Bookshelf Roundup 05/30/20: Stacking the Shelves & Recent Reads
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every weekend which fills the role of several blog memes, like Stacking the Shelves where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, as well as It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? where I summarize what I’ve finished reading in the last week and what I’m planning to read soon. Mostly it also serves as a recap post, so sometimes I’ll throw in stuff like reading challenge progress reports, book lists, and other random bookish thoughts or announcements.
Received for Review
My thanks to the publishers and authors for the following review copies received, and be sure to click the links to their Goodreads pages for more details and full descriptions!
I received some book mail from the kind folks at Tachyon Publications this week! First up is an ARC of Kitty’s Mix Tape by Carrie Vaugh, the sixth and final novella in the author’s Kitty Norville series which I confess I’m not too familiar with. But now that I know it’s completed, maybe I’ll go back to the first book and take a look! Also in the package was Adventures of a Dwergish Girl by Daniel Pinkwater, a story which sounds as charming as its cover and title! To see what I mean, here’s the first line of the book’s description: “Molly O’Malley is a clever, adventurous girl. She is also a Dwerg. Dwergs are strange folks who live very quietly in the Catskill mountains, have lots of gold, and are kind of like dwarves (but also not!).” I love it! Definitely going to read it later this fall as we get closer to the release date.
And in the digital book haul, just three audio titles this week, with thanks to Tantor for the listening copies! I was very excited to find out they were pubbing the audiobook edition of Hella by David Gerrold, as this was a novel I’ve been dying to check out. I also received the audiobook of Silver in the Wood/Drowned Country by Emily Tesh featuring both novellas in the Greenhollow Duology, which is just perfect since I missed out on the first book and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. And finally, while Public Enemy Zero by Andrew Mayne isn’t exactly new, I believe it’s the first time coming out in audio. And you know me – I am ALWAYS up for anything by the author, and I’m especially curious to see how his older stuff holds up.
Reviews
Chaos Reigning by Jessie Mihalik (4 of 5 stars)
The Archer at Dawn by Swati Teerdhala (4 of 5 stars)
Sunshield by Emily B. Martin (3 of 5 stars)
Events
And that’s pretty much a wrap for Wyrd & Wonder! It was my first year participating, so everything was kind of touch and go this month, but now that I know what it’s all about, next year I hope to plan a little better and do more fun stuff on top of review posts. I also did terrible on my fantasy backlist challenge, by the way! But May actually turned out to be a very busy month, so was I was definitely relying more on my mood reads to pick me up rather than sticking to a reading list.
This Week’s Reads
Speaking of mood reads, as you can see, my week was clearly dominated by thrillers! As you might also recall, one of my hauls from a couple weeks ago were heavy on the thriller-mysteries, so some of this was me trying to catch up with those as well.
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured this week? What caught your eye? Any new discoveries? I hope you found something interesting for a future read! Let me know what you plan on checking out. Until next time, see you next Roundup!
The BiblioSanctum 
So Tachyon’s still mailing books huh? Weird. I thought we had evolved past physical mail now. Silver in the Wood underwhelmed me tbh. It was okay, but far from the earthshaking adventure I’d heard. But I hope you like it!
LikeLike
While I read review books in all formats, there’s still something to be said about receiving a physical book in the mail – it’s just so exciting 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
No argument here 😁
LikeLike
Hahaha, dwerg is the dutch word for dwarf… that book would confuse me so much 🙈 looks like a nice read though.
LikeLike
That’s so cool! Thanks for telling me 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gerrold’s Hella sounds like a very interesting read: I’m always fascinated by colonization novels and this planet should be an interesting place to explore – dinosaurs? I’m in! 🙂
LikeLike
Me too, Colonization Sci-fi is one of my favorite sub genres!
LikeLike
Have you read any Pinkwater before? He had a collection of 5 “novels” (probably closer to novellas) that I read and loved as a teen and then enjoyed as an adult. His tone and humor appealed to me quite a bit.
LikeLike
No I have not! Sounds like he’s worth checking out!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Looking forward to hearing what you think of Hella. I’ve not tried anything by Gerrold yet, but this one caught my attention. I really want to finish the Old Man’s War series so I can start the Interdependency. I know I probably don’t need to, but I always prefer wrapping up one series by an auther before starting on another (though I don’t always actually do this).
LikeLike
I’m the same way! I always try not to be distracted by the new and shiny (though it’s hard) when I know I have an author’s backlist still to read. 🙂
LikeLike
Oh nice! I actually just got myself back into Kitty Norville this week! I’m reading the second to last book. From what I learned about this one, it’s a collection of novellas, and I assume there’s one brand new one in there to make it be “the last story” of Kitty. The actual last book of the series is Kitty Saves the World. So this novella collection would be a good introduction into the series for you. Short run is Kitty is a werewolf who had her own radio show, she outted herself to her listeners and then became a sort of talk show/advice columnist on the radio for suprenaturals, as they are more of them about town. And of course there are more shenanigans to happen as well, such as when a werewolf hunter is hired to kill her. It’s a really fun series overall. I debated about picking this one up myself, but am not sure yet since it’s just novellas, a few of which I might have already read in other collections.
I hope you enjoy all of the lovely new reads!!
My StS will be up tomorrow, so stop by then if you can!
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for letting me know! I have no clue at all about the Kitty books, so I was just going by what Goodreads was saying as well as what I could read on the back of the book, lol! That’s a series I definitely want to try one day!
LikeLike
Nice haul! I probably wouldn’t give Dwergish Girl a second look in store, but that first line does kind of capture the imagination. 🙂
LikeLike
Yeah, the cover made me think it wasn’t my kind of book, but the description is very charming.
LikeLike
Wow, another Andrew Mayne book I haven’t heard about? Maybe all his older books are being promoted now that he’s even more popular😁
LikeLike
I think that’s probably the case!
LikeLike
I just the blurb of Hella. Sounds good, funny title, but… actually sounds good!
LikeLike
Ooh I’d definitely be interested in hearing what you thought of What Lies Between Us.
LikeLike
I know, I’m so curious!
LikeLike
I like the Kitty Norville series although I’m only on book 4. This Is How I Lied looks pretty good too… 🙂
LikeLike
Sounds like I have lots of catching up to do with Kitty Norville!
LikeLike
Yay, new books
LikeLike
Always exciting!
LikeLike
Ooooh, really interested to see what the audio is like for Silver in the Wood!
LikeLike
Me too! I should be able to knock them out quick in that format.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I must buy a copy of the second Tesh book – i’d like to see how that pans out. I enjoyed Silver in the Wood, it’s quite a beautiful story. I of course had my usual issues related to it being a short story which didn’t really give the author enough time to do everything she was trying to do but the ‘green man’ tale and the forest and dryads were lovely to read about and it had a hopeful feel which I liked.
Lynn 😀
LikeLike
I’m excited to try this duology! Hopefully the length issue won’t be a problem, since I’ll have both books in hand and once I finish the first one I can move right on to the second 😀
LikeLike
Pingback: Daniel Pinkwater's ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL is just so darned nice that it could cure your whole day - Tachyon Publications