March has finally arrived! Spring is just around the corner (she says while it is a balmy 20 degrees without windchill this fine Chicago day and knowing that the universe is going to say HA about it being spring and dump a foot of snow on a random day in March or April). Ah Spring. I’m super excited for it to be March though, because I have two very exciting trips this month so I can finally bring back the travel aspect of this blog. And since I’ll be doing some air travel for both of these I figured it would be ok to add a few more books than normal to the list. We have 4 hard copies, 4 on kindle app and 3 of these are for different book clubs! Have you read any of these? Thoughts? What are you looking to read this month?
1. Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan
Pino Lella is just your average Italian teenager. He loves music, food, and girls but hates the war that is going on and the Nazis that have started taking over his town. When the war ends up destroying his home in Milan, he decides to join an underground railroad helping lead Jews through the Alps. His parents force him to enlist as German soldier in a way to protect himself and to be out of combat. What they did not plan for is that after Pino suffers a horrible injury, he is moved from his current position to the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand man in Italy. He is in the perfect position to report information back to the Allies. Based on the true story of a young man’s resilience and an often forgotten hero.
2. The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Set in Ireland 1940s to present day, Cyril Avery is just trying to figure out who he is. He has been told he is not an Avery by his adoptive parents but who is he. Cyril spends a lifetime trying to know himself and where he has come from. Struggling to place his home, his country and his identity. I don’t have much else I can really add just based on reading the Goodreads plot but a good friend of mine said this was one of her favorite books she’s read in a long time so I am excited to check it out.
3. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
The untold mystery of the eleven days that Agatha Christie disappeared. In December 1962, officials find Christie’s car on the side of the road with nothing but a fur coat left behind and no Christie anywhere. Her family has no idea where she has gone and it starts a manhunt in England to find this world renowned mystery writer. Eleven days later, she makes her way back home claiming amnesia and saying nothing of what happened these last few days. Benedict brings us a story of imagination of why Christie finds herself in the same situation that she often writes about. What happened during those eleven days?
4. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Jason Dessen is walking home through dark Chicago streets when the thought of “Are you really happy in your life” comes through his mind. It’s the last thought he has before he is knocked unconscious by a masked criminal. Dessen wakes up on a gurney surrounded by strangers he doesn’t know all wearing hazmat suits. When he is finally released the life he had pre accident is not the life he has now. His wife is not his wife, his son was never born and instead of being a regular college professor he is actually a genius that has created something incredible he just doesn’t know what. What life is real and what life is a dream?
5. Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
As we all know Shonda Rhimes is the absolute queen of Hollywood TV Dramas. Her excellency has helped create shows like Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away With Murder, Scandal and many others. In this book, Rhimes talks about how saying yes for a year changed her life. As an introvert, she never had any issue with saying no as saying no lead to nothing to fear. It wasn’t until a conversation with her sister that Shonda decided that instead of saying no she would say yes to everything that came to her over a year and see how that impacted her life for better or worse.
6. Calypso by David Sedaris
This is the first David Sedaris book I will have ever read but from what I know he is a master of essays written in an often comedic way which works great for me. Calypso is claimed to be his most deeply personal and dark humored book yet. “This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke” (Goodreads).
7. When the Irish Invaded Canada: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom by Christopher Klein
A year after the Civil War has ended, a group of Union and Confederate soldiers come together to seize the British territory of Canada in order for Ireland to finally get its independence. An untold story of these once enemies coming together to form the group known as the Fenian Brothers and fight for Independence after seven hundred years. Though the seize only lasted three days, it played a big chapter in the centuries long fight for freedom.
8. The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton
I don’t read a lot of books that take place in Cuba but I also don’t really think it’s an authors first choice to write about when it comes to historical fiction, so I was super excited when this one came across my Goodreads. It also seemed fitting that I will be in Miami next week so great book to read while down there while I eat some amazing Cuban food.
Grace Harrington has just landed a job working for William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal and long time rivalry of Joseph Pulitzer, owner of New York World. Hearst assigns the story of unjustly imprisoned eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros to Harrington to find out the truth. Cisneros quickly becomes the face for American intervention during the war for Cuban Independence. Based on the true story of Evangelina Cisneros, a cuban woman who helped change the course of history during the end of the nineteenth century and the New York woman who helped bring her story to life.
Until Next Time, The Library Abroad
The Library Abroad 
Leave a comment