfiction #literary

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

#1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 8 MILLION COPIES SOLD. Meet Elizabeth Zott: “a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention” (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show. STREAM ON APPLE TV+

This novel is “irresistible, sa

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48d

📚 I'm Glad My Mom Died by: Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, whatever it took, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what her mother called "calorie restriction"...

https://bookblabla.com/book/im-glad-my-mom-died

#books #reading #libraries #biographyautobiography #parenting #dysfunctionalfamilies

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, whatever it took, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what her mother called "calorie restriction", weighing herself five times a day and ultimately shrinking down to 89 pounds. She endured extensive at-home makeovers using knockoff whitening strips, hot curlers, eyelash tint, and gobs of bleach to enhance her natural beauty.

She was showered by her mother until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, an email account, and all her earnings. The dream finally comes true when Jennette is cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly and is thrust into fame. But for Jennette, the dream is a nightmare.

Practically overnight, her fake smile and cheesy airbrushed hair-do is plastered on billboards across the country. And though her mom is ecstatic, ordering her to smile for the paparazzi (with whom she's on a first-name basis) and sign endless autographs for fans who only know her by her character's name, Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction and a series of unhealthy relationships.These issues only get worse when Jennette's mother dies of cancer.

Finally, after discovering therapy and coldly examining the relationship with her mother, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wan

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13d

📚 Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by: Jason Pargin, David Wong

Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. After inheriting a criminal empire, the twenty-three year-old finds herself under threat from all sides as a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life enemies think they smell w...

https://bookblabla.com/book/zoey-punches-the-future-in-the-dick

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #humorousfiction #superheroes

Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. After inheriting a criminal empire, the twenty-three year-old finds herself under threat from all sides as a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life enemies think they smell weakness.

On the eve of the world's most lavish and ridiculous Halloween celebration, a steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey's door and she is shocked to find that it contains a disemboweled corpse. She is even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises and goes on a rampage through the house. Speaking in an electronic voice, it publicly accuses Zoey of being its murderer. This is the kind of thing that almost never happened at her old job.

The city was already a ticking time bomb of publicity-hungry vigilantes with superhuman enhancements and Zoey knows this turn of events is unlikely to improve the situation. Now, she and her team of high-tech tricksters have to solve this bizarre murder while simultaneously keeping Tabula Ra$a from descending into chaos.

Biting humor and blatant digs at modern society overlay a subtly brilliant and thoughtful plot” (Publishers Weekly) in John Dies at the End author Jason Pargin’s first installment of the Zoey Ashe Series, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Now, one of today’s great satirists (Nerdist) is back with Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, the second installment in a Technicolor tomorrowland. (Kirkus Reviews)

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

New Yo

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50d

📚 Life of Pi by: Yann Martel

After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, there are five survivors stranded on a lifeboat - a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a Royal Bengal tiger, and a sixteen year-old boy named Pi. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?

Based on one of the most extraordinar...

https://bookblabla.com/book/life-of-pi

#books #reading #libraries #performingarts #theater #playwritingdrama #european #drama

After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, there are five survivors stranded on a lifeboat - a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a Royal Bengal tiger, and a sixteen year-old boy named Pi. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?

Based on one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction - winner of the Man Booker Prize, selling over fifteen million copies worldwide - and featuring breath-taking puppetry and state-of-the-art visuals, Life of Pi is a universally acclaimed, smash hit adaptation of an epic journey of endurance and hope.

Adapted by acclaimed playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, this edition was published to coincide with the West End premiere in November 2021.

Winner of the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Play

"Life of Pi will make you believe in the power of theatre" (Times).

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46d

📚 Old School Indian by: Aaron John Curtis

Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne―or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back. He met the love of his life, started writing poetry, and began an open marriage.

No...

https://bookblabla.com/book/old-school-indian

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #indigenousfiction #literaryfiction #ownvoices

Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne―or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back. He met the love of his life, started writing poetry, and began an open marriage.

Now at forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease―one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a marriage teetering on collapse, Abe returns to the Rez, where he’s persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge, a wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirts isn’t all that convincing. And Abe’s time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.

To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he’s hidden ever since he left home and wrestling with the imprint left by his once-passionate marriage.

Delivered with crackling wit and heart-wrenching tenderness, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and intimacy, and the ripple effects of history and culture.

A novel of pure heart and mastery. Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit

A Kirkus Editor’s Pick. A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Cowboys & Indians | Brit + Co | Debutiful

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - INDIE NEXT PICK

An entrancing new voice... Aaron John Curtis will be your new literary obsession. Marion Win

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46d

Cozy Caturday Cottage Cats! 🐈🔥

Art by Elisabeth Alba
Created with ink, watercolor, and acryla gouache

Prints at http://albaillustration.etsy.com

#caturday #cats #cozy #illustration #art #anthro #furry #knitting #reading #victorian #fediart #mastoart

Illustration set in a cozy Victorian cottage kitchen/living space. A cat sits on the ground by the hearth, reading a book. Another cat sits in a nearby rocking chair, knitting a blanket.

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46d

📚 Girl Warrior by: Joy Harjo

An inspirational work of wisdom, warmth, and generosity from a three-term US poet laureate.

To know ourselves is the most profound and difficult endeavor. Though we are all made of the same questions, we have individual routes to the answers, or to reframing the questions. Why is there evil in the world? Why do people suf...

https://bookblabla.com/book/girl-warrior

#books #reading #libraries #biographyautobiography #indigenous

An inspirational work of wisdom, warmth, and generosity from a three-term US poet laureate.

To know ourselves is the most profound and difficult endeavor. Though we are all made of the same questions, we have individual routes to the answers, or to reframing the questions. Why is there evil in the world? Why do people suffer, and some more than others? Why are we here? What are we doing here? What happens after death? Does anything mean anything at all? Who am I and what does it matter?” writes Joy Harjo, renowned poet and activist, in this profound work about the struggles, challenges, and joys of coming of age.

In her best-selling memoir Poet Warrior, Harjo led readers through her lifelong process of artistic evolution. In Girl Warrior, she speaks directly to Native girls and women, sharing stories about her own coming of age to bring renewed attention to the pivotal moments of becoming including forgiveness, failure, falling, rising up, and honoring our vast family of beings.

Informed by her own experiences and those of her ancestors, Harjo offers inspiration and insight for navigating the many challenges of maturation. She grapples with parents, friendships, love, and loss. She guides young readers toward painting, poetry, and music as powerful tools for developing their own ethical sensibility. As Harjo demonstrates, the act of making is an essential part of who we are, a means of inviting the past into the present and a critical tool young women can use to sh

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44d

📚 Wonder by: R. J. Palacio

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get...

https://bookblabla.com/book/wonder

#books #reading #libraries #juvenilefiction #disabilities

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Beginning from Auggie’s point of view and expanding to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others, the perspectives converge to form a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. In a world where bullying among young people is an epidemic, this is a refreshing new narrative full of heart and hope.

R.J. Palacio has called her debut novel “a meditation on kindness” —indeed, every reader will come away with a greater appreciation for the simple courage of friendship. Auggie is a hero to root for, a diamond in the rough who proves that you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A PARADE BEST KIDS BOOK OF ALL TIME. Millions of people have fallen in love with Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face—who shows us that kindness brings us together no matter how far apart we are. Read the book that inspired the Choose Kind movement, a major motion picture, and the critically acclaimed graphic novel White Bird.

And don't miss R.J. Palacio's highly anticipated new novel, Pony, available

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44d

@adriabailton thanks for hosting #writephant 😊

My next book, Grace & Favour, releases on Sunday, and is a friends-to-lovers gay romance:

“Leo Sweetwater keeps three closely-guarded secrets: his affections lie with men, he's in love with his best friend, and he's been haunted since childhood by the ghosts of Hampton Court Palace. When an ill-advised fling threatens all three secrets, Leo must contend with malign forces, and not just those from beyond the veil…“

Look for it on preorder at your favourite retailer, or on #KoboPlus, #Everand and #Hoopla, and you can always ask for it at your library.

Or you can get it right now directly from me: https://payhip.com/b/A3P2i
And receive a bonus 2026 calendar featuring public-domain nineteenth-century artworks illustrating relevant book quotes.

Read about all my books here: https://wendypalmer.au/

#books #reading #fantasy #gayRomance #indieAuthor #historicals #ReadingCommunity @bookstodon

Grace and Favour written in fancy font above a daguerreotype-style portrait of two men and a dog. One man is dark skinned and well dressed in a top hat, that’s love interest Cole. The other man is a bit more casually dressed, is blond, and has a stopwatch that’s main character Leo. The dog’s a big white Maremma. that’s Max. There’s the faint figure of a woman in the background. Very faint. Almost ghostly…

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12d

📚 Fundamentally by: Nussaibah Younis

When Nadia Amin, a witty and bighearted PhD, publishes an article on deradicalization, everything changes. The United Nations comes calling with an opportunity to put her theory into practice and lead a rehabilitation program for women caught in the crosshairs of harmful ideology. And why n...

https://bookblabla.com/book/fundamentally

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #politicalfiction #humorous #generalfiction #women

When Nadia Amin, a witty and bighearted PhD, publishes an article on deradicalization, everything changes. The United Nations comes calling with an opportunity to put her theory into practice and lead a rehabilitation program for women caught in the crosshairs of harmful ideology. And why not? Abandoned by her mother and devastated by unrequited love, she leaps at the chance.

In Iraq, Nadia quickly realizes she’s in over her head. The UN is a mess of competing interests, and her team consists of Goody Two-shoes Sherri who never passes up an opportunity to remind Nadia of her objections; and Pierre, a snippy Frenchman who has no qualms about perpetually scrolling through Grindr. But then Nadia meets Sara, a hilarious, foul-mouthed East Londoner who was pulled into radicalism at just fifteen. The two are kindred spirits, and Nadia vows to get Sara home.

As the rehabilitation program picks up traction, Sara reveals a secret that upends everything, forcing Nadia to make a drastic choice. In the fallout, Nadia’s brown-savior fantasies crumble, leaving her to wonder if she can save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

A fierce, wildly funny, and razor-sharp exploration of radicalism, family, and the quest for belonging, Fundamentally boldly inspects one of the defining controversies of our age and introduces a fearless new voice in contemporary fiction.

A wickedly funny and audacious debut novel following an academic who flees from heartbreak and lands in Iraq wi

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45d

"[If we talk with each other,] I'll know what you think, you'll know what I think, and perhaps that will spark off a new idea, and then we'll feel as if we're behaving like human beings rather than robots."

Jacqueline Harpman, 'I Who Have Never Known Men.'

#sundaySentence #reading #narrative @bookstodon #bookstodon

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45d

📚 Run for the Hills by: Kevin Wilson

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it’s a bit lonely, she sometimes admits, and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it’s mostly okay. Mostly.

Then one...

https://bookblabla.com/book/run-for-the-hills

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #southernfiction #familylife #generalfiction

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it’s a bit lonely, she sometimes admits, and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it’s mostly okay. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.
As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with every new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

A touching and generous romp of a novel... Wilson makes a bold and convincing case that every real family is one you have to find and, at some point, choose, even if it’s the one you’re born into. New York Times Book Review.

An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a

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12d

📚 The Names by: Florence Knapp

It is 1987, and in the aftermath of a great storm, Cora sets out with her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband intends for her to follow a long-standing family tradition and call the baby after him. But when faced with the decision, Cora hesitates. ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-names

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #familylife #multigenerationalfiction #worldliterature

It is 1987, and in the aftermath of a great storm, Cora sets out with her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband intends for her to follow a long-standing family tradition and call the baby after him. But when faced with the decision, Cora hesitates. Going against his wishes is a risk that will have consequences, but is it right for her child to inherit his name from generations of domineering men? The choice she makes in this moment will shape the course of their lives.

Seven years later, her son is Bear, a name chosen by his sister, and one that will prove as cataclysmic as the storm from which it emerged. Or he is Julian, the name his mother set her heart on, believing it will enable him to become his own person. Or he is Gordon, named after his father and raised in his cruel image - but is there still a chance to break the mould?

Powerfully moving and full of hope, this is the story of three names, three versions of a life, and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark. It is the story of one family, and love's endless capacity to endure, no matter what fate has in store.

********

A once-in-a-generation debut from a major new talent, The Names is the story of three names, three versions of a life, and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark.
'I've just been blown away by the best debut novel in years... A genius idea for a book'
Sunday Times

'Wildly original and emotionally profound'
O

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45d

📚 Small Boat by: Vincent Delecroix

November 2021: an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK capsizes in the Channel, causing the deaths of 27 people on board. How and why did it happen?

Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British water...

https://bookblabla.com/book/small-boat

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #literaryfiction #worldliterature #france

November 2021: an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK capsizes in the Channel, causing the deaths of 27 people on board. How and why did it happen?

Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, all but two of the migrants had died.

The narrator of Delecroix’s fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies?

A shocking, moral tale of our times, Small Boat reminds us of the power of fiction to illuminate our darkest crimes.
Source: Publisher

The narrator of Delecroix’s fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies?

A shocking, moral tale of our times, Small Boat reminds us of the power of fiction to illuminate our darkest crimes.

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44d

📚 The Black Wolf by: Louise Penny

Somewhere out there, in the darkness, a black wolf is feeding.

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf.

But their relief is s...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-black-wolf

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #mysterydetective #traditionalfiction

Somewhere out there, in the darkness, a black wolf is feeding.

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf.

But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning. Perhaps even a deliberate misdirection. One he fell into. Something deeper and darker, more damaging, is planned. Did he in fact arrest the Black Wolf, or are they still out there? Armand is appalled to think his mistake has allowed their conspiracy to grow, to gather supporters. To spread lies, manufacture enemies, and feed hatred and division.

Still recovering from wounds received in stopping the first attack, Armand is confined to the village of Three Pines, leading a covert investigation from there. He must be careful not to let the Black Wolf know he has recognized his mistake. In a quiet church basement, he and his senior agents Beauvoir and Lacoste, pore over what little evidence they have. Two notebooks. A few mysterious numbers on a tattered map of Québec. And a phrase repeated by the person they had called the Grey Wolf. A warning...

In a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Gamache and his small team of supporters realize that for the Black Wolf to have gotten this far, they must have powerful allies, in law enforcement, i

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50d

Book promotion: Take a chance on one of my otherworldly stories about people who risk everything for the sake of hope, trust, & cooperation. You also get heaps of humor, whimsy, sarcasm, & optimism. Sometimes gritty, but never grim.

Because I can, I've priced the ebooks at $0.99 on my website AT THIS LINK --> https://kmherkes.com/sale-bookshop

Other vendors & formats at regular prices:
https://books2read.com/kmherkes

#Fedibookshop
#Fedifiction
#bookstodon
#books
#reading
#writing
#ScienceFiction
#fantasy

Promotional graphic for all 7 books written by K. M. Herkes. The words CHOOSE AN ADVENTURE are centered on a autumn leaf background of golds, reds nd browns, with photos of the book covers positioned around text describing various elements and genres represented; namely: hopepunk, heists, chosen family, disability rep, feisty heroines, and superpowers, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and suspense, novels and short stories.

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43d

📚 Flesh by: David Szalay

Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and is soon isolated, drawn instead into a series of events that leave him forever a stranger to peers, his mother, and himself. In the y...

https://bookblabla.com/book/flesh

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #familylife #generalfiction #friendship

Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and is soon isolated, drawn instead into a series of events that leave him forever a stranger to peers, his mother, and himself. In the years that follow, István is born along by the goodwill, or self-interest, of strangers, charting a rocky yet upward trajectory that lands him further from his childhood, and the defining events that abruptly ended it, than he could possibly have imagined.

A collection of intimate moments over the course of decades, Flesh chronicles a man at odds with himself—estranged from and by the circumstances and demands of a life not entirely under his control and the roles that he is asked to play. Shadowed by the specter of past tragedy and the apathy of modernity, the tension between István and all that alienates him hurtles forward until sudden tragedy again throws life as he knows it in jeopardy. “Spare and detached on the page, lush in resonance beyond it” (NPR), Flesh traces the imperceptible but indelible contours of unresolved trauma and its aftermath amid the precarity and violence of an ever-globalizing Europe with incisive insight, unyielding pathos, and startling humanity.

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize | Finalist for the Kirkus Prize | Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence

From Booker Prize finalist and the shrewdest writer on contemporary

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40d

📚 The Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club by: Ocean Vuong

The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across...

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The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Listed in 'best books of 2025', according to the Amazon Editors.

The instant New York Times bestseller. Oprah’s Book Club Pick. A 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction finalist. A TIME Best Boo

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📚 All the Way to the River: Oprah's Book Club by: Elizabeth Gilbert

In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

Wha...

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In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love—or to any other passion, substance, or craving—and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK

A delicious mashup of narrative that's by turns harrowing and healing. People

Entertaining, insightful, wrenching … punch-to-the-gut powerful. The Washington Post

A blockbuster: brutally honest, lurid, transcendent, and compelling…Gilbert is undoubtedly a force. Boston Globe

In her first nonfiction book in a decade, the #1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free.

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📚 Ship Breaker by: Paolo Bacigalupi

In America's Gulf Coast region, grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts by crews of young people. Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota-and hopefully live to see another day.

But when, by luck or by chanc...

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In America's Gulf Coast region, grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts by crews of young people. Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota-and hopefully live to see another day.

But when, by luck or by chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life...

In this powerful novel, Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future.

A gritty, high-stakes adventure set in a futuristic world where oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer.

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📚 All That We See Or Seem by: Ken Liu

Julia Z, a young woman who gained notoriety at fourteen as the orphan hacker, is trying to live a life of digital obscurity in a quiet Boston suburb.

But when a lawyer named Piers—whose famous artist wife, Elli, has been kidnapped by dangerous criminals—barges into ...

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