You’re Reading What!? January 18, 2022

           Oklahoma is in the Mountain and Plains Independent Book Association regional trade group. I bring this up because for the next two or three months, your fearless booksellers will be receiving books to read for the Reading The West award that our group gives each year to books either about the region or written by an author who lives in one of the states in the region. Your booksellers will be reading books in the poetry, narrative non-fiction, adult fiction, and young adult sections. These books are already published so we will be able to have them on hand or order them for you if any of them strike your fancy.

           This week brings a historical fiction novel that is set in the United States at the time of the Great War (World War I), a novel about a girl who can see the souls or ghosts of people who are stuck and need help moving on, a non-fiction book that looks at a rarely studied time in Thomas Jefferson’s life, and a book about the hunt for and discovery of the lost city of Alexandria.

           The first book is Little Souls by Sandra Dallas, published by St. Martin’s Press (MAC Logo) and due to be released April 26, 2022. The story is set in 1918 Denver, Colorado. It is about two sisters who are battling on the home front against the raging Spanish flu and also trying to navigate their burgeoning relationships with young men. One young man goes to the war, the other is a doctor who is taking care of flu patients. In the midst of this, their tenant dies and leaves a young daughter alone or so they think until the girl’s drunken father shows up. This is a tale of love lost and love gained and of making something good out of awful situations. It is about the family you are born into and the family you create.

           

The second book is an excellent read that leaves some threads undone which makes me wonder if we see the folks in this story again-one can only hope. This book is The Ravenous Dead written by Darcy Coates, published by Poisoned Pen Press and set to be released March 15, 2022. The story revolves around Keira who is newly hired to help in the small town’s cemetery. The problem is that the cemetery is filled with the souls of the dead who have been unable to move on either because they got lost or because they have unfinished business here on Earth. Kiera’s job is to help these souls move on but maybe, sometimes a soul or ghost just doesn’t want to leave. Maybe they want to continue to pursue their gruesome activities that they engaged in before they died. The soul can’t be satisfied and it is ravenous. Kiera has her own issues but thankfully she has a weird and wonderful crew of folks who help her. Definitely worth reading!!!

            Our third book this week is In Pursuit of Jefferson by Derek Butler published by Sourcebooks releasing on March 1, 2022. Butler, a Virginian, who is going through his own personal crisis, stumbles upon a little-known travel guide written by Thomas Jefferson for the sons of some of his friends as they embark on their grand tour of Europe. Butler is taken with the guide since Jefferson wrote it after leaving the United States following the death of his beloved wife and the humiliation of his political career as governor of Virginia during the Revolution. The guide really does read like a modern travel guide including places to stay and places to avoid, the best places to eat and the best wines to drink. It is during this time that Jefferson takes in information from his travels and brings back things that we take for granted today like ice cream and macaroni and cheese. Butler and his family travel various portions of the path that Jefferson traveled during his stay in Paris until his return to the United States as a remade man. Unfortunately, the trip often raises difficult issues about Jefferson and reminds the reader that everyone has good and bad traits and no one is really one-dimensional. It is worth a read if only to get a broader understanding of one of the more influential Founding Fathers.

Finally, this week is a real-life Indiana Jones tale, The King’s Shadow: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Deadly Quest for the Lost City of Alexandria by Edmund Richardson. The book is published by St. Martin’s Press and will be released April 5, 2022. It is the story of a man who faked his own death and walked away from the British Army in the wilds of Afghanistan. In the course of his travels, he would act as a spy, a doctor, an Asian scholar, and most importantly in this story the first Western archeologist to study Afghani sites following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Eventually, Charles Masson or James Lewis as he was known when he left England, discovered the lost remains of Alexandria Under the Mountains, the fabled city where East met West. In the process, Masson found unbelievable beautiful early Buddhist treasures including the Bimaran golden casket with the earliest known depiction of the Buddha, coins with both Greek and Roman components, and thousands of pieces of both Indian and Afghan history. He would interact with kings, work as a mercenary, and be offered his own kingdom. In the end, it destroyed him.

          Well, dear readers those are just some of the books the crew is reading this week. Please let us know what you are reading!?