Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!

It’s 1957, and housewife Kathleen Beckett has decided to get in the pool at her apartment complex. Kathleen was headed for a bright career as a tennis star, but she traded it in for marriage and motherhood. Now she’s in the pool, in November, in Delaware, instead of at church with her family. And she’s decided not to come out. As readers sit with Kathleen in the pool, the story of her marriage is slowly revealed. This is a short punch of a book about marriage and secrets, and how things get torn apart. It pairs well with Liars by Sarah Manguso and Splinters by Leslie Jamison.

Backlist bump: Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony

For sci-fi lovers, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, film buffs, history fans, trivia nerds, and just everyone, really, this is a fun look back at life when going to the movies was the only option for catching a new film. And how the summer of 1982 was a tremendous time for eight sci-fi films that launched careers and cemented the existing careers of their stars and directors while making serious bank. (Well, some of them did.) They were E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior. That summer was an amazing time to be a nerd, and film critic Chris Nashawaty breaks down each movie: its stars, its origin story, its run in the theater, and its legacy. It was a fun walk down memory lane. (My dad took me to see E.T. for my sixth birthday that summer and, holy cats, I remember being so scared at the beginning. What was in the shed??!?)

Backlist bump: Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story by Chris Nashawaty

Last but not least, this fun YA thriller! We are living in a time of great, self-aware horror novels, and this is another exciting example. Devon has always lived in the shadow of her brilliant, overachieving twin sister, Drew. Now Drew is headed to college a year early and Devon has a plan to grab the attention back before she leaves: have an amazing, wild summer! Things kick off when the twins and their friends, including Devon’s crush Yaya, decide to play with a Ouija board. But it all goes horribly wrong when it seems to unleash a demon, who starts hunting them. Devon knows how these things go in slasher movies, so she’ll use the formula to try and figure out how to stop a killer (who is seeming less supernatural all the time.) But that’s going to be hard because rule number one is — gulp! — the blonde always dies first. And that’s Devon herself.

Backlist bump: You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

This week, I am reading Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix and Ruin Road by Lamar Giles. Outside of books, I watched Team USA beat Serbia this weekend, and I am looking forward to checking out Bad Monkey on Apple+ when it starts in a couple weeks. It’s based on the Carl Hiaasen novel of the same name. Jeopardy!, Switch, and Master Minds are all off the air at the moment, so I am out of trivia shows right now, which makes me sad. But Jeopardy! will be back in a few months, and I am also looking forward to the new Trivial Pursuit show with LeVar Burton. The song stuck in my head this week is “Return to the Moon” by EL VY. And here is your weekly cat picture: I came across this photo of a teeny Farrokh the other day. He was so smol, just three months old! I miss having kittens, but not enough to forget how wild they were. He’s still wild at sixty-eight months old, but now, at least he’s easier to locate when he’s being bad.

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.” —Patricia A. McKillip, The Bell at Sealey Head