Sunday Salon: Non-Fiction and Thrillers

 Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

As it gets harder sometimes to chat or interact with aging friends my age and even younger, I am more attracted to nonfiction reads that try to decipher our brains and what can happen as we grow and get older. I hope to be enlightened about myself as well as about others. 

The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of our Brains by Pria Anand is an ARC from NetGalley, which will be published June 10, 2025. 

In The Mind Electric, neurologist Pria Anand reveals—through case study, history, fable, and memoir—all that the medical establishment has the complexity and wonder of brains in health and in extremis, and the vast gray area between sanity and insanity, doctor and patient, and illness and wellness, each separated from the next by the thin veneer of a different story.

Remembering the cruise we never took - to Havana - that was bought, paid for, and was then canceled in 2019 by a new ban on travel to Cuba by the president at the time. I'll try some of these recipes instead, I guess. 

The Old Havana Cookbook by Rafael Marcos, published December 1, 1999.  Among the recipes included Ajiaco (famous Cuban Stew), Boiled Pargo with Avocado Sauce, Lobster Havanaise, Tamal en Cazuela (Soft Tamal), Quimbombo (okra), Picadillo, Roast Suckling Pig, and Boniatillo (Sweet Potato Dulce), along with a whole chapter on famous Cuban cocktails and beverages.

All recipes using local foods, seafood, and tropical fruits and veggies. 

The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners by Rami Kaminski. Genre: psychology, science

An interesting take on outsiders seeing the other side of the coin when it comes to groups, families, organizations, businesses, etc.The book has created a new category of people - otroverts. Those who don't feel part of any type of group.

Book description: The book details the otrovert personality – someone who feels like an outsider in any group, regardless of its members - revealing all the advantages of being an otrovert and ways otroverts contribute to the world.  Otroverts are embraced and often quite popular. Yet they never feel like they truly belong.

I'm not sure I'm an otrovert. Do you know anyone who fits this description? Are they lucky or not? 

I'm still reading fiction and mysteries, of course! I finished this one and rated it a 4 on Goodreads and will write a review later on. 

Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill, August 19, 2025; Poisoned Pen Press; NetGalley. Set on the Orient Express in Paris, the famous train is filled with detectives and crime writers on vacation, fascinated by the history of the setting for mystery writers such as Agatha Christie. 

Of course, there are murders on the train, and the writers and detectives set out to solve the crimes even if it means it has to charge one of their own.

 I'm in the middle of reading Our Last Resort by Clemence Michallon, July 8, 2025, Knopf, NetGalley. It's a mystery thriller and psych suspense novel. 

Frida and Gabriel are staying at a seculded resort in the desert of Utah, reuniting and reminiscing about their childhoods growing up in a cult family from which they later escaped. They see a murder on the grounds of the resort and try to solve it themselves, with flashbacks to their lives growing up in the cult. 

I'm intrigued by the murder mystery as well as by the description of life in a cult led by a misogynistic and narcissictic leader. 

That's all for me this week. What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Sunday Salon: Getting Hooked on Audiobooks

 Audiobooks I'm currently enjoying. 

I switch from one to another according to mood. The stories are so different, I don't mix them up!

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny, Macmillan Audio, 2024.

Genre: police procedural; 19th in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, set in a fictional village in Quebec

Book description: A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading "this might interest you", a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list—and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization that something much more sinister than any one murder is fast approaching.

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan, Jan. 2, 2024; Simon & Schuster Audio

Genre: historical fiction, WWII Malaya

Book description: 

A Malayan mother becomes a spy for the Japanese forces during WWII. The story begins in 1935 when Cecily first meets the Japanese general who persuades her to spy in English-occupied Malaya, forward to 1945 when the Japanese fully invaded Malaya, with devastating consequences for the local population.

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai October 7, 2024; Books on Tape

Genre: magical realism, mystery, Japanese
Description: Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives.” Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

Audiobook next on my list

The Love Haters by Katherine Center, May 20, 2025; Macmillan Audio, NetGalley

Genre: rom com, Key West, Fla. 

Description: Video producer Kate must work to film Hutch in Key West, with Aunt Rue and her Great Dane adding to the mix. This rom com is filled with swim lessons, heliciptor flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses. The trope is a hate-love one. 

Audiobook finished

Her Hiding Place by Shannon Hollinger, Jan. 31, 2025; Bookouture

Source: library

Genre: suspense, psychological thriller

My review: Excellent plotting and narration in this audiobook version of the suspense novel. Charlotte and her little girl Alice are in hiding from their abusers at an island resort where Charlotte is a housecleaner. Living in a run down room in the attic, where Alice hides, Charlotte keeps her employers and fellow staff from finding about the child.

A storm that becomes a raging hurricane cuts them all off from the mainland, as one death follows another in the resort. The realization that there is a murderer among them has Charlotte fearing for herself and for little Alice. Not knowing who to trust is the key to the suspense for Charlotte in this locked-room type mystery.

I thought the characters and the storytelling as well as the storm trope made this a really good thriller.

What are you reading or listening to this March? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

March Publications: Romance, Family Drama, Thriller, Women's Fiction

 Here's what's scheduled in March. No I don't feature only reviews but also look at books I plan to read. 

The Strawberry Patch Pancake House, March 18, 2025; HarperCollins, NetGalley. Genre: romance

Single dad Archer moves to Dream Harbor as the new chef of a pancake  house and hires a new nanny. This is the fourth in the Dream Harbor series.

I love that goodreads has listed the tropes in this spring romance:

Tropes:

• single dad
• forced proximity
• slow burn
• found family
• one bed

Hangry Hearts by Jennifer Chen, March 18, 2025; Wednesday Books, NetGalley

A Romeo and Juliet type of romance, with love, food, and families. 

Julie Wu and Randall Hur used to be best friends. Now they only see each other on Saturdays at the Pasadena Farmers Market where their once close families are long-standing rivals. 

I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong, March 4, 2025; Ballantine, NetGalley. Genre: romance, queer, family

Jack, Jr. wakes up after a two-year coma and returns to his Korean-American community in New Jersey that he had abandoned. He is lost and disoriented but steps back into his family's messy life, their restaurant, and the mentoring of a teenage nephew. Romance is the male nurse who took care of him in the hospital. 

The Writer by James Patterson, J.D. Barker, March 17, 2025; Little, Brown and Company, NetGalley. 

Best selling writer, Denise Morrow is found by Detective Shaw with a murdered woman in her apartment. A psychological thriller, suspense novel.

Counter-Attacks at Thirty by Won-Pyung Sohn, March 11, 2025, HarperVia, NetGalley. Genre: contemporary Asian literature

Four young workers rebel against the hostile work environment at the office and do their best to wreck havoc and mayhem. But they learn something about friendship and unity in the process. 

What are you reading this March? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

WWW Wednesday: Five Books

 WWW Wednesday hosted by Taking on a World of Words. Answer the following questions:

What are you planning to read? 

A Shipwreck in Fiji, A Sergeant Akal Singh Mystery by Nilima Rao

June 10, 2025; Soho Crime, historical mystery

Author: Nilima Rao is a Fijian Indian Australian who has always referred to herself as "culturally confused." Working with data by day, she writes in her spare time. A Disappearance in Fiji was her first novel.

Book description: Fiji, 1915: when a purported sighting of Germans on the run from WWI turns deadly, Sergeant Akal Singh must (reluctantly) take up the investigation in this vibrant follow-up to A Disappearance in Fiji.

History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook, July 1, 2025; Soho Crime

Book description: Someone is connecting Prof. Daphne Ouverture to the rising star of the university's anthropology department, Sam Taylor. When Sam is murdered, the killer believes Daphne has something of Sam's and is set on finding it.  Helped by two detectives, Daphne searches for the "something" that ties her to Sam's death, while juggling teaching and her disastrous love life. 

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher,  Jan. 11, 2022; Berkley

Genre: historical fiction

Book description: How a humble bookseller fought against incredible odds to bring one of the most important books of the 20th century to the world - James Joyce's Ulysses.

When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself.

When James Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.

What are you currently reading?

The Bookseller: the First Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor, Jan. 1, 2012; Seventh Street Books

Genre: mystery

Book description: Max—an elderly Paris bookstall owner—is abducted at gunpoint. His friend, Hugo Marston, head of security at the US embassy, launches a search, enlisting the help of semiretired CIA agent Tom Green. Their investigation reveals that Max was a Holocaust survivor and later became a Nazi hunter. Is his disappearance somehow tied to his grim history, or even to the mysterious old books he sold?

What did you finish reading?

Someone to Watch Over You by Kumi Kimura, April 10, 2025; Pushkin Press, NetGalley

Genre: literary fiction

The Covid pandemic in 2020 brings two unlikely souls together as they both hide from their pasts and try to avoid each other and other people while living in the same house as landlady and tenant. The landlady, a former teacher, is so determined to be proper because she is living in the same house with a male, a security guard, that she never sees him and only communicates by notes with the tenant.

This leads to a very bizarre situation, when we wonder at the end, whether the security guard is still alive or has gone, and whether his continued presence is just a dream the landlady lives in. I couldn't decide, and that made the book both unsettling and thought provoking. 

Sunday Salon: The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians

This is a mix-up of books I want to read, books read and reviewed, and books currently being read. How many of you have books in these categories of your reading? 

To be read

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

Publication: Jan. 28, 2025; Ballantine, NetGalley

 I read her previous book, Black Cake, which I was curious about as it's about a family from Jamaica, W. I. whose tradition is to make the island's famous black cake for celebrations and special occasions. 

Good Dirt is about the daughter of an affluent Black family who makes the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom- the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor.

 

Reviews:  Booksellers, Book Collectors, and Librarians

The Book Seller and Other Stories by Peter Briscoe, (2022) a specialist in collecting and acquiring books, and who has built library collections at two universities. 

His five stories feature book sellers, librarians, students, book collectors, and early scientific explorers who amassed papers and special collections about their subjects. The Latin American Library Conference is one place where unusual historical books and original papers were available to book sellers, book researchers, and collectors. 

The stories include the rampant theft of valuable materials in some libraries, seen as a universal problem. The stories also show the value of libraries and booksellers in gathering and providing information to the public.

"Librarianship is a continuous selection process.... winnowing the wheat from the chaff."

I was enlightened and amazed by early book collectors and their passion for getting original and good material for libraries.  

 

The Bookseller by Valerie Keogh, March 3, 2025, Boldwood Books. Genre: mystery, psychological thriller, contemporary fiction 

Review: Helen has always wanted to own a bookshop and become a bookseller. She pursues her dream after spending two years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter in the murder of her abusive exhusband, Toby. It was easy to follow the first person narrative, when Helen reveals at the end the real reason for killing Toby.

In rehabilitating herself, the book shows her dedicated searches for books to fill the shelves of her little second hand bookshop - advertising for and finding donors, buying collections from people downsizing their living spaces, going to houses to pick up boxes of books herself. All while mysterious break-ins at her home and the book shop kept her on her toes wondering who "had it in for her."

I enjoyed reading about the business of establishing your own business, especially a place selling second hand books. The collection of books and the attracting of customers, keeping them coming back with rewards - all this was fascinating to me.
good read, both psychological thriller and a great woman's fiction novel. 

 

The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson, April 8, 2025; Little, Brown and Company, NetGalley

Stories by real reference librarians, digital archivists, booksellers, collectors, archivists, and others involved with books and reading. I loved these brief essays by the varieties of people who deal with and in books and those that read. I so agree with this quote from one of the essays:

"Students need to be able to see themselves in books, but also to be exposed to and experience somebody else's life through books."

Independent bookstore owners are also valued in the book community, as they give personal attention to their customers, whose reading preferences they begin to know very well. There is a section of this collection with essays written by these bookstore owners.

This is a valuable book to have, with easy to read stories.

Currently reading

I chose this ARC for the colorful cover and the intriguing title, though it won't be published until June 26, 2025.

  

The Satisfaction Cafe by Kathy Wang, Abacus, NetGalley

In this book, Joan Liang travels from Taiwan to California to study at Stanford University, and meets and marries an older, wealthy man with children from his first marriage. Joan comes only second to her older brothers in her family in Taiwan, but is independently trying to make it on her own in California. 

I like her journey so far, especially in quickly divorcing an unsatisfactory man 
Toby, whose sexual preferences she quickly turns away from.  I also like the no-nonsense approach and the easy way she fits into and challenges whatever situation she finds herself in. 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday