#Say nothing a true story of murder and memory in northern ireland

[larkandkatydid]

Some of My Favorite Non Fiction books

The Classics: The Books that People are Always Telling You to Read Because They Rule that Much:

Robert Caro, the Power Broker- I'm forced to announce that everyone who based their entire personality around this book was right. It's awesome.

Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns - a true heir to Studs Terkel, deserving all the hype.

Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Annette Gordan-Reed, The Hemmingses of Monticello- I think that people think they know this story because they know who Sally Hemmings is...but I was so struck by what a beautiful, horrifying exploration into the life of a man who wanted to be surrouned by a family who loved and cared for him above all.

Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

David Gann, Killers of the Flower Moon

Newer Books that I Think Should Become Classics:

Donovan X Ramsey, When Crack was King

Sarah Schulman, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP NY. - both this and Ramsey's book are extraordinary oral histories but there are also few books will leave you feeling more capable and poweful.

Kidada E Williams: I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the Fall of Reconstruction. This is the best book I've read so far about the defeat of Reconstruction and is, to me, The American Bloodlands.

Hugh Ryan, The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of A Forgotten Prison.

Fintan O'Toole, We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland - No book is better than this one at presenting a grim, angry feminist take on what national liberation can even be if women remain oppressed. For a book that's so cynical and angry, it has such a hopeful last chapter that I genuinely cried.

Tumblr WomenBlogger Classics: These are two books I read because I saw them on tumblr a bunch and they are awesome books that I love very much and so I want to pass on the experience.

James McCauley, The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

[rachel-sylvan-author]

"Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe

Thank you @jesshalfpagereads for the rec! ❤️ I knew this happened, but I didn't realize it happened so recently. Very eye opening!

[theinquisitxor]

My Top 24 books of 2024

Here are my top books I read in 2024, last year's list here!

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Daughter of the Forest (and rest of Sevenwaters series) by Juliet Marillier

Hostage of Empire series by SC Emmett

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Texicalaan duology by Arkady Martine

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

Beartown series by Frederick Backman

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

Paladin's Grace (and rest of Saint of Steel series) by T. Kingfisher

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft

The Magician's Daughter by HG Parry

The Fur Person by Meg Sarton

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky

River-Horse: A Voyage Across America by William Least Heat-Moon

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

Graveyard Shift by ML Rio

The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape by Katie Holton

The Familiar by Lehigh Bardugo

A few honorable mentions:

Chrestomanci Series by DWJ

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

House of Flame and Shadow by SJM

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abby

[marnz]

2024 book post

I know I just answered a lot of book asks but, in the tradition of my 2023 book post, here are the best (lots!) and the worst (also lots!) books I read this year

READ THESE BOOKS:

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe - I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. Not my past per se but the invention of the past, the legacy of it, the traditions of memory, how we create the past, how we invoke it, how we justify it, how we transform it into now. That's what this book is really about, via taking a thorough look at the history, wreckage, and legacy of British Imperialism and the IRA on Northern Ireland. Let the dead rise up and speak.

We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and Half a Century of Silence by Becky Cooper - And what if the dead did rise up and speak? Would it matter? Or would we carry on inventing narratives about them to serve our purposes? This book is about the murder of an archaeology doctoral candidate at Harvard in the 1960s; this book is about how to define and interpret the past when the silence is your biggest archive, and the problems that lay within. I loved this book so much. It meanders--let it. I recommend the audiobook. Take a drive.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - where are my disillusioned leftists exhausted by decades of in fighting and ever increasing political stakes? where are my organizers who rally around any cause? where are the people who go watch sports and come away thinking about concussions and race and the economy? where are the people who are seriously for real interested in abolition but want to know what we'll do with rapists and pedophiles and other people they think deserve to be or should be in prison? read this book.

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai - razor sharp contemporary fiction taking a long, thorough look at true crime. God I have missed books like this--tightly plotted, detailed, using the past to look at the present and the present to look at the past, elegant subplots, an absolute unpredictable domino effect of wonderful sentence after wonderful sentence building into a crescendo. I also love this book taking the salacious appetite we have for true crime and applying them to a fictional narrative that feels so true to life and then turning around and taking the ethical misgivings we have about true crime and exploring that side of it. I also read Makkai's other book, The Great Believers, which is a book about memory and about the aids crisis, and it fucking slapped.

Murderbot series by Martha Wells - I get up, I go to work, I observe the horrors, I think about my favorite tv show to survive the horrors. I'm not an autistic Security android using my favorite space soap opera to get me through dangerous and boring missions investigating mysteries and almost certain death while protecting my friends, arguing with my girlfriend favored allied robot ship, and shoving my drones into people's faces to study their micro expressions but, well, we can't all be perfect. Anyway SecUnit is My Favorite and it should get to have more drones as a little treat.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - Giovanni's Room is your last meal. You know why you're here. We know why you're here. A man will die tonight. It is not the narrator, and that is the cruelest thing about it. David would rather die. But he will live, staring into the window, imagining the last moments of his beloved, and all the while living at a hands length beyond himself, as if removed, as if watching the scene. This is what it means to live in a society where survival means denying your ability to love and feel openly. You are devastated. You are bowled over by god's most perfect sentences. Why are you crying? We have only finished the first chapter. There are 200 pages to go.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters - if you like gorgeous prose; people being idiots you will none the less feel deep tenderness towards; drama queens; people trying to figure it out; messy relationships; gossiping with your bestie over brunch; looking back at your youth going jesus christ how did I not know?--read this book.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törz - I just loved this so much. I just. I love lush hyper expressive very descriptive prose. I love beautiful details. I love beauty. I love fantasy and mysteries and painful families of origin. I love that everyone is bisexual. I love when magic is tied to blood, as in, you will bleed for it. I loved this book!!!! I am always happy to see fantasy get the MFA treatment!!!! You can tell this book was revised to within an inch of its life!!!!!

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - Aren't grizzly bears cute? Also they have been known to kill people, but seriously, so cute, right? I mean they can't kill everyone, just the stupid people, right? So if you're smart about it you're fine. It's fine. Seriously, it's fine. Why are you crying? Anyway this book is for: historical fiction girlies; aspiring screenplay writers; improv fans; lawyers; people who like to shop. I also read Bring Up the Bodies which was a great sequel except that [spoilers]

No Good Men Among the Living by Anand Gopal - this was an incredibly good narrative nonfiction examination of invasion of Afghanistan post 9/11 and how the US just bungled it in every single way possible. I was young when 9/11 happened so I didn't have a great understanding of our foreign policy but this does an amazing job of examining the conflict through the eyes of several people: a taliban commander, a US backed warlord, and a village housewife just trying to survive in the middle of things. God. This book haunts me. I think about it constantly. Gopal is fearless and an amazing writer.

Honorable mentions: Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson, which is about corporate greed, logging, and agent orange (didn't like the ending though), Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe (the tale of the family behind Purdue Pharma. Made my skin crawl.), Funny Story by Emily Henry (girl moves in with the ex of the girl her ex left her for. You'll never guess what happens next), The God of the Woods (girl from a wealthy family who already had one kid vanish vanishes at the summer camp they run. Pandemonium ensues), Starling House (southern gothic fantasy book, crazy good).

books that I didn't vibe with:

The Hunter by Tana French - this was so. Storygraph tells me I took something like 167 days to finish this book (audiobook). That is how bad this book was. Reviews are like omg well it's not a typical mystery but it's an amazing slow burn--NO. No it isn't. A murder mystery is one where the solving of the murder is the entire plot. That is the genre. That is the framework--the purpose--of the book. That is not what this is. And any moral complexity, any character depth, any of that is fucking gone from French's work. Where is the self assuredness of In the Woods? Where is the wrestling with ones conscience? Why is Marv Lavin, who is one of my favorite slippery guys, barely dodgy in this book? God what a disappointment! Fire the editor. Find a new genre. Move on.

Familiar by Leigh Bardugo - look I love Bardugo's work, I do, but the pacing issues are becoming impossible to ignore. It was very noticeable in Hellbent and it hit me in the face in this book. And then the deux ex machina at the end? I mean. Look. This just was not it. Beautiful details though. Very original magic system. There's a lot of good stuff here but structurally? No.

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas - *rubs temples* where to start? it's difficult to choose since it was 951 pages. This should have been 2 separate books. I just. 951 pages and I didn't even get elriel crumbs from the fucking cross over event of the SJM cinematic universe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway I read this, it's not good. There are so many arcs that could span multiple books shoved in here and compressed into one (1) single book. The problem with these very successful famous authors is that no one says no to them. It's troubling. Art has become content.

Winter Lost by Patricia Briggs - lmao. I have been reading this series since high school and that's why I read this. I think I'm done. That's how bad this was. I've never had a plot explained to me by the protagonist so thoroughly instead of getting to discover clues with the protagonist, which is how I thought a mystery was supposed to work. Apparently not.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff - I've blogged about this book at length but basically on every single level this was a no for me, and so over hyped

Graveyard of the Pacific + The Man They Wanted Me to Be - two books that supposedly examined toxic masculinity but were actually just memoirs about dudes mixed in with other stuff. For the first book it was the history of the mouth of the columbia river, for the second book it was the trump presidency. Anyway.

okay!!! I also reread the entire Kate Daniels series + all spin offs this year and all Emily Henry Books and started a lot of audiobooks I couldn't focus on because I was having medical issues. What a weird uneven year. Let's do better in 2025.

[ofallingstar]

List of books I read in 2023

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

L'homme semence by Violette Ailhaud

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

On Magic & The Occult by W.B. Yeats

Faithful Place by Tana French

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney

The Love Object by Edna O'Brien

Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Night by Elie Wiesel

In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan

The Lost Days by Rob Reger & Jessica Gruner

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Parallax by Sinéad Morrissey

The Woman in the Strongbox by Maureen O'Hagan

Diaries, 1910-1923 by Franz Kafka

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright

A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki

Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine von Radics

Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Find Me by André Aciman

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Grace Year by Kim Ligget

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Psycho by Robert Bloch

Classic Tales Of Vampires And Shapeshifters by Tig Thomas

Love Devours: Tales of Monstrous Adoration by Sarah Diemer

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Putney by Sofka Zinovieff

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

The Maid by Nita Prose

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

You can follow me or add me as a friend on Goodreads.

[doumekiss]

My Personal Favorites of 2024

(as always considering only new to me stuff, and not necessarily things that were released in 2024)

2023 - 2022 - 2021

Books (Fiction) :

1 - The Brothers Karamazov

2 - Tress of The Emerald Sea

3 - The Queen's Thief Series

4 - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

5 - The Remains of The Day

6 - Project Hail Mary

7 - The Saint of Steel Series

8 - The Idiot

9 - Barrayar

10 - Crooked House

11 - The Martian

12 - Wise Child

13 - Crime and Punishment

14 - Poor Things

15 - The Midwife's Apprentice

Books (Non-Fiction)

1 - Secondhand Time : The Last of The Soviets

2 - Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

3 - Welcome to The OC : The Oral History

4 - Why We Get Sick : The New Science of Darwinian Medicine

5 - Say Nothing: A True Story of of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

6 - The Ancestor's Tale

7 - Every Man For Himself and God Against All

8 - SPQR : A History of Ancient Rome

9 - Thinking in Pictures : My Life With Autism

10 - Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples

11 - Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

12 - The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

13 - Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves

14 - Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens

15 - The Woman in Me

Comic Books/Mangas/Manhwas

1 - The Apothecary Diaries

2 - Shadows House

3 - Sherbet Above The Sea of Fog

4 - The Sleeping Dead

5 - Kieta Hatsukoi

6 - Smoking Behind The Supermarket With You

7 - Garlic & The Vampire/ Garlic & The Witch

8 - The Greatest Estate Developer

9 - Goodbye. Eri

10 - Erio and The Electric Doll

11 - Pumpikinheads

12 - Black Paradox

13 - Call

14 - The Depth of the Sky

15 - The Prince and The Dressmaker

Movies

1 - Becket

2 - The Remains of The Day

3 - The Night of The Hunter

4 - Dicks: The Musical

5 - Encounters at The End of The World

6 - 12 Angry Men

7 - Creep

8 - Creep 2

9 - Shiva Baby

10 - The Ghost and Mrs Muir

11 - Challengers

12 - Sarah, Plain and Tall

13 - Late Night With The Devil

14 - Anatomy of a Fall

15 - Next Goal Wins

TV Shows (Live-action)

1 - Interview With The Vampire

2 - Fallout

3 - 911

4- Ghost (US)

5 - We Are Ladyparts

6 - Abbott Elementary

7 - Game Changer

8 - Deadboy Detectives

9 - Ordeal By Innocence

10 - Extraordinary

11 - The Boys

12 - Servant

13 - The Creep Tapes

14 - Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee

15 - St. Denis Medical

TV Shows (Animation)

1 - Dungeon Meshi

2 - The Apothecary Diaries

3 - Sousou no Frieren

4 - Moral Orel

5 - Shadows House

6 - Handa-Kun

7 - Dandadan

8 - Ranma 1/2

9 - Smiling Friends

10 - Jibaku Shonen Hanako-Kun

11 - Paranoia Agent

12 - Link Click

13 - Inside Job

14 - Monster

15 - Home Movies

[mercurygray]

Currently Reading - December 2024

Just Finished: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe

Debs At War, Anne De Courcy

Long After We Are Gone, by Terah Shelton Harris

The Will of the Many, by James Islington The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides

Currently Reading: Hue 1968, by Mark Bowden - this is a pick for military history book club and it is a beast. I have until February to finish 500 pages and have something cogent to say about it.

The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape, by Katie Holten. This is less a book you read and more a collection of essays that you pick up from time to time. They're interesting, but it's hard to really get into.

Currently Watching: Say Nothing (Season 1, Hulu)

Dune: Prophecy (Season 1, Max) - I both really like and really dislike this show. I like that it's making me think a little, and I dislike that the only person I'm discussing this with at the moment is my boss, who is a huge Dune fan.

Babylon Berlin (Season 4, Hoopla) - I really missed my sad pathetic wet interwar German detective Gereon Rath and I'm really glad I found the last season on Hoopla.

[jkottke]

Patrick Radden Keefe’s excellent book on The Troubles, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, has been turned into a 9-part TV series (now available on Hulu in the US & on Disney+ elsewhere).

[blackgumball]

4 10 24!

hiii kes! tysm!

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

LEGUINNNNNNN I fell in love with the works of Mrs Ursula K Leguin this year. Had a great time starting the Earthsea cycle and reading The Left Hand of Darkness. Also shoutout to Harlan Ellison, who I already liked as an author but got to appreciate as an audiobook narrator through his reading of A Wizard of Earthsea.

10. What was your favorite new release of the year?

Idk if I keep track of new releases aghh. The newest books I've read were a graphic novel by Ngozi Ukazu called Barda and the last of Dungeon Meshi. I liked dunmesh more. Barda had kind of an intruiging premise but I don't know enough about detective comics to really be compelled by her character (maybe that was a failure of the text. never felt a real connection to any character) I should start keeping up w new releases lol

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

Oh so much. I DNF'd 9 books.

The Last House on Needless Street - audiobook. it bored me.

The Dream Thieves - ebook. sometimes i lose motivation in the midst of a series and tbh gansey kinda pisses me off. i'd like to return to this though, in fact i think i just got it on libby

His Secret Illuminations - ebook. woke fantasy erotica. i dont like to use the word "woke" in a negative sense but there was really no other way to describe it. tmi but i came to see a monk get dominated not to read about him being outraged that they don't make fantasy birth control effectively for big tall girls oml

Book Lovers - ebook. YAWNNNN

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland - audiobook. this shit was so fucking long and my hold lapsed :(

On the Way to the Wedding - audiobook - SNOOOOREEEEEE

The Death of Ivan Ilyich/Master and Man - I actually had to read this for class, and I DID finish Ivan Illyich, but i had no reason to read master and man, and by that point i was lighting candles praying for the death of my russlit teacher so i really didnt have any free time for the second half of this.

The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love - ebook. i just gave up.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Difficult, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents - ebook. realised i couldnt relate and moved on.

[damienmolonyforum]

New TV Role: Damien Molony Guest Stars in Say Nothing – Premiering Today!

    Today marks the premiere of Say Nothing, a powerful new drama featuring Damien in a guest role, available to watch now on Hulu and Disney+. Directed by Michael Lennox and based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s acclaimed book Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,  the series brings to life a powerful story of resilience, trauma, and the complex history of The…

[dallaswinstons]

tagged by @morgleaf! thank you morgan this was v v fun <3

last song you heard? 16 carriages by beyonce your favorite color? lavender or really any color purple what show/series did u watch last? house md and true detective spicy, sweet, or savory? sweet relationship status? recently single last thing u googled? velvet yarn current obsession? crochet, knitting, and fiber arts last book you read? rereading say nothing: a true story of murder and memory in northern ireland by patrick radden keefe something you’re looking forward to? the huge snowstorm that's supposed to happen tomorrow and a ski trip in vermont with my cousins for presidents weekend

tagging: @kadygrants, @parisakamali, @acotars, @tuff-ponyboy, @patswayze, and anyone else who wants to do it

[dancing-mylife-away]

Q & A

rules: answer and tag people you want to get to know better and/or catch up with

i was tagged by the lovely @leothil :)

last song: lonely demo by geographer

favourite colour: green!

currently reading: say nothing: a true story of murder and memory in northern ireland by patrick radden keefe

currently watching: i guess rewatching dance moms and leverage, but that's kind of been an episode here and there when i feel like it. i finished watching the way home back in june and have been meaning to watch will trent since i haven't seen season 1 in its entirety/in the right order, but i keep getting distracted by sports instead lol (and same with fbi international)

last movie: a greek recipe for romance (hallmark movie)

sweet, spicy or savoury: savory

relationship status: single ✌️

current obsessions: hm. nothing really at the moment. maybe sara and jeffrey from the grant county series. 911 and buddie are always there but the obsession level is different during the summer hiatus and idk i'm not super hype for the new season like i usually am *shrug*

tea or coffee: coffee 🫶

last thing i googled: altra escalante running shoes lol

tagging: @cathedralsofdecay @tarazizari @mayasdeluca @crosbytoews :)

[theinquisitxor]

February 2024 Reading Wrap Up

I read 8 books in February, and overall had a great reading month. I had three five-star books, which is a lot for me in one month. I read 2 audiobooks and 6 physical books. I read 5 fantasy, 2 nonfiction, and 1 historical/literary fiction.

1.The Throne of the Five Winds (Hostage of Empire 1) by SC Emmet 5/5 stars. This was my Random TBR pick from January, which I finished up in Feb. This book had been on my tbr since 2019, and it was a fantastic courtly political fantasy. This is set in an ancient China inspired setting, with several different countries and cultures. The story follows two young women (one, a princess in an arranged marriage) as they travel to a neighboring empire to become integral in the court life there. I was surprised by how much I loved this book, and it's become a new favorite.

2.House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City 3) by SJM, 4/5 stars. The Crescent City books have been favorites for several years now, and I was very interested to see how this book (and the series) would develop as a crossover. I enjoyed this quite a lot, and it is very stereotypical SJM writing and plot. I love any sort of crossovers, portals, and traveling between worlds, so this book was a treat to me. However,  it felt like things came together too quickly and easily at the end, and it rushed towards a conclusion, and I wasn't as impressed with this book as much as I wanted to be.

3.The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance by Ross King. I read this on audio and this was a huge deep dive into the world of the bookmarkets and booksellers in Florence. If you want a big dose of book history, this one is it. I didn't really enjoy the audiobook narrator unfortunately.

4.Blade Breaker (Realm Breaker 2) by Victoria Aveyeard 3/5 stars. I enjoyed this a little bit more than book 1, and this series has captured my attention so I want to see how it ends. I think I would be enjoying these books more if I were 16 or 17, but reading these in my mid-twenties is maybe not the target age range for this series. I enjoy the worldbuilding and characters the most.

5. A God In Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie 3/5 stars. This was every type of historical fiction that I enjoy: Early 20th cen. setting, Archeologists searching for an ancient artifact, WW1 book, Ancient and classical texts, Non-Western setting and examination of British Empire and colonialism. This was my Random TBR pick for the month of Feb, and this book has been on my tbr since 2020. I was glad to read it, and I tend to enjoy these types of novels. This feels like half literary fiction, half historical fiction.

6. The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, 5/5 stars. This was as hauntingly horrific and beautiful as I hoped it would be. I had been waiting as patiently as I could for a new Katherine Arden adult novel, and this was well worth the wait. This book encapsulated WWI and the horrors well, with good characters, and a speculative/fantasy twist that I enjoyed.

7. What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier 2) by T Kingfisher, 4/5 stars. This is a followup horror novella to What Moves the Dead. This had more of a woodsy, folkloric horror than book 1. I think it was a little stronger than the first novella, since it wasn’t a retelling. I look forward to whatever else T Kingfisher writes, and I would enjoy more of these novellas!

8. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, 5/5 stars. This was my second audiobook for the month, and I was very impressed by this. I only knew a summery-level about The Troubles, but this was a great introduction for me.

That's it for February! I started (but did not finish) Us Against You by Frederick Backman, so I will finish that up in March.

My March TBR

Us Against You by Frederick Backman (Beartown 2)

The Poison Prince (Hostage of Empire 2) by SC Emmet

The Prisoner's Throne by Holly Black (releases March 5th)

Random TBR pick: An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors by Curtis Craddock

Knowing What We Know by Simon Winchester

Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland (Releases March 21st)

The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Ana Bright (Releases March 24th)

North Woods by Daniel Mason

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

I'm definitely not going to get to all of these, but this is the list I'm going to be reading from!

[huronsuperior]

The men scrambled for cover and fired back. Then, out of nowhere, two Saracen armored vehicles materialized, racing down the road. They stopped abruptly, and suddenly the men were gone. Hughes stood there, panting, processing what he had just witnessed. The gunmen had been dressed like civilians. But they had escaped in a British Army vehicle. They weren't civilians--they were British Army. That was when Hughes looked down and realized he was bleeding.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland has been informative and harrowing.

Keefe introduces individuals and places in a way that asks you to be patient, but he keeps the story moving all the same, and immerses you in the lives and circumstances of various people.

I've found myself upset and moved by situations that I'm academically somewhat familiar with, but have not until now experienced in such a personal way as is conveyed in Say Nothing.

[nancydrewwouldnever]

Book recommendations?! Say no more.

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity - Carl Zimmer

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life - Ed Yong

The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt - Audrey Clare Farley

Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service - Carol D. Leonnig

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America - Clint Smith

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland - Patrick Radden Keefe

Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance - Mia Bay

On Violence - Hannah Arendt

There are just a few of the books I’ve read recently😊

LOL... remember that time Chris posted a sceenshot from Hannah Arendt?

[doumekiss]

2024 Book Recs - 7-10/?

7. The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)

This book tells the story of Pecola, a black girl living in a small town in the usa during the forties who wishes to have blue eyes, it’s also about the people around her, the kids who study with her, her neighbors, her parents and other people who cross her path. And it’s one of the most depressing books I’ve read in my life, beautifully written but by god it’s brutal for your feelings. It’s a book that I begin reading believing I knew what it was going to be about and I was wrong, though it deals with the damages that racial beauty standards can have what really struck me is the vulnerability of children, and how cruelty towards them can be normalized or trivialized. The protagonist's desire for blue eyes in the end is less about being considered beautiful, and more about wanting to be cared for, loved and allowed to be a kid. 

Recommended for: people who want to feel touched by a story and its characters even if it brings them sadness. But trigger warning this book deals with some really heavy themes, besides racism there is csa and rape so be careful. 

8. Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)

This book tells the story of a man who wakes up alone in a spaceship without any memory of how he got there and who he is. And it’s so fun and hopeful, it really was just what I needed after finishing reading The Bluest Eye. It’s hard sci-fi but still manages to have this sense of wonder that attracts me and so many others to speculative fiction. It reminded me a lot of the extremely underrated movie Moon at first, but then it went in directions I really wasn’t expecting, and the end was just so different from what I predicted, but it felt so right for the protagonist and the story.

I won’t say much because I do think it’s one of those books where it’s worth going in knowing as little about it as possible and figuring out what happens together with the protagonist. 

Recommended for : sci-fi nerds and people interested in narratives about unconventional friendships 

9. Say Nothing : A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Patrick Radden Keefe) 

This is a nonfiction book is about The Troubles in northern Ireland during the last century, choosing to tell the story by focusing not so much on the big picture historically but by focusing on different people on the sides of the conflict, with two main narratives, the first focusing on Jean McCoville a woman kidnapped and murdered by the IRA for suspicions of being an informer to the british, and the second one about Dolours and Marian Price two sisters who became volunteers to the IRA, and eventually how those two narratives are connected. I had very high expectations for this book due to Empire of Pain by the same author, and they were thoroughly met, which is quite impressive considering this is a book with way less clear villains and heroes. 

Recommended for: true crime fans and people interested in irish and XX century history

10. Redemption in Indigo (Karen Lord) 

This book is about Paama, a woman who decides to leave her foolish husband, and ends up attracting the attention of the djombi who gift her the Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world. This book is inspired by a lot of african folklore with part of the plot being inspired by a fable from senegal, it was quite humorous at some points and in others just enchanting, it reminded me a lot of American Gods and Anansi Boys (Anansi actually makes some appearances, what pleased me a lot because I always love stories about trickster gods meddling with the lives of mortals). And the ending surprised me in a positive way. It’s the first book by this author I’ve ever read and I already put a lot more of her novels on my to read list.

Recommended for: fantasy fans, people interested in african folklore, people who like the writing of Neil Gaiman and Octavia Butler.