It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #SundayPost #SundaySalon

Linking to: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at BookDate; Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer; and the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz

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Life…

I need to read faster, I thought I’d have a good chance to catch up this past week but somehow the days slipped away. Due in part to a free trial period of a new streaming service which has seen me binging on Grand Designs UK and Grand Designs NZ. I’ve redesigned my house, and my dream house, repeatedly over the past week or two.

I also spent an entire day remotely helping my daughter hunt up sources from her ‘essential’ reading lists, a total of about 80 books, and articles. Her first semester includes Forensic Science, Biodiversity, Introductory Chemistry, and Scientific Literacy. Classes start tomorrow!

Thankfully Book’d Out’s Facebook page has now been reinstated with Zuckerberg and our government reaching some sort of agreement. I’m still trying to figure out Instagram though. How many hashtags are too many? What sort of hashtags should I be using? What’s the follow etiquette? Is it enough to just ‘heart’ a post? Leave your Insta handle in the comments, and I’ll follow you, that part I’ve mastered!

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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

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The Paris Affair by Pip Drysdale

The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

Everything is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray

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New Posts…

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Review: The Silent Listener by Lyn Yeowart

Review: The Paris Affair by Pip Drysdale

Review: The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

Review: Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

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What I’m Reading This Week…

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An explosive book examining the rise of secretive, extremist communities who despise women. In this ground-breaking investigation, Laura Bates traces the roots of misogyny across a complex spider’s web of groups extending from Men’s Rights Activists and Pick up Artists to “Men Going their Own Way” trolls and the Incel movement, in the name of which some men have committed terrorist acts. Drawing parallels with other extremist movements around the world, Bates seeks to understand what attracts men to the movement, how it grooms and radicalizes boys, how it operates, and what can be done to stop it. Most urgently of all, she traces the pathways this extreme ideology has taken from the darkest corners of the internet to emerge covertly in our mainstream media, our playgrounds, and our parliament. Going undercover online and off, Bates provides the first, comprehensive look at this hitherto under-the-radar phenomenon, including fascinating interviews with trolls, former incels, the academics studying this movement, and the men fighting back.

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As a small town turns on itself, three women discover true friends aren’t always the ones you think you know… A compulsive page-turner from bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe.

Tara Hooper is at breaking point. With two young children, a business in a town struggling under an unexpected crime wave, and her husband more interested in his cricket team than their marriage, life is a juggling act. Then, when new neighbours arrive and they are exactly the sort of people the town doesn’t want or need, things get worse.

Life has taught Helen Demetriou two things: being homeless is terrifying and survival means keeping your cards close to your chest. Having clawed back some stability through her involvement in the community garden, she dares to relax. But as she uncovers some shady goings-on in the council, that stability turns to quicksand.

For teenage mother Jade Innes, life can be lonely among the judgement of the town and the frequent absences of her boyfriend. A chance encounter draws her into the endangered community garden where she makes friends for the first time. Glimpsing a different way of life is enticing but its demands are terrifying. Does she even deserve to try?

Can these women with such differing loyalties unite to save the garden and ultimately stop the town from tearing itself apart?

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Never tell a woman where she doesn’t belong.

In 1932, Roy Chapman Andrews, president of the men-only Explorers Club, boldly stated to hundreds of female students at Barnard College that “women are not adapted to exploration,” and that women and exploration do not mix. He obviously didn’t know a thing about either…

The Girl Explorers is the inspirational and untold story of the founding of the Society of Women Geographers―an organization of adventurous female world explorers―and how key members served as early advocates for human rights and paved the way for today’s women scientists by scaling mountains, exploring the high seas, flying across the Atlantic, and recording the world through film, sculpture, and literature.

Follow in the footsteps of these rebellious women as they travel the globe in search of new species, widen the understanding of hidden cultures, and break records in spades. For these women dared to go where no woman―or man―had gone before, achieving the unthinkable and breaking through barriers to allow future generations to carry on their important and inspiring work.

The Girl Explorers is an inspiring examination of forgotten women from history, perfect for fans of bestselling narrative history books like The Radium Girls, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, and Rise of the Rocket Girls.

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A stunningly tense, page-turning debut for all fans of The Woman in the Window and The Girl on the Train The perfect house. The perfect family. Too good to be true.

Kate Webb still grieves for her young son, ten years after his loss. She spends her weekends hungover, attending open houses on Sydney’s wealthy north shore and imagining the lives of the people who live there.

Then Kate visits the Harding house – the perfect house with, it seems, the perfect family. A photograph captures a kind-looking man, a beautiful woman she once knew from university days, and a boy – a boy that for one heartbreaking moment she believes is her own son.

When her curiosity turns to obsession, she uncovers the cracks that lie beneath a glossy facade of perfection, sordid truths she could never have imagined.

But is it her imagination? As events start to spiral dangerously out of control, could the real threat come from Kate herself?

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The steep-climb highs and free-fall lows of my rollercoaster rural life

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill. Well, seven years (60,000 hours) since former city boys Todd and Jeff moved to the country they should have nailed this whole farming gig, right? Yes, they make lovely wine and have built beautiful accommodation, and they’ve even learnt how to look after their rescued farm animals. But they didn’t really count on Mother Nature getting involved.

Drought, bushfires, sick animals, failed crops, heatwaves, enormous changes in the two industries they rely on to make a living, snakes, the unstoppable breeding of peafowl, insurmountable debts and broken machinery …

Just when they think they’re on top of things, the land throws another few hurdles their way. But with fierce determination to succeed, willingness to evolve and their ever-present senses of humour, these boys might be down for the count but they aren’t quite ready to throw in the towel just yet.

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