Belinda’s Book Nook: Book Haul at the Used Book Superstore

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I recently found some new authors at the used bookstore. I did know one of them and had on my TBR and that is Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) but I never read any of the Harry Potter books (don’t hate).  So this haul was completely on the description and maybe a little cover love!

The first is The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

About the author:

Tarquin Hall is the author of the Vish Puri mysteries, set in India. The first in the series, ‘The Case of the Missing Servant’, was named by the New York Times as a Notable Crime Book and given starred reviews by Kirkus, Library Journal and Booklist. Hall divides his times between London and Delhi with his wife, Indian-born journalist Anu Anand, and their young son.

The book:

Watch out Alexander McCall Smith! Here comes the first novel by the highly acclaimed writer Tarquin Hall in an entrancing new mystery series set in India.

The portly Vish Puri is India’s most accomplished detective, at least in his own estimation, and is also the hero of an irresistible new mystery series set in hot, dusty Delhi. Puri’s detective skills are old-fashioned in a Sherlock Holmesian way and a little out of sync with the tempo of the modern city, but Puri is clever and his methods work.

The second book is The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

Now I know you know J. K. Rowling so I will skip a mini bio on her. But the book is about:

A brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel’s suicide. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

The third book is titled: The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

About the author:

Born to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father in San Francisco, Gail Tsukiyama now lives in El Cerrito, California. Her novels include Women of the Silk (1991), The Samurai’s Garden (1995), Night of Many Dreams (1998), The Language of Threads (1999), Dreaming Water (2002), and The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (2007).

About the book:

A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family’s summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu’s secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu’s generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu’s soul-mate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

The final book is titled, The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl

About the author:

Matthew Pearl is the author of the novels The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, The Technologists, and The Last Bookaneer. His books have been New York Times bestsellers and international bestsellers translated into more than 30 languages. His nonfiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and Slate.com. He has been heard on shows including NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition Sunday,” and his books have been featured on Good Morning America and CBS Sunday Morning.

Matthew Pearl grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. He has also taught literature and creative writing at Harvard University and Emerson College, and has been a Visiting Lecturer in law and literature at Harvard Law School. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About the book:

Matthew Pearl reopens one of literary history’s greatest mysteries in his most enthralling novel yet, a tale filled with the dazzling twists and turns, the unerring period details, and the meticulous research that thrilled readers of bestsellers The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow.

Boston, 1870. When news of Charles Dickens’s untimely death reaches the office of his struggling American publisher, Fields & Osgood, partner James Osgood sends his trusted clerk Daniel Sand to await Dickens’s unfinished novel–The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But when Daniel’s body is discovered by the docks and the manuscript is nowhere to be found, Osgood must embark on a transatlantic quest to unearth the novel that will save his venerable business and reveal Daniel’s killer.

Don’t count out used book stores. I have found many gems in them.

Happy reading my friend!

Belinda

 

Belinda’s Book Nook: Book Haul – Used Book Superstore

december2_2014Christmas shopping at the Used Book Superstore can be fun if not for one itsy bitsy problem… for every book I found for a gift, I found one for myself!!

One thing I love about used bookstores is that I always discover new authors. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to big chain bookstores like Barnes and Noble, but they have to meet requirements for advertising new authors and recently published items.  So many hidden gems are not always prominent or there at all. But used bookstores always have something new.  I haven’t read any of the authors from this haul and many have written more than one book. So it was a real joy as always to explore the shelves.

The following are the books I just purchase for next to nothing:

 

  • Daughter’s of the DustInspired by her Sundance Festival award-winning film “Daughters of the Dust,”Julie Dash has put her cinematic vision on the page, penning a rich, magical new novel which extends her story of a family of complex, independent African-American women. Set in the 1920s in the Sea Islands off the Carolina coast where the Gullah people have preserved much of their African heritage and language, Daughters Of The Dust chronicles the lives of the Peazants, a large, proud family who trace their origins to the Ibo, who were enslaved and brought to the islands more than one hundred years before.
  • In Her Majesty’s Request – Biography of the African princess saved from execution and taken to England where Queen Victoria oversaw her upbringing and where she lived for a time before marrying an African missionary.
  • Rattlebone – A vivid recreation of the black Midwest of the 1950s focuses on the fictional community of Rattlebone, north of Kansas City, introducing such unforgettable characters as the new schoolteacher, October Brown, and young but wise Irene Wilson.
  • Russian Princess – Former Bolshoi ballerina Nina Revskaya auctions off her jewelry collection and becomes overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, the friends she left behind amidst Stalinist aggression, and the dark secret that brought her to a new life in Boston.
  • The Heretic’s Daughter – Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha’s courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.
  • The Art of Hearing Heartbeats – A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present.  When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
  • The Saffron Kitchen – In a powerful debut novel that moves between the crowded streets of London and the desolate mountains of Iran, Yasmin Crowther paints a stirring portrait of a family shaken by events from decades ago and worlds away. On a rainy day in London the dark secrets and troubled past of Maryam Mazar surface violently, with tragic consequences for her daughter, Sara, and her newly orphaned nephew. Maryam leaves her English husband and family and returns to the remote Iranian village where her story began. In a quest to piece their life back together, Sara follows her mother and finally learns the terrible price Maryam once had to pay for her freedom, and of the love she left behind. Set against the breathtaking beauty of two very different places, this stunning family drama transcends culture and is, at its core, a rich and haunting narrative about mothers and daughters.

I love the mix of books I found. They will take me all over the globe and I won’t even have to leave my couch!!

I plan on reading these in 2015 and promise to post reviews.

Happy Reading!!

Belinda

Book Haul from the Used Book Superstore and Savers

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Ok so I confess, I love books.  Oh..you already knew that huh?  Well, earlier this week, I had a book attack. I just needed to be in a bookstore.  So I drove to the Used Book Superstore and it conveniently has next to it, Savers.  Both places I have scored some great deals.  This time was no exception.

At the Used Book Superstore I only found one book, Angel Burn by L.A. Weatherly which is a young adult fantasy. It’s book two in a trilogy so I will have to keep my eyes peeled for book one and three. I usually don’t buy out of order but this copy was signed. So I snatched it up for $3.29.

I then headed over to Savers and that’s where the magic happened. I found two hard cover books in brand new condition and two soft covers.

  • My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares who wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants as well as a new one called, “The Here and Now”.  This book is about reincarnation and the love that lasts a lifetime. It sounds like a nice snuggle under the blanket fall day kind of book.
  • Savage Girl by Jean Zimmerman is  a tale from the author of The Orphanmaster about a wild girl from Nevada who lands in Manhattan’s Gilded Age society. The cover is so amazing on this book, I just can’t wait to dive in.
  • Huntress by Malinda Lo is the adventure prequel to Lo’s highly acclaimed novel Ash and is overflowing with lush Chinese influences and details inspired by the I Ching, and is filled with action and romance. Sounds like a fun read. The cover is beautiful on this book and let’s face it, I like kick-ass female leads.
  • The Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray is the first The Gemma Doyle Trilogy.  It is a young adult historical fiction set in the Victorian Age. I am thrilled to check out the first in the series to see if I should venture further.

If you read any of these books let me know what you think.

Well now I am off to go heat up some tea and continue reading my current bookclub selection, “Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. I will leave a review soon.

Happy reading!

Belinda

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