My Epic August Book Haul

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.” ~Lemony Snicket

EPIC! ✨ I swear I don’t normally get this many new books in a month! 3 of these are gifts (it was my birthday last July), one is technically my husband’s, another is from a book subscription box due last month, and the rest are all adopted/preloved. I absolutely love each and every one of them so I decided to do a post just to share what they’re all about and to talk a little bit more about each title. Let’s start!

Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) by Jeff VanderMeer

I’ve been in love with the book design since I first saw it. I’ve already seen the Netflix show but of course I still have to read it. I got this preloved at IG store @murangbooks.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.

This is the twelfth expedition. (Goodreads)

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

One of two gifts I got from a good friend when she visited Shakespeare & Company in Paris. You’ll see the other one at the bottom of this list (Save the best for last?) I’m really excited for this one because it just won the Man Booker International Prize (2018) and the blurb is just so engaging!

Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer. (Goodreads)

Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell Trilogy #1) by Hilary Mantel

Another Man Booker Prize Winner (2009). I really enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl so I’m also excited for this one. I got this preloved from a friend. I think she still has some books available for adoption here.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? (Goodreads)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

Historical fiction set during German occupation has always been my weakness. I also heard this is a must read for all book lovers, so count me in! I got this preloved from the same source as mentioned above.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways. (Goodreads)

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

I loved The Fingersmith so much that I am now on a quest to find and read each and every one of this author’s works! I remember when I shared this book on social media, a friend actually messaged me to say that I was in for a treat. I can’t wait! I got this preloved from IG store @bookendsbeginnings.

Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty’s dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins. (Goodreads)

Heart of Thorns (Heart of Thorns #1) by Bree Barton

This is the BOTM of Mermaid Crate’s Magic and Madness July anniversary box. I promise to do a proper unboxing post soon!

In the ancient river kingdom, touch is a battlefield, bodies the instruments of war. Seventeen-year-old Mia Rose has pledged her life to hunting Gwyrach: women who can manipulate flesh, bones, breath, and blood.

Not women. Demons. The same demons who killed her mother without a single scratch.

But when Mia’s father suddenly announces her marriage to the prince, she is forced to trade in her knives and trousers for a sumptuous silk gown. Only after the wedding goes disastrously wrong does she discover she has dark, forbidden magic—the very magic she has sworn to destroy. (Goodreads)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

This one is also very special to me because I feel like I’ve been searching for a copy of this book for a long time now. My husband got it for me just in time for our wedding anniversary. Based on the blurb, it’s quite apt for the occasion, don’t you think? We got this from Fully Booked BGC.

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years. (Goodreads)

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Oops! I’ve already read this. I just couldn’t wait to open it. I promise to do a separate blog post on this once I sort out my feelings (ha!). I gave this a 5⭐️ rating on Goodreads. It’s sooo good!!! I can’t wait for the movie. This one is from IG store @bookendsbeginnings as well.

One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his. (Goodreads)

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Who hasn’t heard of this Pulitzer Prize winner? They say this one is worth the hype and I can’t wait to dive in! Another preloved book from @bookendsbeginnings.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. (Goodreads)

Otherworld Barbara, Volume 1 by Moto Hagio

This one is technically my husband’s pick. But what’s his is mine and what’s mine…well he can borrow from me sometimes 😝 I am so fascinated with the plot and the artwork is something I’ve never seen before!! We got this from Fully Booked BGC also.

Tokio discovers a phantom island named Barbara. Then there’s a mysterious and missing geneticist, an eccentric clergyman, a grieving grandmother granted temporary youth, a psychologist killed by a freak tornado… Hagio offers a sci-fi explanation for these seemingly random paranormal elements, and makes it all matter with believable characters in complex and subtle relationships.This book won the“Nebula Award of Japan” (Nihon SF Taisho Award) in 2006. (Goodreads)

Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart by Krista Halverson

Last but definitely not the least is this very very sweet gift from a very good friend. This might be my fave from the whole stack! She got it for me on one of her trips to Paris. ‘Shakespeare and Company, Paris’ is so inspiring especially if you’re like me who dreams of owning a bookstore someday. The book design is so creative and the whole book is a work of art. Thank you so much madam Aliyah Luna for the thoughtful birthday gift. 😭💖

This is a first-ever history of the legendary bohemian bookstore in Paris. It interweaves essays and poetry from dozens of writers associated with the shop–Allen Ginsberg, Anaïs Nin, Ethan Hawke, Robert Stone and Jeanette Winterson, among others–with hundreds of never-before-seen archival pieces. It includes photographs of James Baldwin, William Burroughs and Langston Hughes, plus a foreword by the celebrated British novelist Jeanette Winterson and an epilogue by Sylvia Whitman, the daughter of the store’s founder, George Whitman. (Goodreads)

That’s it!! 11 new books in total 😱 Thank you for reading! I hope you had as much fun reading the list as I did while making it. Farewell, August and thank you for an awesome month full of lovely books 🌸