Books: Six to read now

No more episodes of Sherlock? No problem.
I'll simply add gratuitous photos of Benedict
Cumberbatch that are vaguely related to this
post...

So these massive book posts of the past? They're in the past for a reason. I can't tell you how long they took to wrote, though I cite my own faulty memory as the cause of much of it. I would sit and stare at the ceiling, trying to recall characters or plot lines, debating what to use as a teaser but fearing I was revealing too much...

Well, since I've spent a lot of time either propped up or horizontal in the last six months, I've had the pleasure of reading a score and thensome of great books. I read over the list a few times and managed to narrow it down to the six fiction picks I'm sharing with you today -- and what better way to spend a holiday weekend than stretched in the sun partly cloudy haze with a book?

Past Imperfect (Julian Fellows): After we finished the latest season of Downtown Abby, I went into a place of darkness. I spent a few minutes reading more about its creator, Julian Fellows, when I discovered the two books he had authored. Past Imperfect (and his other book, Snobs), are filled with the lush, witty dialogue of Downtown Abby in familiar, upper-crust England. Past Imperfect follows Damien Baxter, a 60-something British man who decides to help a friend close to death with his final wish. The story jumps from the 1960s to the present day as Damien tries to track down the truth before his friend passes away. I found this book impossible to put down.

A Kingdom of Strangers (Zoe Ferraris): I'm always intrigued to learn about different cultures through literature, and Zoe Ferraris takes us to Saudi Arabia for a page-turning murder mystery. Her writing is easy and smooth, but the setting and the stark cultural differences are what kept me interested. Men and women, who are largely segregated in Saudi society, come together to collect evidence and investigate crimes. When nineteen female bodies are found in the desert, a male inspector and his female colleague push the boundaries to find the killer.

Brodeck (Phillipe Claudel): Brodeck is an odd novel -- haunting with a dark subtext, yet completely unmoored from a place or time which, rather than giving a timeless quality, as in some books, leaves you completely unmoored throughout. Brodeck returns to his village after surviving a camp in a horrible war, and then, because he is learned, is asked to write a report about the death of a stranger who passed through the village. A story about inhumanity and fear, Brodeck is unsettling. And that's why I loved it so much.

What You Have Left (Will Allison): Allison's novel is divided between three different perspectives and jumps across several decades to tell the story of Holly, who is abandoned after her mother's funeral when she is five years old. Should she forgive her father when he attempts to contact her later in life? Does she even understand what happened and why? Sharing more details would ruin the joy of discovering the story -- with sparse prose and strong voices, I'd strongly recommend it.

Reconstructing Amelia (Kimberly McCreight): This book has been billed as this year's Gone Girl, which is bang-on, because of its fast pace and interwoven story lines. It's just enough mystery and just enough character development to keep your brain engaged as your heart races up and down with each page. Kate's fifteen-year-old daughter has just committed suicide by jumping off of her school's roof -- but the problem is that Kate can't believe it. Kate tracks her daughter's life through text messages, emails, Facebook postings, and here-and-there conversations with her friends. For this book, I was pretty sure what the ending would be -- but I wasn't sure how. It was certainly worth it to find out.

Margot (Jillian Cantor): What if Anne's sister, Margot Frank, survived the concentration camps and made her way to America? Yes, it sounded either campy and/or a shameless ploy when I first read about it, but Margot was as charming and lovely as I would have expected it to be. Now in America, Margie Franklin is working as a legal secretary, hiding who she really is from all those around her. Is her secret safe? You'll keep turning the pages to find out.

In case none of these suit your fancy, the entire list of books (39 and counting in 2014) is here. Yeah, I might be working on slowing down and not focusing so much on achievements... but I have a book-tracking compulsion, and, I promise you, I inherited it from Dad. But more than anything, I buy the same book more than once more than I should, so I have to keep track of these things somewhere.

I'll share some of my top nonfiction picks in my next book post. Read on, dear friends. Read on.

xo,
Sarah