New purchases

Yes, I know, I should not buy any new books, but lately I have had this urge to read new books. Probably because I read your reviews of them. The problem with a huge TBR pile is that we feel obliged to read from it. As time goes by(!) they tend to be older and older. A mixture of new and old would be a good recipe I have decided and here we go. My last 'New purchases' is from mid-October and since then I have bought 7 books. 

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Ever since read All The Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr has been a favourite author. I have also read About Grace. Therefore eager to start reading this one. 

"Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet. " (Summary Goodreads). 

The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde

I have never heard about Maja Lunde until I recently found a book by her in a camping, The History of Bees.  Now her name pops up everywhere. Although I have not yet read the first book, I could not help myself grabbing for her new one. 

"In 2019, seventy-year-old Signe sets out on a hazardous voyage to cross an entire ocean in only a sailboat. She is haunted by the loss of the love of her life, and is driven by a singular and all-consuming mission to make it back to him.

In 2041, David flees with his young daughter, Lou, from a war-torn Southern Europe plagued by drought. They have been separated from their rest of their family and are on a desperate search to reunite with them once again, when they find Signe's abandoned sailboat in a parched French garden, miles away from the nearest shore.

As David and Lou discover personal effects from Signe's travels, their journey of survival and hope weaves together with Signe's, forming a heartbreaking, inspiring story about the power of nature and the human spirit in this second novel from the author of the "spectacular and deeply moving" (New York Times bestselling author Lisa See) The History of Bees." (Summary Goodreads). 

Kvinnor jag tänker på om natten (The Women I think About At Night) by Mia Kankimäki

This book I bought for my book club and it will be discussed in the beginning of December. This is my kind of book. About women travellers and authors in a time when women did not do much travelling. When women were still held back by social rules. It is written from the authors perspective and she compares herself, and her life, with these women. It is great, fun and moving. 

"In The Women I Think About at Night, Mia Kankimäki blends travelogue, memoir, and biography as she recounts her enchanting travels in Japan, Kenya, and Italy while retracing the steps of ten remarkable female pioneers from history. 

What can a forty-something childless woman do? Bored with her life and feeling stuck, Mia Kankimäki leaves her job, sells her apartment, and decides to travel the world, following the paths of the female explorers and artists from history who have long inspired her. She flies to Tanzania and then to Kenya to see where Karen Blixen—of Out of Africa—fame lived in the 1920s. In Japan, Mia attempts to cure her depression while researching Yayoi Kusama, the contemporary artist who has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital for decades. In Italy, Mia spends her days looking for the works of forgotten Renaissance women painters of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and finally finds her heroines in the portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Artemisia Gentileschi. If these women could make it in the world hundreds of years ago, why can’t Mia?

The Women I Think About at Night is part travelogue and part thrilling exploration of the lost women adventurers of history who defied expectations in order to see—and change—the world." (Summary Goodreads). 

Obscuritas by David Lagercrantz

David Lagercrantz is probably mostly known for his trilogy and continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium books about Lisbeth Slander. I read the first trilogy by Stieg Larsson, but have not read any of Lagercrantz three books. I did read his biography I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It was with great anticipation I started Obscuritas and I was not disappointed. He has created a set of interesting characters who stands out in society, in various ways, and go their own way. The story is exciting and it is difficult to put it down. The end is the beginning of the next book in his trilogy. Talk about ending with a cliff hanger!

"Summer of 2003, and Iraq has just been invaded by the US. In Stockholm, a football referee with Afghan roots is found beaten to death. Hot-tempered Giuseppe Costa, also the dad of one of the players, is arrested for the murder in what looks to be an open-and-shut case. But Costa insists that he is innocent and the Chief of Police decides to consult Professor Hans Rekke, a world renowned expert on interrogational techniques. If there is anyone that can crack Costa, it is him.

But nothing turns out as the police expects. Rekke welcomes the investigational team to his grand family home in Djursholm. In a vertiginous display of reason, he discards the preliminary investigation completely – and shortly thereafter the whole case falls to pieces. Costa is released, and the police suddenly find themselves without leads. Only Micaela Vargas, a young community police officer from Husby, who has been let into the investigation as an act of grace, refuses to let things rest. She tries to get hold of Rekke, but he won’t return her calls.

Then Hans Rekke and Micaela Vargas meet again, under dramatic circumstances. The odd couple decides to solve the case that appears increasingly like an enigma, and which leads them to CIA’s hunt for terrorists, and the Taliban’s war against music. What kind of a man was the referee? Is he a victim, or a perpetrator?

Obscuritas is a clever and exciting page-turner where nothing is what it seems." (Summary from David Lagercrantz' website). 

The Witch Elm by Tana French

Always a fan of Tana French, and it was quite a while since I read something by her. 

"Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life: he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed. 

The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are." (Summary from Goodreads).

The Survivors by Jane Harper

Jane Harper is another favourite. Love all the books I have read by her. This is her latest. 

"Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.

The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away..." (Summary from Goodreads).  

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I read about this book recently from one of you. Sounded interesting and is in a format I love. Parallel stories, in different times, coming together in the end. 

"A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them - setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course. 

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.

Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose - selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate - and not everyone will survive." (Summary from Goodreads).  

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

This has been on my radar for a while. Loved her The Hand That First Held Mine. I suggested this for our next read in my book club. 

"Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, HAMNET is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child. 

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet. 

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history." (Summary from Goodreads).