February 2021 Book Recap
Just a wee bit behind on my book reviews …
“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”
— Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck
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*Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy* by Ben Macintyre (NF) // [History; biography: This is the true female spy tale you've been looking for—Ben Macintyre writes the best spy thrillers.]
*Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster* by Jon Krakauer (NF) // [Adventure; memoir: “It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier.”]
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*The Best of Me* by David Sedaris (NF) // [Humor; essays: Cozy, familiar, and funny even if not entirely new.]
*Dune* by Frank Herbert (F) // [Sci-Fi; space opera: Sandy with a high probability of worms. (Read this mostly because I’m looking forward to the new movie.)]
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*The Au Pair* by Emma Rous (F) // [Mystery; thriller: Totally ridiculous but also fairly entertaining like a Lifetime movie—great weekend read.]
*Holidays on Ice* by David Sedaris (NF) // [Humor; essays: My 9th Sedaris book. Either you like him, or you don't—I'm quite fond.]
*Tampa* by Alissa Nutting (F) // [Psychological; dark: Whoah … “this book made me feel dirtier than the floor of a porno theater but it was compulsively readable.”]
*The Queen's Gambit* by Walter Tevis (F) // [Game novel; bildungsroman: Read this a bit too close to watching the show—they were almost identical and I liked the show better.]
*I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman* by Nora Ephron (NF) // [Humor; memoir: My first Nora Ephron book although I've always been a Sleepless in Seattle fan.]
*Last Breath (The Good Daughter #0.5)* by Karin Slaughter (F) // [Mystery; thriller: Loved The Good Daughter, this one was kind of disappointing comparatively; more of a novella.]
*We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.* by Samantha Irby (NF) // [Essays; memoir: Funny at points, not so much at others; okay enough for a decent read overall.]
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*The Guest List* by Lucy Foley (F) // [Mystery; “suspense”: *UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT* Guess I wasn’t in the mood, but it did put me to sleep three different times and I found the excessive characters and disjointed timeline annoying.]
