Happy release: Mother Country by Jacinda Townsend

Mother Country
by Jacinda Townsend
Contemporary, Feminism, Africa | Published: May 3, 2022 | Goodreads
Shannon, an African American woman, accompanies her boyfriend to Morocco to escape from education bills, medical debt, and the unexpected revelation of her infertility following a serious automobile accident. She comes across a toddler in a pink jacket with a face that resembles hers in the cobblestoned medina of Marrakech. Shannon makes the choice to adopt and raise the girl in Louisville, Kentucky, with the assistance of her boyfriend and a bribed official. However, the girl already has a mother: Souria, an undocumented Mauritanian woman who was trafficked as a youngster and fled to Morocco to make a fresh start in her life.

In rendering Souria’s separation from her family across vast stretches of desert and Shannon’s alienation from her mother under the same roof, Jacinda Townsend brilliantly stages cycles of intergenerational trauma and healing. Linked by the girl who has been a daughter to them both, these unforgettable protagonists move toward their inevitable reckoning.

About the author:
Jacinda Townsend is the author of Saint Monkey, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Being Benedict Cumberbatch

This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch:
The Joy of Loving Something–Anything–Like Your Life Depends On It
by Tabitha Carvan
Memoir, Biography | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
interview hosted by Book Passage (here)
Tabitha Carvan was a new mother, at home with two young children, when she fell for the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. You know the guy: strange name, alien face, made Sherlock so sexy that it became one of the most streamed shows in the world? The force of her fixation took everyone--especially Carvan herself--by surprise. But what she slowly realized was that her preoccupation was not about Benedict Cumberbatch at all, as dashing as he might be. It was about finally feeling passionate about something, anything, again at a point in her life when she had lost touch with her own identity and sense of self.

In This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, Carvan explores what happens to women's desires after we leave adolescence...and why the space in our lives for pure, unadulterated joy is squeezed ever smaller as we age. She shines a light onto the hidden corners of fandom, from the passion of the online communities to the profound real-world connections forged between Cumberbatch devotees. But more importantly, she asks: what happens if we simply decide to follow our interests like we used to--unabashedly, audaciously, shamelessly? After all, Carvan realizes, there's true, untapped power in finding your "thing" (even if that thing happens to be a British-born Marvel superhero) and loving it like your life depends on it.

WATCH:

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021)
Director/Screenplay: Will Sharpe
Screenplay: Simon Stephenson
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy
Biography, Drama, History | imdb
English artist Louis Wain rises to prominence at the end of the 19th century for his surreal cat paintings that seemed to reflect his declining sanity.

Happy Release: Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

Ordinary Monsters
by J.M. Miro
Fantasy, Victorian, London | Published: June 7, 2022 | Goodreads

England, 1882. In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness —a man made of smoke.

Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a lifetime of brutality, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When two grizzled detectives are recruited to escort them north to safety, they are forced to confront the nature of difference, and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous.

What follows is a journey from the gaslit streets of London, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh, where other children with gifts—the Talents—have been gathered. Here, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities, and the nature of the force that is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts.

With lush prose, mesmerizing world-building, and a gripping plot, Ordinary Monsters presents a catastophic vision of the Victorian world—and of the gifted, broken children who must save it.

First sentence:
The first time Eliza Grey laid eyes on the baby was at dusk in a slow-moving boxcar on a rain-swept stretch of the line three miles west of Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, England.

Lovely Books and Things - 6.5.22

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

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HAPPY THINGS:

1. Fortune cookie with a message that made me smile :-)
2. A New Era: 6 Piece Downton Abbey Collection - nail polish by Butter London (here)
3. Celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and my birthday with tea time at Crown and Crumpet (here)

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Library: audiobook

A Fatal Grace
(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)
by Louise Penny
Mystery, Canada | Published: 2007 | Goodreads
making my way through this series...
Library:

Cold Enough for Snow
by Jessica Au
Literary, Novella, Japan, Australia | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

House and Garden Samplers
by Mary Jenkins
Needlework, Embroidery | Published: 1996 | Goodreads
cross-stitch - my latest craze
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Virtual Author event: hosted by Macmillan Publishers

Bliss Montage: Stories
by Ling Ma
Short Stories | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

The Book of Goose
by Yiyun Li
Historical, Literary | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

Strangers to Ourselves:
Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
by Rachel Aviv
Nonfiction, Mental Illness | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
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AND watched: Roxie theatre - free screening included a surprise double feature!

Crimes of the Future (1970)
Director/Writer: David Cronenberg
Stars: Ronald Mlodzik, Jon Lidolt
Comedy, SciFi | imdb | my rating: 4
creepy, icky scenes
Crimes of the Future details the wanderings of Tripod (Mlodzik), sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has disappeared following a catastrophic plague resulting from cosmetic products, which has killed the entire population of sexually mature women. Tripod joins a succession of organisations including Metaphysical Import-Export and the Oceanic Podiatry Group, and meets various individuals and groups of men who are trying to adjust themselves to a defeminized world. One man parodies childbirth by continually growing new organs which are removed from his body. Eventually Tripod comes upon a group of paedophiles which is holding a 5 year-old girl, and they urge him to mate with her. He senses the presence of Antoine Rouge.

Crimes of the Future (2022)
Director/Writer: David Cronenberg
Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart
Drama, Horror, SciFi | imdb | my rating: 5
visually stunning body horror scenes
Humans adapt to a synthetic environment, with new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice, Saul Tenser, celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances.


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* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Happy National Donut Day 2022

Confetti Donut Clutch In Pink
by Judith Lieber (here)
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Happy National Donut Day
on the first Friday of June
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READ:

Donut Fall in Love
by Jackie Lau
Romance | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
A baker provides the sweetest escape for an actor in this charming romantic comedy.

Actor Ryan Kwok is back in Toronto after the promotional tour for his latest film, a rom-com that is getting less-than-stellar reviews. After the sudden death of his mother and years of constant work, Ryan is taking some much-needed time off. But as he tries to be supportive to his family, he struggles with his loss and doesn't know how to talk to his dad—who now trolls him on Twitter instead of meeting him for dim sum.

Innovative baker Lindsay McLeod meets Ryan when he knocks over two dozen specialty donuts at her bakery. Their relationship is off to a messy start, but there’s no denying their immediate attraction. When Ryan signs up for a celebrity episode of Baking Fail, he asks Lindsay to teach him how to bake and she agrees.

As Lindsay and Ryan spend time together, bonding over grief and bubble tea, it starts to feel like they’re cooking up something sweeter than cupcakes in the kitchen.

Donut Disturb
by Ellie Alexander
Mystery, Cozy | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
The filling is looking grim for pastry chef and amateur sleuth Juliet Capshaw in Donut Disturb, the next in Ellie Alexander's beloved Bakeshop Series.

Love is in bloom in Ashland, Oregon. The Shakespearean hamlet is bursting with fresh spring energy. Fragrant lilacs and the sweet aroma of vanilla cake fill the air as everyone in town gathers at Lithia Park for the celebration of the year—Thomas and Kerry’s wedding.

It’s a picture perfect day. Guests gather on picnic blankets in front of the bandshell to watch Kerry walk down the aisle and wed Ashland’s favorite detective in training, Thomas. Jules and her team at Torte have been tasked with catering the outdoor reception and everything is going according to plan, until a wedding crasher shows up.

The uninvited guest isn’t just someone looking to score a free glass of champagne. It’s Kerry’s estranged father who is supposed to be behind bars. Kerry is distraught. Jules vows to do everything she can to make sure that there are no other surprises on her friend’s big day. But when the bassist for Heart Strings, the wedding band, is found stabbed with the blunt end of his instrument Jules’s promise takes on new meaning. Now she’ll have to slice through the five tiered cake and a bevy of potential suspects in order to track down a killer before they turn the knife on her.

STITCH:

Cross stitching Donut Time by Leann Ross from Forbidden Fiber Co. (here)