A long-due reading update

Ahh, the silence of the blog has become deafening, so why not jump back in with a highlight reel of what I've read lately? Since my last reading post in the summer, I've read like...20 more books? I can't recall how many I'd read at that point exactly but I'm at 50 of my 50 book goal for the year and I'm pretty stoked about it!

Since no one, not even me, would want to read one single blog post about every single one of those books jumbled up into one 10,000 word essay, I'm gonna give you the highlight reel.

Links to the books below are Amazon affiliate links. Click through and I get a tiny kickback from your purchase!

Also, if you don't have this FREE Chrome extension yet, Library Extension, it allows you to link your local library to your browser, and a little box will pop up on Amazon (and other places) and tell you if that book is available at your library, how many copies they have, how many holds, etc. So helpful! Highly recommend, and helps me not spend all our free money on books.

Chief Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny

The Beautiful Mystery
How The Light Gets In
The Long Way Home
The Nature of the Beast
A Great Reckoning

I stand by my earlier claim that Chief Inspector Gamache is one of the most well-rounded, likeable, and believable mystery characters ever written. Louise Penny is a straight genius, and I am eagerly awaiting the release of book #14 in November. Fourteen books in and I still want to read it means this series is the real deal.

The Dublin Murder Squad mysteries by Tana French

The Likeness
Faithful Place
Broken Harbour
The Secret Place
The Trespasser

I'm on a big mystery kick, if you couldn't quite tell. This series is more unique, in that each installment revolves around a different character in this same department, the Murder Unit in Dublin's police department. It sounds hokey and I'm not usually a fan of it but French does a thrilling job of connecting them all without it being overbearing. I think my favorite was #2 in the series, The Likeness, but they are all great/creepy/intriguing in their own ways.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
The Philadelphia Chromosome by Jessica Wapner

These two are cancer books, so I figured I'd lump them together. WBBA is a memoir of an oncologist who himself gets a rare case of cancer at a young age. The book was published posthumously, which is said on the first page of the book so it's not really a spoiler, but it was a moving testament and even though I have a husband with cancer, I enjoyed it. (I like sad books, so there's that.) The second, Philadelphia Chromosome, is a book written about the research and science behind the drug that David takes for his CML (chronic myeloid leukemia) and although it was a tad science-heavy in the middle...at least for an English and French double major who hasn't taken a real science class since high school...it was fascinating to experience the scientific discoveries piled one after another over the span of 60+ years that led to the miracle drug David takes today. Maybe not a universally relevant book but still good.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

I'm surprised this was my only sci-fi read over the last few months! (Related, but if you've got a sci-fi recommendation, hmu.) It's a reimagining of the space race starting in the 1950s and I don't want to spoil it any more than that, but it was really good. There's a second installment I can't wait to get my hands on!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This book has been recommended to you by every corner of the internet in 2018 but there's a good reason why: it's cute, short, and a fantastic light read. It's written in letter format, which will never be my favorite format (I feel like it could have been so much deeper and more beautiful in regular prose!) but still worth the read. Plus, the movie's on Netflix now! Lily James!

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

Robert Galbraith is J.K. Rowling's pseudonym for her mystery series, in case you're unfamiliar. This is book 4 in the series, and it's been almost 3 years since the last one and I've been waiting so dang impatiently for this book. I actually preordered it on Amazon over Christmas last year, and it came out at the end of September and I read it all in the span of a week even though it's 650+ pages. SO GOOD. Guys, people dig on Rowling for writing kids books and being ridiculous about adding stuff to the Harry Potter canon years after the fact (which, like, fair...) but she can seriously write. Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, the two main characters, are so likeable and real and the crimes are intricate and hard to guess and I just love them. There's a TV series based on them on Cinemax (??) and I'm dying to watch it, too.

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Okay, now your turn. I just started The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, my first of hers, which is rather embarrassing for an English major, but I wanna hear what you're reading/recommending these days.
HG