Hi Everyone! I thought I’d give you all a break from my massive amount of posts last week. But now I am back and ready for action! Haha. The list of books in the December Book of The Month Club selections is extra fantastic this month. So fantastic in fact that I had to pick three! I am going to have them send me one and I am going to pick up the others that I thought looked so awesome at another time.
Before I give you the list, here are the latest BOTM Club Discount Offers (Only good through 12/31):
Click Here…Free one month trial to Book of the Month with gift subscription purchase
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Valid: Now – 12/31
Click Here… 30% off 3 months at Book of the Month + free tote
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Valid: Now – 12/31
Click Here… $5 for 1-month memberships
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Valid: Now – 12/31
Onto The Books!
★ Swimming Lessons By Claire Fuller
Ok this is the one I am obsessed with! I know at least one other friend who subscribes to BOTM that is choosing this one to read. I can’t wait to hear how she liked it and I plan on starting this one as soon I am finished with my current book. Plus, isn’t that cover beautiful? That would be a gorgeous addition to anyone’s book shelf.
PS: This beauty is $25 if you buy it online or in a bookshop. With the Book of The Month Clubs $5 offer, you can get it for 75% off!!
Click Here… $5 for 1-month memberships
Code: No Code Required
Valid: Now – 12/31
From the author of the award-winning and word-of-mouth sensation Our Endless Numbered Days comes an exhilarating literary mystery that will keep readers guessing until the final page.
Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband Gil about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides each in the thousands of books he has collected over the years. When Ingrid has written her final letter she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan.
Twelve years after her disappearance, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window, but he’s getting older and this unlikely sighting is chalked up to senility. Flora, who has never believed her mother drowned, returns home to care for her father and to try to finally discover what happened to Ingrid. But what Flora doesn’t realize is that the answers to her questions are hidden in the books that surround her. Sexy and whip-smart, Swimming Lessons holds the Coleman family up to the light, exposing the mysterious and complicated truths of a passionate and troubled marriage.
Here is what Abbi Jacobson had to say about her book selection in her own words.
The Vibe of 1960s – One Woman’s Time Capsule
At this point in time, I’m finding myself frustrated, concerned, lost and confused at the world around me. It seems like we’re all searching for answers and solutions and trying to find voices that ease our pain and make us feel less alone, even as we take extra care to be open to different points of view.
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? felt like I dug up a secret time capsule from the 1960s and opened it to find a collection of stories that made me feel. I think that’s what we look for in all content really, stories and pieces of other people’s experiences that make us feel. Sad, sexy, hopeful and honest characters fill Kathleen Collin’s beautiful book. And even though these stories were written decades ago, the issues and frustrations of her characters’ lives mimic where we are right now. Strong, bold, black women fill the pages, reminiscing on an important time in American history, much of which still holds true today.
Every story shifts tone and point of view in a way that keeps you on your toes as a reader—wondering not only what’s next for each character, but what might be in store for you as well. Cinematic, visual, erotic, gentle and poetic are words that come to mind as I swirl around this collection.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for slivers of hope and beauty and detail. It’s for anyone who’s yearning for something, looking to get lost in other’s journeys to find themselves, immerse themselves in other’s regrets for a moment. I had never heard of Kathleen Collins before diving into her stories, and I later learned that this collection was discovered by her daughter many years after Kathleen’s death. Even so, her smart prose is specific and always changing, like she was constantly experimenting with who she was herself as a writer. I found her style immensely inspiring as a creator and as a woman.
-Abbi Jacobson
★ The Sun is Also a Star By Nicola Yoon
New YA Novel! This looks like it’s going to be a smashing success. Read it before everyone else does! I am 100% planning to read this one too BTW. My friend just picked this one too!
A 2016 National Book Award Finalist
Be the first to read the dazzling new novel from Nicola Yoon, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything
Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.
The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
★ You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
I have been hearing about this book for months!! It was one of the most requested books on my Advanced Reader website. It sounds so intriguing and full of surprises.
An audacious novel about family and ambition from “a master of fingernails-digging-into-your-palms suspense” (Kirkus) and bestselling, award-winning author of The Fever, Megan Abbott.
How far will you go to achieve a dream? That’s the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits–until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community. As rumors swirl, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers–about her daughter’s fears, her own marriage, and herself–forces Katie to consider whether there’s any price she isn’t willing to pay for Devon’s dream. YOU WILL KNOW ME is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition
This book is another one that I for sure plan on reading. It looks so different than the books out there right now. It’s layered in moods, issues, family difficulties and it is told in multiple locations. I cannot wait to read this one.
A searing debut novel from one of the most imaginative minds in fiction
Chizuru Akitani is the twelve-year-old daughter of the famous violinist and Japanese “Living National Treasure” Hiro Akitani. Overweight and hafu (her mother is white), she is tormented by her classmates and targeted by the most relentless bully of them all, Tomoya Yu. When Chizuru’s mother dies suddenly her father offers her no comfort and she is left feeling alone and unmoored. At school, her bully’s cruelty intensifies, and in a moment of blind rage, Chizuru grabs a Morimoto letter opener from her teacher’s desk and fatally stabs Tomoya Yu in the neck.
For the next seven years, Chizuru is institutionalized. Her father visits her just twice before ultimately disowning her. Upon release, Chizuru flees Japan for a new identity and life in the United States. Determined to outrun her murderous past, she renames herself Rio, graduates from nursing school, marries a loving man, and soon has a daughter. But when a mysterious package arrives on her doorstep in Boulder, Colorado, announcing the death of her father, Rio feels compelled to return to Japan for the first time in twenty years, leaving her husband and her daughter confused and bereft. Going back to her homeland, and to the scene of her complicated past, feels like stepping into a strange and familiar dream. When she unexpectedly reconnects with Miss Danny, who had been her beloved teacher at the time of the stabbing, long-kept secrets are unearthed, forcing Rio to confront her past in ways she never imagined, and to decide if she will reveal to her family who she once was.
Full of atmospheric and illuminating descriptions of Japan and its culture, Pull Me Under is an affecting exploration of home, identity, and the limits of forgiveness. Kelly Luce has written a bold and psychologically complex first novel that grips and dazzles from start to finish.
Please sign up for this awesome service with the links I provided above. I can’t stress enough how awesome Book Of The Month Club is, and you can’t beat the coupons I included! Remember, they are offering discounted subscriptions to you if you purchase one for someone as a gift. That’s quite an incentive. 🙂
Happy December!
Book It Forward 