Library Loot from Halloween

Okay, the impetus for me starting a book blog right now, today, was A Striped Armchair‘s most recent Library Loot post.  I went to the library on Halloween and I’m eager to share my loot.

So here goes:

I heard about China Mieville’s The City and The City on NPR and then again featured in an Unshelved comic strip. It sounded absolutely fascinating: two cities occupying the same geographical space and the same time, but the residents do not interact with the residents of the other city.  This one I’ve actually started reading and I love the dialogue, the concept, the world-building.  Good stuff.

I am not sure where I picked up the recommendation for America America by Ethan Canin, but probably on Goodreads.  From the book jacket, it’s about a young man that gets caught up in a powerful family during the 1970’s.  Not my usual book catnip, but a faint memory of the good review I read of it is enough to make me check it out.

Over the summer I read Peter Mansfield’s A History of the Middle East and it spurred me to add a bunch of fiction set in that region to my to-read list, including Rabih Alameddine’s Hakawati.  Hakawati means storyteller and the book apparently weaves together a character’s personal history with that of classic Middle Eastern tales.  I’m quite excited about this one and the cover is gorgeous too, though the thumbnail may not do it credit.

My next bunch are all young adult novels.  I don’t consider myself a YA novel aficionado, but I can’t go on Goodreads or look at Booklist reviews without running into reviews of YA novels and so I end up raiding that section of the library because of these reviews that I read.

Specials by Scott Westerfeld is the third of a popular series that started with Uglies and then the second book, Pretties.  They’re quick, interesting reads and I’m curious to see where Westerfeld is going with the story and characters.

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell is a historical novel set in the post WWII era.  Lovely cover and it’s a National Book Award winner.

Bunce’s A Curse as Dark as Gold and Pattou’s East are both retellings of fairytales: Rumplestilskin for the former and “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” for the latter.  I recently read The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale and enjoyed it, so I’m into the fairytale retellings at the moment.

So that’s my loot!  Reviews of the loot forthcoming over the next couple of weeks.