Saturday, December 31, 2022

Favorite 2022 and Anticipated 2023 Books

What are yours?
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Favorite book in 2022:
Eleutheria
by Allegra Hyde
Dystopia, LGBTQ | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Willa Marks has spent her whole life choosing hope. She chooses hope over her parents’ paranoid conspiracy theories, over her dead-end job, over the rising ocean levels. And when she meets Sylvia Gill, renowned Harvard professor, she feels she’s found the justification of that hope. Sylvia is the woman-in-black: the only person smart and sharp enough to compel the world to action. But when Sylvia betrays her, Willa fears she has lost hope forever.

And then she finds a book in Sylvia’s library: a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution. Inspired by its message and with nothing to lose, Willa flies to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas to join the author and his group of ecowarriors at Camp Hope. Upon arrival, things are not what she expected. The group’s leader, author Roy Adams, is missing, and the compound’s public launch is delayed. With time running out, Willa will stop at nothing to realize Camp Hope’s mission—but at what cost?


Most Anticipated book for January 2023:
Age of Vice
by Deepti Kapoor
Thriller, Mystery, India | Published: 2023 | Goodreads

This is the age of vice, where money, pleasure, and power are everything, and the family ties that bind can also kill.

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family — loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?


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* image source: reading woman

Friday, December 30, 2022

Reading Wrap Up: December 2022

READING WRAP UP
(books from the tbr)

Hester
by Laurie Lico Albanese
Historical, Retelling, Scotland | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 5
loved the journey of this character along with embroidery spotlight

Going Rogue
by Janet Evanovich
Mystery, Humor | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4
fun quips, action and donuts ;-)

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Happy Christmas 2022

BE MERRY AND BRIGHT!
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* image source: vintage card (here)

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Explore: Vancouver

Explore The World 2022
through books, films, etc.
December: Vancouver

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READ:
Little Eyes
by Samanta Schweblin
translated Megan McDowell, Eugenie Schoolderman, Arie van der Wal
Horror, SciFi | Published: 2020 | Goodreads

They've infiltrated homes in Hong Kong, shops in Vancouver, the streets of Senegal, town squares of Oaxaca, schools in Tel Aviv, bedrooms in Ohio. They're following you. They're everywhere now. They're us.

In Samanta Schweblin's wildly imaginative new novel, Little Eyes, "kentukis" have gone viral across the globe. They're little mechanical stuffed animals that have cameras for eyes, wheels for feet, and are connected to an anonymous global server. Owners of kentukis have the eyes of a stranger in their home and a cute squeaking pet following them; or you can be the kentuki and voyeuristically spend time in someone else's life, controlling the creature with a few keystrokes. Through kentukis, a jaded Croatian hustler stumbles into a massive criminal enterprise and saves a life in Brazil, a lonely old woman in Peru becomes fascinated with a young woman and her louche lover in Germany, and a motherless child in Antigua finds a new virtual family and experiences snow for the first time in Norway.



VISIT: someday...

The Paper Hound
344 West Pender Street
in downtown
Vancouver, BC, Canada
website

The Paper Hound is a new, used and rare book store at 344 West Pender Street in downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. We don’t specialize in one particular kind of book, but we favour the classic, curious, odd, beautiful, visually arresting, scholarly, bizarre, and whimsical.

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* part of Explore the World (here)

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Books and Bag: Cozy

Books and Bag
doing some dreaming
a designer bag and books to fill it

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Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
by Jenny Bayliss
Contemporary, Romance, Holiday, Christmas | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Elinor Noel—Nory for short—is quite content running her secondhand bookshop in London. Forever torn between her working-class upbringing and her classmates’ extravagant lifestyles at the posh private school she attended on scholarship, Nory has finally figured out how to keep both at equal distance. So when two of her oldest friends invite their whole gang to spend the time leading up to their wedding together at the castle near their old school, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.

The reunion brings back fond memories, but also requires Nory to dodge an ill-advised former fling. When she falls quite literally into the arms of Isaac, the castle’s head gardener, who has nothing but contempt for the “snobby prep school kids,” the attraction between them is undeniable. And as Nory spends more time with Isaac during the wedding festivities, she finds herself falling hard for the boy she used to consider an enemy. Nory and Isaac explore their common ground, but pressures mount on all sides, and Nory must decide what kind of life she wants to live and what sort of love is worth the risk...


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* image source: bag -Polene Numero Neuf Mini, Ecru Shearling edition

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Rabbit rabbit: Peacebunny

Peacebunny Island
The Extraordinary Journey of a Boy and His Comfort Rabbits,
and How They’re Teaching Us about Hope and Kindness
by Caleb Smith
Memoir, Animals | Published: 2021 | Goodreads

The incredible true story of a boy who is changing the world through kindness... one bunny at a time.

Meet Caleb Smith: a young man who, at age 9, decided to follow his dream to train endangered and rescued rabbits to become therapy animals. Today, 15-year-old Caleb is an entrepreneur who owns and operates a private 22-acre Mississippi River sanctuary called Peacebunny Island. The deal is simple: he saves the rabbits, and they help save us. Driven by an unbreakable desire to minister kindness and compassion, Caleb's adventures include:

Founding a program of therapy rabbits who visit with first responders, senior citizens, families with special needs, and much more

Embarking on a quest along the Mississippi River to develop the site that would become Peacebunny Island

Overcoming challenges, obstacles, and disappointed dreams along the way

Inspiring hope and possibility in the next generation of young people

Stories of the kids who experience the calm, healing magic of Peacebunny Island



 
Imagination Designs
Images from: Lovelytocu