You’re Reading What!? January 4, 2022

Welcome to the inaugural post to the Too Fond Of Books blog. We (Tom and Val-the owners) have always meant to have a blog but it has taken us a while to get started.

           Today’s post is in memory of Val’s mom, Linda Lee Green Reese. Linda was a lover of the English language in both its spoken and written form. A vociferous reader, starting at the age of three, Linda read between 10-12 books a week until the last few years when failing eyesight meant she could only get through 5-6 a week. Linda’s favorite books last year were the following: The Searcher and Billy Summers. Linda said she had read all of Stephen King’s non-science fiction books and as far as she could tell, Billy Summers was the very best. She also liked the New England writers, John Cheever and John Updike as well as numerous other writers. She loved British authors and had recently started reading Scandinavian authors as well. She enjoyed mysteries and thrillers and popular science.

           Linda left us on December 16, 2021, for ports unknown and we miss her dearly but hope she finds lots of wonderful libraries and bookstores to browse.

           Today Val wants to highlight two advanced reader copies and one recently published book that she has had the pleasure to read over the last few weeks.

           First up is A Coin For the Ferryman. This book will be published February 28, 2022 by Imbrifex Books. The author is Megan Edwards and she has written other books including The Copper Black mysteries, Strings: a Love Story, and Roads From the Ashes.  

           Imagine that you could bring a famous person back to our time for four days. The catch is that that you must know the exact circumstances of that person’s death in the past. You have four days with that person, to question them, observe their habits, find out everything you can. The second catch, at the end of the four days, you must send that person back to the exact time of their death and you can’t tell them about what is getting ready to happen. That is the premise of A Coin For the Ferryman. As you might expect, the mission is a whole lot harder than you might imagine and things go awry.

The book is a great read. The person they pick is interesting and the circumstances of the whole experiment are exciting. As much as most of us want to meet famous people or travel back or forward in time, this novel tells us that it is fraught with trouble.

           Second up is The Library. This book was published September 2, 2021, by aria fiction, an imprint of Head of Zeus. The author is Bella Osborne.

           The story tells of love, loss, redemption, and the value of friendships. A young man at loose ends and straining not to follow his father into work at the dog food factory, discovers a friend and compatriot in books in an elderly pensioner. Set in rural England, it is a story about the love of books, the value of libraries to communities, and how friendships occur in the most unlikely places and between the most unlikely people. The book is a sweet and uplifting story and well worth the read.

Finally, the third book is The Cartographers. The book will be published March 15, 2022, by William Morrow, an imprint Of HarperCollins Publishers. The author, Peng Shepherd, is the author of the award-winning book, The Book of M.

           How do we know what is real and what is not? Can putting a place on a map make it real? That is the premise of this book about Nell, the daughter of two renowned cartographers and map conservationists. When there are deaths and a break-in at the prestigious New York Public Library’s map division, Nell is drawn into a mystery that only gets deeper and stranger than one can imagine. Why is a gas station map from the 1930s sought after by some of the world’s richest collectors? What is so special about it that copies have disappeared from everywhere? A great novel that mixes the art and history of cartography and maps with magic.

Well, those are some of the books we are reading right now. If you are interested in the two books that have not yet been published, please contact Too Fond Of Books and we can do a pre-order for you.

We will try and publish a couple of times a week and Tom and Val will also invite guest bloggers to talk about what they are reading.