The Book Chase October 2021 Reading Plan

I started gathering books in preparation for my October reading plan a couple of days ago, and ended up with eleven strong possibilities for the next four weeks, a bunch of books I really want to read soon. Then today, I dropped by the library to return The Reading List and to pick-up the new Craig Johnson Longmire novel only to walk out of the building with five other books also in my hands. Luckily, I'm able to keep a few of the books well into November because there is no way that I'm going to read anything near sixteen books in October (I don't recall reading more than twelve in a single month - ever). 

Here are the most likely ones to get read and reviewed first:

I'm carrying this one forward from September, and I'll likely finish it in the next day or two. It's the travel memoir of a young Brit who decides to take a several-months-long road trip through "small-town America," beginning the trip with a male friend who ends up having to leave the road early and finishing it alongside his English girlfriend. I'm particularly enjoying the portion of the trip that happens in the American West, but still shaking my head a little at all the things Mr. Mahood manages just barely to miss.

I came across What Lies Between Us in a list of 2021 award-winners from the International Thrillers Writers. The novel won "Best Paperback Original. This one has a strange premise: "Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can't ever be forgiven, and now she's paying the price." I'm 62 pages in...and loving it so far. 

Mieko Kawakami is a new writer to me, but after reading Diane's review over on Bibliophile by the Sea, I knew it was something I wanted to read. This one is a coming-of-age novel set in a Japanese school and tells the story of a boy and a girl who become friends there largely because each of them are so terribly bullied by their peers. I've read about thirty pages so far, and the bullying described is really heartbreaking. I'm not sure where it's headed, but Diane describes it as a novel with "deep" and "complicated" characters, so I expect to like (if not exactly enjoy) this one.

I'm consciously trying to read more of the mid-twentieth century fiction that I've missed out on, and this 1947 novel by Jean Stafford is part of that quest. It is a coming-of-age novel set in California and focuses on the two youngest children in a family of four siblings, a ten-year old boy and his eight-year-old sister. The two are a little "wilder" than their older sisters. I'm a little bogged down on this one right now and have put it aside for a breather. But I'll definitely be back.

This is Craig Johnson's seventeenth Longmire novel, and since I've already read the other sixteen, I find myself a little reluctant to read it right now. Somehow, the library system allowed me to check it out this morning for six weeks, so Daughter of the Morning Star may end up slipping into my November reading. This one addresses a serious issue: "the plague of missing Native women in Indian Country." I've been reading about this for a few years and still find it hard to believe that the disappearances continue at such a horrible pace.

Diane did it to me again when she mentioned this book in a review she wrote for the second book in the series. The main character sounds like a real hoot, and because I enjoy short stories as much as I do, this one seems like a no-brainer, something I will enjoy for sure. Maud is described this way: "Maud is an irascible 88-year-old woman with no family, no friends...and no qualms about a little murder." What's not to like about a character like Maud? This should be fun.

I can thank Cathy at Kittling: Books for first bringing this one to my attention (way back in April) when she reviewed it on her blog. My memory was later triggered when I saw that the International Thrillers Writers awarded this one Best First Novel on that same list I mentioned earlier. The clincher was a quote from Craig Johnson calling the book "a testament in napalm you won't be able to put down because it burns and holds fast." It features Virgil Wounded Horse, "local enforcer" on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

I've always been a Sherlock Holmes fan, but longtime fans of those tales know that there is always new Sherlock material to be enjoyed. I've not read any of Laurie R. King's Holmes-related series, so I'm jumping in with this fourteenth book in that seventeen-book series. It's a long story, but this one from 2016 finally caught my attention . From the back cover: "Mary Russell is used to dark secrets - her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given." 

I find myself in the mood for something from the great Shirley Jackson, and this one came to mind. I watched the movie version of We Have Always Lived in the Castle several months ago and found it riveting...and memorable. I've read lots of Jackson's work, mostly the short stories, but have somehow never read this 1962 novel. It is relatively short, but the characters, two sisters, are what make this one so special. It was published only three years before Jackson's death.

I've had William Shaw's Deadland on hand for a while now, but I've been reluctant to read this third Cupidi book because I know how difficult it is to find Shaw's novels in the U.S. (Shame on Mr. Shaw's publisher for that crime.) DS Cupidi is a great crime fighter and the books are very atmospheric. She is, though, no politician, and she doesn't find it easy to be "one of the boys" or even be all that likable, when it comes right down to it. I love this cover.

I also have a small stack of books that may end up displacing some of the ones I've featured here, depending on how the reading-mood strikes me during the month. Among these are Louise Penny's The Maddening of Crowds, Denise Mina's two-volume graphic novelization of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gerald Seymour's The Walking Dead (one I've mentioned before), Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and an e-ARC from T. Jefferson Parker titled A Thousand Steps. It's all a little overwhelming when I think about it...and now I can't wait to get the fun started.