Not a library book SALE haul! That’s not until … April? April, I think.
These are just some books I picked up at the library because they looked interesting and I’ve never heard of them (well, two of them) before.
Why did I pick up these books when I already have so many other books I need to read? Well, because I’m trying to work my Beat the Backlist reading around what I can fit into a month without overlapping, since it just confuses me to have to submit a book twice for the Harry Potter House Challenge bit.
Yeah, that’s my excuse. I’m full of them.
Anyway, the books!
I now realize they’re a little, ah, morbid in theme, but hey! I like morbid! To the point where I’m debating getting my Master’s Degree in WWII history, specific to the Holocaust.
Anywho.
The Watch That Ends the Night by Allan Wolf
Arrogance and innocence, hubris and hope–twenty-four haunting voices of the Titanic tragedy, as well as the iceberg itself, are evoked in a stunning tour de force.
Millionaire John Jacob Astor hopes to bring home his pregnant teen bride with a minimum of media scandal. A beautiful Lebanese refugee, on her way to family in Florida, discovers the first stirrings of love. And an ancient iceberg glides south, anticipating its fateful encounter. The voices in this remarkable re-creation of the Titanic disaster span classes and stations, from Margaret (“the unsinkable Molly”) Brown to the captain who went down with his ship; from the lookout and wireless men to a young boy in search of dragons and a gambler in search of marks. Slipping in telegraphs, undertaker’s reports, and other records, poet Allan Wolf offers a breathtaking, intimate glimpse at the lives behind the tragedy, told with clear-eyed compassion and astounding emotional power.
Extensive back matter includes:
Author’s note
Morse code with messages to decipher
Titanic miscellany
Bibliography, articles, periodicals, government documents, discography
Does that not sound super interesting? To a history buff, anyway, I would think. I rarely see things about the Titanic that I can pick up, so I snatched this the moment I realized what it was.
The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough
Antony and Cleopatra. Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now… Henry and Flora.
For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.
Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?
Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.
The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.
Achingly romantic and brilliantly imagined, The Game of Love and Death is a love story you will never forget.
This is the one I had heard of before picking up, and it still interests me a lot. I can’t wait to read it.
The Passenger by F.R. Tallis
1941. A German submarine, U-471, patrols the stormy inhospitable waters of the North Atlantic. It is commanded by Siegfried Lorenz, a maverick SS officer who does not believe in the war he is bound by duty and honor to fight in.
U-471 receives a triple-encoded message with instructions to collect two prisoners from a vessel located off the Icelandic coast and transport them to the base at Brest—and a British submarine commander, Sutherland, and a Norwegian academic, Professor Bjornar Grimstad, are taken on board. Contact between the prisoners and Lorenz has been forbidden, and it transpires that this special mission has been ordered by an unknown source, high up in the SS. It is rumored that Grimstad is working on a secret weapon that could change the course of the war . . .
Then, Sutherland goes rogue, and a series of shocking, brutal events occur. In the aftermath, disturbing things start happening on the boat. It seems that a lethal, supernatural force is stalking the crew, wrestling with Lorenz for control. A thousand feet under the dark, icy waves, it doesn’t matter how loud you scream…
A super common title right now, I actually found this one by accident while looking for the sequel to Alexandra Bracken’s novel of the same name. I’ll readily admit, all I saw was “1941” and “German Submarine” before I deduced it was up my alley and picked it up. I now realize it’s horror/mystery/etc., but I’m still down.
And those are the three books I picked up! Hopefully I can read them in the time I have them, and don’t get totally distracted before my time is up. I have a habit of doing that.
Have you read any of these before? Let me know what you thought of them, good or bad!
Thanks for reading!
Confessions of a Literary Addict 