Down The TBR Hole #44 | Down The TBR Hole Tag

Welcome to the 43rd edition of my Down The TBR Hole Posts.

This weekend I have interesting selection to go through with you…

How Down the TBR Hole works: 

❤ 1. Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.
❤ 2. Order on ascending date added.
❤ 3. Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books.
❤ 4. Read the synopsis of the books.
❤ 5. Time to Decide: keep it or should it go

Here’s the next patch:

➥ Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Synopsis: 

I was born twice first as a baby girl on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960 and then again as a teenage boy in an emergency room near Petoskey Michigan in August of l974. So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point Michigan. To understand why she is not like other girls Calliope has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns her into Cal one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ At My Table: A Celebration of Home Cooking by Nigella Lawson

Synopsis:

Nigella Lawson is a champion of the home cook and her new book celebrates the food she loves to cook for friends and family. The recipes are warming, comforting, and inspirational, from new riffs on classic dishes – including Chicken Fricassee and Sticky Toffee Pudding – to adventures in a host of new dishes and ingredients, from Aubergine Fattet to White Miso Hummus.

AT MY TABLE includes dishes to inspire all cooks and eaters, from Hake with Bacon, Peas and Cider to Indian-Spiced Chicken and Potato Traybake and Chilli Mint Lamb Cutlets; plus a host of colourful vegetable dishes, like Eastern Mediterranean Chopped Salad and Carrots and Fennel with Harissa.

No Nigella cookbook would be complete without sweet treats, and AT MY TABLE is no exception, with Emergency Brownies, White Chocolate Cheesecake and a Victoria Sponge with Cardamom, Marmalade and Crème Fraiche set to become family favourites.

As Nigella writes, ‘happiness is best shared’ and the food in this book will be served and savoured at your own kitchen table just as it is at hers.

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ I Love You Too Much by Alicia Drake

Synopsis:

“I knew I was in Paris, I knew that was the Seine beneath me, the sky above, but when I looked around for help, the grand apartment buildings of the Quai Voltaire stared back at me, indifferent.

In the sixth arrondissement everything is perfect except for the loneliness. This is the Paris of thirteen-year-old Paul. Shy and unloved, he quietly observes the lives of the self-involved grown-ups around him: his glamorous Maman, Séverine, her younger musician lover, Gabriel, and his fitness-obsessed Papa, Philippe. Always overlooked, it’s only a matter of time before Paul witnesses something that he’s not supposed to see…

Seeking solace in an unlikely friendship with tear-away classmate Scarlett and the temptation of the numerous patisseries in his elegant neighbourhood, Paul searches for unconditional love. But what will he do if he can’t find it?

Alicia Drake evokes contemporary Parisian life with the subtlety of a latter day Francois Sagan, and she captures in Paul the pains of adolescence as poignantly as Salinger’s Holden Caulfield. I Love You Too Much is a novel of extraordinary intelligence and heart, a devastating coming of age story told from the sidelines of Parisian perfection.”

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ Ripperville by Roger David Francis

Synopsis: 

Victorian London hides a deadly secret. Bloodshed stains the cobbled streets.
An innocent boy born in poverty takes a path that will ultimately lead him to become one of the most notorious serial killers of the 19th century.
One hundred and thirty years later Alice procures a painting. Little does she know the dark alleyway in the picture will take her on as journey through time revealing the truth about Jack the Ripper.
Stalked by a strange man Alice discovers he has a connection to Whitechapel.
Can she alter the events unfolding and prevent further murders?
Will the past catch up with her?

Verdict: KEEP ☑ 

➥ On Bowie by Rob Sheffield

Synopsis: 

On Bowie is a thoughtful and loving meditation on the life of the late David Bowie that explores his creative legacy and the enduring and mutual connection he enjoyed with his fans

Innovative. Pioneering. Brave. Until his death in January 2016, David Bowie created art that not only pushed boundaries, but helped fans understand themselves and view the world from fantastic new perspectives.

When the shocking news of his death on January 10, 2016 broke, the outpouring of grief and adulation was immediate and ongoing. Fans around the world and across generations paid homage to this brilliant, innovate, ever-evolving artist who both shaped and embodied our times.

In this concise and penetrating book, highly-regarded Rolling Stone critic, bestselling author, and lifelong Bowie fan Rob Sheffield shares his own feelings about the passing of this icon and explains why Bowie’s death has elicited such an unprecedented emotional outpouring from so many.

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ The Beautiful and the Cursed (The Dispossessed, #1) by Page Morgan

Synopsis:

After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.

In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures.

And Grayson has gone missing.

No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home.

Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ The Sea by John Banville

Synopsis:

When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma.

The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins (silent, expressionless Myles, and fiery, seductively poised and forthright Chloe), who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, and what ensured would haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow.

Written in Banville’s precise and hauntingly beautiful prose, The Sea is both a reconciliation with loss and an extraordinary meditation on identity and remembrance. Utterly compelling, profoundly moving and illuminating, it is unquestionably one of the finest works yet from a sublime master of language.

 

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ Daughter of the Empire (The Empire Trilogy, #1) by Raymond E. Feist

Synopsis:

Set in the mysterious world of the Kelewan, Mara, Ruling Lady of the Acoma, is forced to protect her honour and her people in the ruthless Game of the Council.

Verdict: KEEP ☑ 

➥ A Girl Like You by Gemma Burgess

Synopsis:

I’ve discovered the secret to successful singledom. I’m acting like a man. And it’s working.

After breaking up with her boyfriend of, well, forever, Abigail Wood must learn how to be single from scratch. Her dating skills are abysmal, and she ricochets from disaster to disaster – until Robert, one of London’s most notorious lotharios, agrees to coach her. With his advice, she learns to navigate the bastard-infested waters of the bar scene and practices the art of being bulletproof. The new Abigail is cocky, calm, composed… but what happens when she meets her match?

Verdict: REMOVE ✖

➥ A Killer’s Mind (Zoe Bentley Mystery, #1) by Mike Omer

Synopsis:

A chilling thriller of serial murder and dark secrets that will leave you wondering, is the past really in the past?

Three Chicago women have been found strangled, embalmed, and posed as if still alive. Doubting the findings of the local PD’s profiler, The FBI calls on forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley to investigate.

Zoe quickly gets off on the wrong foot with her new partner, Special Agent Tatum Gray. Zoe’s a hunter, intense and focused; Tatum’s a smug maverick with little respect for the rules. Together, they must descend into a serial killer’s psyche and untangle his twisted fantasies, or more women will die. But when the contents of three inconspicuous envelopes reveal a chilling connection to gruesome murders from Zoe’s childhood, suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted.

Verdict: KEEP ☑ 

I removed 7 books this time. Great progress!
This is how my TBR list looks like now.

Which books would you keep or remove? Let me know in the comments.

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