Booking Through Thursday: What Makes a Good Book

 

Join Booking Through Thursday: 

Everybody needs a change now and again, so what new topics or authors are you interested in these days? Or what new kinds of books do you wish you had time for?

I'm looking for good writing in the books I read these days, and if the first page or pages don't grab my interest right off, I move on to the next book. First person narratives are interesting, as are the voices of adolescents or children, or struggling personalities, female or male. 

Books with in depth characterizations, complex individuals, and teasing ideas are just as important or even more important as the plot per se. Of course, an intriguing and unusual plot that leads you on becomes just as important as the characters sometimes. 

Have you found any books lately that fit the bill for you? 

Here are a few books that kept and are keeping my interest throughout:

Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh, May 6, 2025; Tin House, NetGalle

The Master Jeweler by Weina Dai Randel

Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa, (September 30, 2025; Knopf Canada; NetGalley

The Water Lies (October 2025; NetGalley)

What books are you reading that have you staying up at night? 

Re gardening: the storms and rains have prevented much gardening but the yard looks bright and green though overgrown. I replanted red lilies from the back to the front flowerbeds, but the winds and rain uprooted them, so I'm back to digging and fixing this morning.

How about you? 

Sunday Salon: May Books on My List

 May Books on My List

Autobiography/Memoir

Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh, May 6, 2025; Tin House, NetGalley

Genre: memoir, nonfiction, nature

Description: 

Katie Goh follows the complicated history of the orange from east-to-west and west-to-east, from a luxury item of kings and  emperors, to a common everyday fruit.  

Growing up queer in a Chinese-Malaysian-Irish household in the north of Ireland, Katie felt herself at odds with the culture and politics. She visited her ancestral home in Longyan, China and travels to Malaysia to understand her roots, to flesh out contradictions, unpeel the layers of personhood. A reflection on identity through the cipher of the orange. 

This unusual memoir is one I'm looking forward to reading.

Mystery Novel

Detective Aunty by Uzma Jaluluddin, May 6, 2025, Harper Perennial, NetGalley

Genre: cozy mystery, adult fiction, set in Toronto

Description:

Kauser Khan returns to Toronto to clear her daughter, Sana, of the murder of a landlord. With the help of old friends and her teenage granddaughter, Kausar investigates to uncover the truth behind the murders that have been occurring there.

General Adult Fiction

My Friends by Fredrik Backman, May 6, 2025; Simon and Schuster, NetGalley

Genre: adult fiction, contemporary, set in Sweden

Description: 

A funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.  One of the boys hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life.

Louisa years later finds three tiny figures painted in the corner of a world famous painting she has been put in charge of, and sets out to find the story behind it.

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