Sarah's Book Shelves - A book recommendation blog

Eight Campus Novels That Will Make You Want to Go Back to School…or Not!

August 22, 2017 Sarah Dickinson Top Ten Tuesday 33

Regular readers know how big a sucker I am for campus novels, so I was so surprised when I realized I’d never done a round-up of my favorites! And, when I say campus, I mean college, boarding school, or elite private high school. For some reason the “campus” feels more “campus-y” and the potential for drama much greater with these types of schools.

You’ll notice that many of these books fall into the dark and twisty category…which will probably make some of you glad you’re watching all the drama from the sidelines instead of living it!

Eight Campus Novels That Will Make You Want to Go Back to School…or Not!

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates (my review)
I feel like I talk about this book all the time…but, with good reason! A secret society, friends backstabbing friends, dares gone way too far…at Oxford University. Bonus: Yates’s sophomore novel, Grist Mill Road, is coming out on January 8 and I couldn’t be more excited!

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (my review)
Seven Shakespeare students who are best friends, life imitating art, a tragedy…at the fictional Dellecher Classical Conservatory (a small, uber-intense performing arts college in the Midwest).

Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito (my review)
Rich and neglected high schoolers that love to party, a school shooting, an obsessive love story, an abusive father…at a fictional, elite Swedish prep school.

Shadow of the Lions by Christopher Swann (my review)
A boy who disappeared years ago, his best friend who returns to find out what happened…at Blackbourne, a fictional, all boys boarding school in Virginia (but, it’s based on the very real Woodberry Forest School in Orange, VA, also the author’s alma mater).

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (my review)
Coming of age story, lovable characters, baseball, sports psychology (but, don’t worry, this book is not really about baseball)…at Westish College (a small, fictional college on the shores of Lake Michigan).

The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy (my review)
Possibly my very favorite campus novel and the grandaddy of them all! A gorgeous and sinister Charleston setting, abuse and hazing, friendship…at the very real Citadel (The Military College of South Carolina).

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (my review)
Best friends, a murder, betrayal…at the fictional Hampden College (a small, elite Vermont college closely resembling Tartt’s alma mater, Bennington College).

The Takedown by Corrie Wang (my review)
High school girl drama, technology and social media on steroids, public shaming…at a fictional, elite Brooklyn high school.

Are you a fellow sucker for campus novels? What are some of your favorites?

What I’m Reading Now (8/21/17)

August 21, 2017 Sarah Dickinson It's Monday! What are you reading? 28

Whew! Last week was moving week…and things were obviously chaotic! I spent almost all day every day unpacking boxes (I now understand that it can take a full 1.5 days to unpack a kitchen) and did not do a ton of reading. However, podcasts made all that unpacking much more enjoyable!

Thankfully, we were able to take a break from all the moving nonsense with a quick family trip to the Chesapeake Bay area last weekend. Let me tell you, it was much needed!

#Buildsarahsbookshelves Library Update

I’m putting together a very selective library for my new (but small) built-in bookshelves and am sharing each book I acquire on Instagram (follow me at sarahsbookshelves)! And, I’m trying to acquire all these new books at rock bottom prices.

I didn’t acquire any new books for my new shelves last week, but I’ll do you one better…I actually got to see my shelves live and (almost) finished for the first time!

My new babies…anxiously awaiting their books! @gates.interiors #buildsarahsbookshelves #bookstagram #bookshelves #bookshelvesofinstagram

A post shared by Sarah’s Book Shelves (@sarahsbookshelves) on Aug 15, 2017 at 9:03am PDT

Hosted by The Book Date.

This post contains affiliate links.

I finished reading…

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (February 28, 2017)
High readable, super compelling, and heart-breaking. An “issue” book that happens to also be, at its heart, a flat-out great story about a family. I can see why people are buzzing about this one. Also, an excellent choice for book clubs.
Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon

The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett (August 25, 2011)
This slim little book (or, essay is probably a better term as it’s only 45 pages long) is Patchett’s thoughts and advice on writing. I’m not an aspiring writer, but Patchett’s advice and outlook on life and work is down to earth and applicable beyond writing. Without the benefit of being a writer myself, I suspect this is a must read for anyone that is!
Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon

I’m currently reading…

The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas (August 29, 2017)
This debut novel about a woman’s view of work and marriage was a last minute Netgalley request…before I realized it was over 500 pages long! I’m about 25% through and enjoying it…Joan’s struggle between achieving her professional goals and being a wife and mother is real.
Affiliate Link: Pre-Order from Amazon

South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby (July 4, 2017)
I read about 10% of this one…it was fine, but wasn’t blowing me away. And, since it was a library hold, I wasn’t feeling any pressure to continue with something that didn’t blow me away.

Upcoming reading plans…

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (March 7, 2017)
I’ve been shying away from this critical darling because I’m not a fan of magical realism, but finally put it on hold at the library after reading the first few pages at a bookstore (the writing is great!) and seeing Susie at Novel Visits mention it’s a good choice for readers who think they don’t like magical realism.

I was reading…

One Year Ago: I was on vacation and didn’t post a Monday update!

Two Years Ago: I had just finished my first Sprint Triathlon!

How was your reading week?

Read One, Skip Two: Shadow of the Lions, See What I Have Done, and Young Jane Young

August 17, 2017 Sarah Dickinson Mini Book Reviews 11

I moved this week, so life has been crazy! Hence the round-up of August mini-reviews you’re getting today. Two of these books are already out and one is coming on August 22.

Shadow of the Lions by Christopher Swann
Fiction (Released August 1, 2017)
368 Pages
Bottom Line: Read it.
Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon
Source: Publisher (Algonquin)

Plot Summary: After his life spirals out of control following the success of his first novel, Matthias returns to teach at his old boys’ boarding school, where his best friend (Fritz) vanished from campus during their senior year.

My Thoughts: Y’all know I’m a sucker for boarding school novels. But, I’ve had read some stinkers over the past few years. Shadow of the Lions is NOT one of the stinkers! It’s been described as a “literary thriller,” which I’m not sure I agree with. I’d say it’s more of a literary “mystery” than a “thriller” because it doesn’t have all the heart-pounding franticness that a thriller brings to mind.

The story begins with a wistful feeling as Matthias returns to campus and reminisces about his time there as a student and Fritz’s disappearance. And, it gradually picks up speed as Matthias decides he wants to find out what happened to Fritz once and for all. This is also a story about male friendship…the kind of bond that can only be developed in extremely close quarters with shared experiences (i.e. living together in dorms, in the military, etc). Shadow of the Lions is one of those books that you don’t have to think too hard about (I need these sometimes!), but that has enough depth to keep you interested…and is the final book I’m adding to this year’s Summer Reading Guide!

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt
Historical Fiction – Debut (Released August 1, 2017)
336 Pages
Bottom Line: Skip it.
Affiliate Link: Amazon
Source: Publisher (Atlantic Monthly)

Plot Summary: A fictional telling of the famous, unsolved Lizzie Borden murders of 1892.

My Thoughts: I love books about crime. I love fiction based on real people and/or events. I love books about dysfunctional families. See What I Have Done is all of these things, but I didn’t love it. Most of the story centers around the Borden family dynamics (each family member has their own motives to have possibly killed Abby and Andrew Borden) and the days immediately following the murders. Oddly for a story involving crime and a dysfunctional family, it moved slowly and I got bored around the 40-50% mark. I kept expecting things to move along to Lizzie’s arrest and the subsequent trial (the part of the story I find most intriguing), but that didn’t happen until three quarters of the way through. And, when we finally did hear about it, it was covered only briefly and on a surface level (we never even got to hear about the evidence that led to Lizzie’s arrest). When I finished, I felt like I didn’t know much more about the murders than I did before I read the book.

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
Fiction (Release Date: August 22, 2017)
320 Pages
Bottom Line: Skip it.
Affiliate Link: Amazon
Source: Publisher (Algonquin)

Plot Summary: When intern Aviva Grossman’s affair with her much older, married Congressman boss becomes public, she must figure out how to get her life back in order.

My Thoughts: Zevin’s last book, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (my review), was my favorite book of 2014, so I had high expectations going into Young Jane Young. And, I did love the first half. Young Jane Young is an “issue” book without feeling too much like an “issue” book. The storyline closely mirrors the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, which I was fascinated with when it happened. But, Young Jane Young explores the reverberating impact of a public scandal like this on the female cheatee…and how different it is from the impact on the male cheater. It illuminates the gross double standard that exists in today’s society and how that can truly wreck lives. Zevin had me glued through this point.

But, a gimmicky second half sent things sailing downhill. First, the writing style and tone of the story completely changed during the section told from Ruby’s (Aviva’s daughter) perspective (which was written in a one-sided email exchange with her pen pal). I didn’t like that we never heard from the pen pal either. But, what really sent me over the edge was the final section told from Aviva’s perspective that was written as a Choose Your Own Adventure story (yes, you read that correctly). What?!! There was a point to it, but it still didn’t work for me…mainly because I thought I was reading an adult novel, not a kids’ comic book. To be fair, this was clearly mentioned in the book’s blurb, but I must have skimmed right over that part. I imagine Young Jane Young will be a somewhat controversial read, so it would make a great book club selection even though it didn’t work for me.

My Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2017

August 15, 2017 Sarah Dickinson Book Lists 16

It’s finally here…big, buzzy book season! For those that don’t closely follow the publishing industry, Fall is traditionally when the buzziest books by the biggest name authors hit the shelves. We’ve got new books coming from Celeste Ng, Nelson DeMille, Alice Hoffman, Dan Brown, Jennifer Egan, and Andy Weir.

But, a number of books from lesser known or debut authors caught me eye as well! And, a couple of those are international books hitting U.S. soil for the first time this Fall.

Last year, four of the books I picked for my Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016 list ended up being hits for me. Let’s see if I can beat that this year!

This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

September

Sourdough by Robin Sloan (September 5, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
I loved Sloan’s quirky novel about bookstores, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and now he’s writing about food! Admittedly, I can’t begin to figure out what about food this book is actually about. More power to anyone who can decipher this blurb…

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

When Lois comes before the jury that decides who sells what at Bay Area markets, she encounters a close-knit club with no appetite for new members. But then, an alternative emerges: a secret market that aims to fuse food and technology. But who are these people, exactly?

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (September 12, Penguin Press)
I’ve already read this one and it’s great! Which is good news because it had big shoes to fill (Ng’s debut, Everything I Never Told You, was a huge hit and was Amazon’s Best Book of 2014…and I loved it).

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned […]. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson (September 12, Ecco)
It’s about time for a heart-wrenching, Southern saga for me…hoping this is it! It’s been described as “To Kill a Mockingbird meets Beloved” and has gotten some eyebrow-raising blurbs (Cristina Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans called it “art of the highest order”).

Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: in a house full of secrets, two babies-one light-skinned, the other dark-are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper’s daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm’s inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.

The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille (September 19, Simon & Schuster)
Years ago, Nelson DeMille was one of my favorite authors…and his The Gold Coast was one of my favorite books. He’s still a solid go-to thriller writer for me and I’m looking forward to this departure from his John Corey novels.

Daniel Graham MacCormick—Mac for short—seems to have a pretty good life. At age thirty-five he’s living in Key West, owner of a forty-two-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. One day, Mac is sitting in the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West, contemplating his life, and waiting for Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a ten-day fishing tournament to Cuba at the standard rate, but Mac suspects there is more to this […].

The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall (September 19, Ballantine Books)
I’ve read an excerpt of this novel that has been compared Fates and Furies and The Mothers and really liked the writing! Hopefully, it can keep up it’s good start.

A timely novel about an accusation against a beloved schoolteacher and the repercussions on his loved ones, exploring issues of loyalty, truth, and the meaning of happiness through the lens of an all-American family on the brink of collapse.

October

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (October 3, Scribner)
I’ve never read Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, but it won a bunch of awards (including the 2011 Pulitzer) and people seem to love it. So, I’m looking forward to giving her venture into historical fiction a try.

Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. Anna observes the uniformed servants, the lavishing of toys on the children, and some secret pact between her father and Dexter Styles. Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. […] At a night club, she chances to meet Styles, the man she visited with her father before he vanished, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life.

Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit (October 3, Harper)
The Dinner is one of my all-time favorite novels and I’ve been looking for a similar book for quite awhile. Fear has not only been compared to The Dinner, but Herman Koch himself blurbed it!

An acclaimed German writer makes his American debut with this gripping and sophisticated thriller reminiscent of The Dinner and the early novels of Ian McEwan, about the murder of a neighbor who had been harassing a middle-class family—and the relative imprisoned for the crime.

Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak (October 17, Berkley Books)
This debut novel was one of the more hyped books at this year’s Book Expo event and I love “family gets back together” books (This Is Where I Leave You, anyone?!).

A warm, wry, sharply observed debut novel about what happens when a family is forced to spend a week together in quarantine over the holidays…

The Floating World by C. Morgan Babst (October 17, Algonquin)
I’m intrigued by the Hurricane Katrina setting and it got a starred review in Kirkus…

A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdorés, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans.

November

The Senator’s Children by Nicholas Montemarano (November 7, Tin House)
Annie B. Jones of the From the Front Porch podcast has been talking up this book for awhile now! And, since Annie is my new go-to book recommendation guru (I read Rabbit Cake, Standard Deviation, and American Fire on her recommendation), that’s all I need to know!

Sisters Betsy and Avery have never met, but they have both spent their lives under the scrutiny of prying cameras and tabloid journalists. Their father, David Christie, was a charismatic senator and promising presidential candidate until infidelity destroyed his campaign and his family’s life. In the aftermath, Betsy grieves her broken family, while Avery struggles with growing up estranged from her infamous father yet still exposed by the national spotlight.

Artemis by Andy Weir (November 14, Crown)
The author of the smash hit The Martian is back with his sophomore novel!

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. […] Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

December

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughn (December 5, Atria Books)
I don’t normally read new releases in December, but this one sounds so totally up my alley that I’m going to have to break with tradition! And, Claire Fuller (author of Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming Lessons) called it “brilliant, shocking, and gripping.”

An astonishingly incisive and suspenseful novel about a scandal amongst Britain’s privileged elite and the women caught up in its wake.

*All book summaries (in block quotes) are from Goodreads (edited for length).

What Fall 2017 books are you looking forward to?

What I’m Reading Now (8/14/17)

August 14, 2017 Sarah Dickinson It's Monday! What are you reading? 26

I did a lot of reading last week, but it’s probably the last time this summer that you’ll see that out of me! We’re moving into our new house next week and life is about to get disorganized and hectic. I’ve got some posts pre-scheduled for this week, but the last couple weeks of August might be on the quieter side.

#Buildsarahsbookshelves Library Update

Absolutely free via a gift certificate to Larchmont’s Anderson’s Book Shop (bringing my to date spending on this project to $2.00…pretty dang good for 2 hard cover novels!), my second acquisition is:

Book 2 in the #buildsarahsbookshelves (where I’m slowly accumulating a very selective collection of beloved books to live on my first set of built-in bookshelves!) series is here! _ IF WE WERE VILLAINS by M.L. Rio is one of my favorite books so far this year! It’s a dark, twisty campus thriller that takes me back to older favorites THE SECRET HISTORY and BLACK CHALK. @sureasmel @flatiron_books Link to my full review in profile. _ And, this addition to my library was basically free via a gift certificate to @andersonsbooks in Larchmont from my good friend (thanks, @marblong). And its local Larchmont roots inspired the location for this picture…Manor Park, the most gorgeous spot in Larchmont! _ Stay tuned to see what else makes the shelves! #bookstagram #amreading #indiebookstore #bookloversday

A post shared by Sarah’s Book Shelves (@sarahsbookshelves) on Aug 9, 2017 at 9:24am PDT

Hosted by The Book Date.

This post contains affiliate links.