Book Haul (Round 5) — MEGAN AWAY

Oct 11

Oct 11 Book Haul (Round 5)

Happy Friday!

I hope you are having a great week so far. Today's post starts with a story about a microwave and ends with me getting some new books.

You see, back when we moved to our first apartment in Melbourne, Tj really wanted a microwave. Even though there was a lot of cupboard space for it, I just didn't thing we needed it. After all, we survived two years in London without one and only a mini fridge. Tj insisted it on getting one - and this is the key part of the story - he even promised that he'd be the one to clean it!

Fast forward to a few months ago when we moved to our new Melbourne apartment - with a dirty microwave. I, of course, refused to clean it. Tj wasn't bothered by it.

And thus the microwave stand-off began.

Out of stubbornness, I continued to refuse to clean it. And Tj continued to not be bothered by it. This had been going on for months and it was getting pretty gross.

Until last weekend.

Tj was away, and I wanted to heat up my dinner, so I thought I'd peek in the microwave and hopefully find that it wasn't as unappetizing as I remembered. Well, that’s when I found a bowl of soup that Tj left in there. Ew. It had been there for almost a week! It was disgusting. To be honest I was tempted to just throw the whole thing out, microwave and week old bowl of soup. But I wasn't ready to throw out my nice bowl. I dealt with the soup, and for sanitary reasons, I also gave the microwave a thorough scrubbing.

So that's the story of how I lost the microwave stand-off. How does this story end with me getting new books? Tj felt so bad about the forgotten soup that he offered to buy me a present. Of course I chose books :)

Here are the books I've bought recently (and some are courteous of Tj):

The Gown by Jennifer Robson

London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation’s recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their nascent hopes for a brighter future are tested when they are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime honor: taking part in the creation of Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown. Toronto, 2016: More than half a century later, Heather Mackenzie seeks to unravel the mystery of a set of embroidered flowers, a legacy from her late grandmother. How did her beloved Nan, a woman who never spoke of her old life in Britain, come to possess the priceless embroideries that so closely resemble the motifs on the stunning gown worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding almost seventy years before? And what was her Nan’s connection to the celebrated textile artist and holocaust survivor Miriam Dassin?

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Andrea knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we? But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again.The police want answers and Laura’s innocence is on the line, but she won’t speak to anyone, including her own daughter. Andrea is on a desperate journey following the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. And if she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either one of them. . . .

Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion

A story of mid-life and second chances from Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project, and his wife Anne Buist. Soon to be a film produced by Ellen DeGeneres. Two misfits walk 2,000 kilometres along the Camino de Santiago to find themselves and, perhaps, each other along the way. Zoe, a sometime artist, is from California. Martin, an engineer, is from Yorkshire. Both have ended up in picturesque Cluny, in central France. Both are struggling to come to terms with their recent past—for Zoe, the death of her husband; for Martin, a messy divorce. Looking to make a new start, each sets out alone to walk two thousand kilometres from Cluny to Santiago, in northwestern Spain, in the footsteps of pilgrims who have walked the Camino—the Way—for centuries. The Camino changes you, it’s said. It’s a chance to find a new version of yourself. But can these two very different people find each other? In this smart, funny and romantic journey, Martin’s and Zoe’s stories are told in alternating chapters by husband-and-wife team Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist. Two Steps Forward is a novel about renewal—physical, psychological and spiritual. It’s about the challenge of walking a long distance and of working out where you are going. And it’s about what you decide to keep, what you choose to leave behind and what you rediscover.

Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay

It all begins on a Monday, when four people board an elevator in a Manhattan ofﬁce tower. Each presses a button for their ﬂoor, but the elevator proceeds, nonstop, to the top. Once there it pauses for a few seconds, but the doors don't open. Instead, the elevator begins to descend ﬂoor-by-ﬂoor. Then it plummets. Right to the bottom of the shaft. It appears to be a random accident. . . . But on Tuesday, it happens again, in a different Manhattan skyscraper. And then Wednesday brings yet another tragic high-rise catastrophe. In only three days, one of the most vertical cities in the world—and the nation's capital of media, ﬁnance and entertainment--is plunged into chaos. Clearly, this is anything but random. This is a cold, calculated bid to terrorize the city. And it's succeeding. Fearing for their lives, thousands of men and women working in ofﬁces across the city refuse to leave their homes. Commerce has slowed to a trickle. Emergency calls to the top ﬂoors of apartment towers go unanswered. Who is behind this? Why are they doing it? Are these deadly acts of sabotage somehow connected to a ﬁngerless body found on the High Line? Two seasoned New York detectives and a straight-shooting journalist race against time to uncover the truth before the city's newest, and tallest, residential tower has its ribbon-cutting on Friday night.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky. What happens to them--and to the men they love--becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives. Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic--a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.

I think I've done with buying books until the end of the year… I need to save some for my Christmas wishlist :)

Here are my other book hauls from May 2018, October 2018, March 2019, and June 2019.