30 Days of Book Talk discussion

New to you authors you have discovered in 2021 who made a big impression on you and you want to read more books by them or maybe you already have done so.

My -for me- big discovery for this year has been author Erik Larson.

Earlier this year I read the review of a GR friend about his The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz that made me curious.

I have purchased the audiobook edition with the excellent narration by Matt Addis and it just left me breathless. It was like listening to a radio docu-drama and even though I was aware of most of the facts, I was still listening to it like I did not know a thing about it before.
Larson used historical facts, radio announcements, newspaper articles as well as personal diary entries by people surrounding Churchill as well as the diaries of ordinary people (there was a thing like a "mass observation diaries" in those days to be used for later sociology studies - go figure!) and it made a fascinating read.

I have already purchased 2 other books by him
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin and Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

I also started checking out books I label as "forgotten classics" recently republished by Dean Street/Furrowed Middlebrow Press.

One was Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp, which I liked a lot and I intend to read books by other authors under these publications like Molly Clavering, Elizabeth Fair, D.E. Stevenson, Ruth Adam, etc


In the romance genre I discovered books by Lucy Parker, which I enjoyed a lot. They are funny, fresh and also credible, which is saying a lot for this genre. :)

And also I finally got round to read Mary Stewart.
I loved her Thornyhold and currently I am reading Nine Coaches Waiting.

I was really impressed by Richard Flanagan his book The Living Sea of Waking Dreams and now want to read more by him. Also I absolutely adored Ada Palmer her Terra Ignota series, currently reading the fourth installment

Jordan Ellenberg is the writer whose book Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else has completely blown me away. I am speechless.

I’d never attempted to read Marcus Aurelius, even though I liked all his quotes that I came across all the time, because I thought his works in their entirety might be too dry for me, but his meditations have surprised me in the most pleasant way. I’m now attempting to read Rene Guenon in French but I might have to relent and find an English translation. I feel my entire view of life may change if I ever succeed to finish any of his works.

As for fiction and romance, T.A. White has been the best new to me, PNR, UF that I’ve come across. Also Ruby Red trilogy by Kerstin Gier has been a YA book that somehow captivated me last winter. And if I had to use one word to describe the trilogy it would be, charming, because it is. I’m very keen on finding more translated books by her,but since I unfortunately don’t speak German, making sense of her website is a bit confusing.

Melindam I too recently came around reading Thornyhold which I loved by Mary Stewart and also a subpar copy cat version by someone else, very accidentally and in the same week! It was one of the coolest examples of synchronicity in my reading life that’s happened to me. I highly, highly recommend her Arthurian saga, mainly the first three books. And I’m fascinated by rhododendron pie. It’s gone in my tbr list.

@henk the living sea of waking dreams sounds too close to my present situation for comfort to be honest, but I’m also intrigued by the idea of terra ignota.

Thanks for the recommendation, Gogol. :)

I finally read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, and now I would read anything else by him. But I hope he's not a one-hit-wonder for me the way - so far - Fredrik Backman turned out to be (I loved "A Man Called One" but tried two others and DNF'd them.)

Fingers crossed, Ange. :)

I haven't got round to post the next question, but will do so in a few hours.

Lewis, Matthew Gregory

jannete winterson