Looking for Your Next Book

Anyone my age (mid-60's) who was in any way social (ie: went to school), is probably familiar with the comedy group Monty Python and if not their British comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus , then there's got be, at the very least, a passing familiarity with their film Monty Python and the Holy Grail , if not a full-fledged knowledge of and quoting favorite lines from said film. And most of the people I know, in addition to quoting entire scenes from the films and the shows, can also name all of the Pythons (and that includes the animator, the women, and others who appeared only occasionally. Among that list, possibly at the top for many, is Eric Idle - who's apparently decided he needs to put a new addition on his house in Provence, France, hence a book to make some money to do that addition. In this biography, Idle looks back a little on his career and a lot on his life. The run-down little shack that he fell in love with in France slowly grows into a livable...

October “Toby” Daye is trying to settle into life with her newborn daughter while continuing to deal with the dangers of Faerie. Things become complicated when Raysel, the estranged daughter of Toby’s liege lord, is nearing the end of her time living with Toby. Raysel’s mother, Luna, wants her daughter back, but Raysel doesn’t want to leave the home and family she has found with Toby. When Luna takes matters into her own hands and carries Raysel away to the dangerous lands of Blind Michael, Toby must set out to bring her back before it’s too late. October Daye has been through a lot over the course of the series, and now, in A   Divided Duty , she once again finds herself dealing with trouble in the world of Faerie. This time, she has the added benefit of having Tybalt working alongside her. Of course, whenever Toby and Tybalt get involved in something, things have a tendency to become complicated very quickly. What...? Surprise! As I've often noted, I really enjoy Seanan McGuire...

Mourning Mayne is the reluctant heir to one of the world’s most powerful families, a dynasty whose wealth and influence come from a very dark source: they are fiends who buy human souls and turn them into an elixir that sustains their supernatural power. When Mourning’s estranged father summons him home and unexpectedly names him heir, Mourning is pulled back into the family business he has spent years trying to escape. Soon he finds himself caught up with Key, a woman who traffics in souls, Quinn, an artist with secrets of her own, and Silas, another member of the strange world of fiends. Before long, family politics, occult mysteries, demonic creatures, and some very unpleasant discoveries collide. I’m a big fan of Chuck Wendig, so I was looking forward to The Calamities . I enjoy his writing in general (it was his dark, YA Miriam Black series that first got me interested in Wendig) and I really enjoy his horror because it tends to sit nicely between psychological horror and splatter...

Looking through my first Kindle after seeing if it would still take a charge, I discovered this very old ARC. It didn't surprise me that I would have requested a collection of short stories, but I was/am not at all familiar with author Hollis Seamon. This was an odd collection of stories. I'm not sure how one would classify them - these tend to be general fiction but with an uncomfortable twist or hook. Can you imagine reading a story about two garbage men who find babies being tossed out with the trash and get them to a hospital? Or how about a story about a pair of terminal teenagers who are in hospice care together going through SUTHY syndrome ("Somebody Up There Hates You")? Or perhaps a story about sibling rivalry with three sisters, one of whom is oddly deformed? There are a few lighter stories - there's a story about a fat, old, blind terrier who protects his owner from the Grim reaper, and a story about a woman who rescues a cat...and then another... and a...

I really like Charlie N. Holmberg's books. She is a fantastic fantasy writer, and I particularly enjoy the way she combines magic, romance, history, and just a little bit of darkness into her stories. I might easily place two of her books in my top ten favorites. The Whimbrel House series, however, is not among my favorites, so I was looking to Lady of Uncanny Charms  with some trepidation. This is the fifth and final book in the Whimbrel House series. This time the story focuses primarily on Owein and Cora. Owein has arrived in England expecting to marry Cora, but Queen Victoria has other plans for him. She wants to use Owein and his unusual magical abilities for her own purposes, leaving Cora to figure out what is happening and how she can help him. Before long, the two of them are caught up in a much larger magical conspiracy. There is a lot to like here. Holmberg has created a really interesting magical world, and I continue to enjoy the way magic is woven into an alternate ver...

I have always enjoyed bookstores. There is something about walking into a bookstore and looking at the shelves, seeing what catches your eye, and discovering a book you didn't know you wanted to read. (You know you've done this!) So a book about the history of bookselling sounded like something I would enjoy, and I'm thrilled that Andrew Pettegree's The Bookshop did not disappoint. The Bookshop: A History of Bookselling From the Dawn of Print to the 21st Century takes a look at how books have been sold from the earliest days of printing through the bookstores we know today. What I found particularly interesting is that the modern bookstore, as we know it, is actually a fairly recent development. Who knew? For hundreds of years, books were sold in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of places, and booksellers had to continually find new ways to get books into the hands of readers. Pettegree covers a lot of ground. There are stories of early booksellers, traveling seller...