Staff Picks: TBR Piles

Peace Talks by Jim Butcher, book 16 of The Dresden Files, is the next book on my TBR after I finish Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson. It feels like I have been waiting ages for Jim Butcher's next installment of The Dresden Files, so imagine my excitement when I learned not just one, but TWO of the next books in the series were published within a couple months of each other. I am very much looking forward to continuing the fantastical adventures of a Wizard P.I. turned Battle Mage. Fairies, Magic, and mayhem, oh my!

Recently, my partner and I started a re-watch of True Blood, and I realized I have not actually read the books. A decade late, I know, but Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris, the first book of The Sookie Stackhouse Series, has found its way up the queue on my TBR, inspired by the re-watch. I am fully prepared for the books to quite different than the show.

When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald first caught my attention when browsing through an issue of Publisher's Weekly. The overview of the book shows hints of touching on topics like family, difficult decisions we have to face, and the quest to find oneself. This book has already found a home on my shelf, and is just waiting its turn to be cracked open.

I also recently picked up The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker. With plans to get married next year, and as the Office Administrator/internal events coordinator for ThriftBooks corporate, I am interested in getting some insights on event planning and making gatherings (post COVID) memorable and meaningful.

Last book of note on my TBR is a re-read. I usually like to have one re-read going, and next on my list is Written in Red by Anne Bishop. This will be my third journey through The Others series and I would be surprised if it's my last. The Others are beings such as vampires, were-animals, elementals, and beings of great power who have reluctantly agreed to share and allow certain lands on their world to be populated by humanity. But if humanity continues to overstep the agreed upon boundaries… Plus, there is cute, romance-y, love stuff.

Spring is here but it still gets dark early so I NEED to get my boat navigation lights sorted! I've dipped into this to fix stuff but I really want to sit and read it because it's clear on every page that while this is written by trained, experienced ex-service electricians with great knowledge, they just LOVE being in boats out on the water.

OK, not great that we're out of stock at the time of this writing (did I snag the last copy???) but several media outlets have really touted this book, so it's no wonder this hard-to-find gem is super in demand. Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa was a senior Romanian Intelligence official who defected to the West in 1978. He spent his life in the west, living under an assumed identity and even survived having a two million dollar bounty on his head & assassination attempts from assorted hit men with names like "Carlos, The Jackal." Pacepa was one of the most important Cold War defections, and this man died at 92, this year, from COVID-19.

The subtitle of this book says it all. Pondering the weight of his creation and then being shunned by the government of the country that hired him to create it. Oppenheimer is pretty much unique in American history in what he achieved and then how he wrestled with the morality of what he had unbottled, antagonizing a cold-war government that was in no mood to listen. And it's also a biography as summer approaches - I never get to sit in a lawn chair and just read in the sun but if I did – this would be the book I'd reach for first.

Not a sequel, but a follow-up to Thompson’s 1967 classic Six Seconds in Dallas. Using new technologies, he reviews the film footage of the JKF Assassination. He also reviews new ballistic evidence. This book is both history and memoir.

This is anthology of stories written in the young adult genre. I am blessed to be able to call one of the authors, Heidi Ayarbe, a dear friend. These stories are written by best-selling and award-winning authors all dealing with some sort of transformation as the general theme. Take a look at my friend’s other books, Freeze-Frame, Wanted, Compulsion, and Compromised. Great YA summer reading!

I may have cheated and typed two books, but hey, they are by the same author and I am a little behind! If you haven’t read his Alex Delaware series, then you should. Jonathan Kellerman's books are definitely my guilty pleasure books!

THE NEW OUTLANDER BOOK COMES OUT IN NOVEMBER!!! Sorry for yelling, but I am super excited!

Many have seen movie Seven Years in Tibet with Brad Pitt, but there is a female story comparable to the book it's based on (Seven Years in Tibet: My Life Before, During and After by Heinrich Harrer). I learned about this book from one of our customers in Australia when I was answering phone calls. Now it's on my List.

I spoke on the phone with an author and promised to purchase his book, but he didn't ask me to. I have it on my shelf and I'll read it as I promised.

Another customer from the NY area told me about this book and I purchased it. The title inspired one of my art pieces that I dedicated to all mothers, and that I will never sell as unconditional love can only be gifted and not sold.

This book was suggested to mee by British lady I met in Mammoth Lakes, CA. She was walking on Pacific Crest Trail and told me that her "hike" was inspired by this book, and she took vacations to do it alone.

I have had several friends threaten me with violence if I did not read this book. After seeing that it is about necromancers in space I completely understand. (Zee if you are reading this, I put it at the top of my TBR pile I swear.)

I'm a big fan of N.K. Jemisin's comic Far Sector and want to give her science fiction collection a try. Also, I'm not going to lie, I might have purchased it based on the incredibly classy cover.

After really enjoying the recent Netflix adaptation I wanted to read the source material. I like seeing how different adaptations pick and choose which aspects of a story to focus on.

I remembered liking the Mage Wars trilogy (also by Mercedes Lackey) as a kid so I wanted to give this series a go. Based on the summary I'd suggest this to anyone who plays a tiefling and/or bard in Dungeons and Dragons.

I am a huge fan of musical theatre, and in particular became a fan of author Leslie Odom Jr. because I was really into the show Rent, which he was in when he was just a teenager! And then he was in an amazing Off-Broadway show called Venice in 2012 (so I am kind of a Leslie Odom Jr. hipster, liked him before he was cool…just sayin’). Then I fell into the Hamilton craze when it premiered Off-Broadway. I also will never turn down a memoir, reading stories of other lives so different from mine is my favorite thing about reading, so finding out what it took to get him from a wide-eyed seventeen year old auditioning for Rent to a Tony winner in the biggest Broadway sensation since Cats is a story I am very interested in. I feel so lucky he’s put it on paper for me and my nosy self.

I love the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender so much that you can’t look any direction in my apartment or my work desk without it being apparent (it’s almost insufferable). While they have had comics come out regularly since the series was on air, this young adult book is the first novel of the expanded universe and I could not be more excited. I have yet to see a single fan be disappointed in this book, and it focuses on a character from the past we didn’t really see in the show, just enough to know that she is a kick butt, assertive, powerful woman and I could not be more excited.

The sequel to the book above, so it is right next in line! This one might have me even more excited because I know it’s the conclusion to the duology, and even though I haven’t even read the first book yet I just need more Kyoshi and more Avatar in my life.

This book–insert a deep sigh here–my white whale. At 240,000 words, it wouldn’t be the longest book I’ve ever read, but, being so rich in detail, every one of those 240k words matters and well, things like new seasons of Riverdale & Nailed it happen and I get distracted by the new shiny things. In short, this book is about a woman uncovering the folklore of Dracula/Vlad the Impaler so is full of lore, gothic imagery, and just cool stuff! I picked this book up from a library YEARS ago, got halfway, then had to return it. I much later got a copy for myself, fully intending to give it the time it deserves….and then again I didn’t finish it. At this point it sits on my shelf, with its thick and prominent spine, just to mock me. At some point I will absorb it by osmosis, yeah?

I have started to read this book a dozen times, over thirty years, and never make it past the chapters about stone-age man and the arrival of the space pylon. Those chapters are so fascinating, but the latter part of the book, which qualifies as 'hard' science fiction, cause me to lose interest. For anyone who appreciates highly technical science fiction, this book will be every bit as entertaining as the Stanley Kubrick film rendition.

I greatly enjoyed the movie of this book, and have made it a few chapters into the novel. It is one of those books that I sat down, and in genuine good faith plan on revisiting.

The tragic story of the author is almost as intriguing as the plot of the novel. This book should be required reading for every Mardi Gras tourist to New Orleans; they would have a better appreciation for the city and its uniqueness if such were the case.