It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

The Its Monday! What Are You Reading meme is hosted at Book Journey.

Life…

And it’s true, today is my birthday!I’m 41 on the 14/4/14!

All gifts, (books), cake, diamonds etc gratefully accepted 😉

 

What I Read Last Week

Fish Out of Water by Ros Baxter

Beached by Ros Baxter

The Dead Ground by Claire McGowan

Losing Kate by Kylie Kaden

Games Creatures Play by Charlaine Harris et al

The Tea Chest by Josephine Moon

 

New Posts

(click the titles to read my reviews)

Review: Crimson Dawn by Fiona McDonald ★★★1/2

Review: The Dead Ground by Claire McGowan ★★★

Review & Giveaway: Beached by Ros Baxter ★★★1/2

Review: Losing Kate by Kylie Kaden ★★★★1/2

Review: Games Creatures Play by Charlaine Harris et.al

Stuff on Sundays:  Six Degrees of Separation

What I Am Reading Today

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted ‘death of print’ has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are a thing of the past, as we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but have become so intuitive as to hail us taxis before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange. Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language(NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the final edition that will ever be printed. Doug is an intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used e-mail to communicate-or even actually spoke to one another. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he and Anana devised to signal if one of them ever fell into danger…. Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague (who is secretly in love with her), Anana’s search for her father will take her into dark basement incinerator rooms, underground passages of the Mercantile Library, meetings of a secret society designed to save the written word, the boardrooms of the evil online retailing giant Synchronic, and ultimately to the hallowed halls of the Oxford English Dictionary-the spiritual home of the written word. As Anana pieces together what is going on, and Bart falls victim to the strange ‘word flu’ that is spreading worldwide, the very future of language is at stake….

 What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

 

This dazzling memoir reveals one woman’s determination to overcome the odds and survive a frightening prognosis. Tanya Saad’s life wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t far off. Happily occupied with a demanding job, the competitive cycling she loved and the support of her irrepressible family, she wasn’t given to introspection. Then the thunderbolt hit. At the age of 30, Tanya discovered she had tested positive for the BRCA1 gene: a gene that meant her chances of developing breast and ovarian cancer young just increased exponentially. Worse was to come when one of her beloved younger sisters tested positive, too. A resilient personality, Tanya was used to meeting challenges. Growing up as part of a Lebanese family in a small NSW country town then coming out as a gay woman in a conservative environment meant she was used to conflict. But there were tough decisions ahead — should she have her breasts and ovaries removed before the disease took hold? Still a young woman, yet to find a partner, would she have time to have children? Told with great verve and humour, this memoir questions what it is that makes you a woman, shows how to meet adversity with courage and grace and offers some surprising revelations along the way. As Tanya says, ‘the profound moments in your life are not about getting what you want, they are about discovering who you are.

The finale of the Blood of Eden trilogy. VENGEANCE WILL BE HERS  Allison Sekemoto once struggled with the question: human or monster?  With the death of her love, Zeke, she has her answer.  MONSTER  Allie will embrace her cold vampire side to hunt down and end Sarren, the psychopathic vampire who murdered Zeke. But the trail is bloody and long, and Sarren has left many surprises for Allie and her companions—her creator, Kanin, and her blood brother, Jackal. The trail is leading straight to the one place they must protect at any cost—the last vampire-free zone on Earth, Eden. And Sarren has one final, brutal shock in store for Allie.  In a ruined world where no life is sacred and former allies can turn on you in one heartbeat, Allie will face her darkest days. And if she succeeds, triumph is short-lived in the face of surviving forever alone.

The person you trust most may only be telling you half the story … Fast-paced, suspenseful, this is a book with more twists than a helter-skelter that will keep you reading late into the night. Perfect for fans of Before I Go to Sleep and Gone Girl. Sue Jackson has the perfect family but when her teenage daughter Charlotte deliberately steps in front of a bus and ends up in a coma she is forced to face a very dark reality. Retracing her daughter’s steps she finds a horrifying entry in Charlotte’s diary and is forced to head deep into Charlotte’s private world. In her hunt for evidence, Sue begins to mistrust everyone close to her daughter and she’s forced to look further, into the depths of her own past. There is a lot that Sue doesn’t know about Charlotte’s life. But then there’s a lot that Charlotte doesn’t know about Sue’s …

 In the gentle coastal town of South Cove, California, all Jill Gardner wants is to keep her store–Coffee, Books, and More–open and running. So why is she caught up in the business of murder? When Jill’s elderly friend, Miss Emily, calls in a fit of pique, she already knows the city council is trying to force Emily to sell her dilapidated old house. But Emily’s gumption goes for naught when she dies unexpectedly and leaves the house to Jill–along with all of her problems. . .and her enemies. Convinced her friend was murdered, Jill is finding the list of suspects longer than the list of repairs needed on the house. But Jill is determined to uncover the culprit–especially if it gets her closer to South Cove’s finest, Detective Greg King. Problem is, the killer knows she’s on the case–and is determined to close the book on Jill permanently.

Have you ever had a strange urge to jump from a tall building, or steer your car into oncoming traffic? You are not alone. In this captivating fusion of science, history and personal memoir, writer David Adam explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind, and how they drive millions of us towards obsessions and compulsions. David has suffered from OCD for twenty years, and The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is his unflinchingly honest attempt to understand the condition and his experiences. What might lead an Ethiopian schoolgirl to eat a wall of her house, piece by piece; or a pair of brothers to die beneath an avalanche of household junk that they had compulsively hoarded? At what point does a harmless idea, a snowflake in a clear summer sky, become a blinding blizzard of unwanted thoughts? Drawing on the latest research on the brain, as well as historical accounts of patients and their treatments, this is a book that will challenge the way you think about what is normal, and what is mental illness. Told with fierce clarity, humour and urgent lyricism, this extraordinary book is both the haunting story of a personal nightmare, and a fascinating doorway into the darkest corners of our minds.

While you are here…

ENTER TO WIN Beached by Ros Baxter Open worldwide, closes April 20th 2014

Congratulate WINNER’s of The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off by Carolyn Brown Prize Packs:

Mary S & Cheryl B

Vote for Book’d Out in the Best Australian Blog Awards. Click the image below and look for Book’d Out (listed alphabetically). I’d appreciate your support!

Thanks for stopping by, I’ll try to be along to visit you shortly!