Light from Other Stars | 
Found these at Dollar Tree!
I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description or reason for wanting to read the book. Some are old and some will be new. Don't judge me - I have a lot of books.
Day 347
#tbrmountain #bookbuyingdiet
My Christmas #bookhaul from family! Notice any familiar titles, @monalyisha? 😉 I can‘t wait to get to all of these in 2021!
OK. Waning year check-in.
What's the BEST thing you've read this pandemic?
Unexpectedly, going into the quarantine, I read a lot less than I thought I would. I was easily distractable...& easily dissatisfied. Still, a few books did manage to hold my attention! One is tagged; a few more A+ reads from this year are tagged in the comments. Now that I've got my groove back (at least a little), I'm interested to see which titles kept you all reading!
pan#BLACKOUTBINGO #bookspinbingo I think this is the first time I‘ve made a TBR for a month and finished it. Thank you @TheAromaofBooks for such a great challenge!! 🥳💖
But I‘m sorry to end on a book I didn‘t enjoy. While this is normally the kind of SciFi I like, I just couldn‘t get purchase on the main plot line in FL in 1986. I very much enjoyed the parts on Chawla, but it just wasn‘t enough for me to even move it to so-so. 2⭐️
pickI missed my Book Club meeting because I wasn‘t done reading yet. As Swyler writes, “the act of savoring bends time & world.”
I was more interested in Nedda‘s childhood than in her time aboard Chawla as an adult...but I still loved every moment of this book — even as “moment” became impossible to define. The pervasive sense of homesickness, of citrus & salt; the characters & their relationships; & the writing were utterly gorgeous, sad, & hopeful.
Unintentionally matched our mid-bike ride snack to my book!
pick#2020Book25
Swyler is one of the best character writers I've ever read. She makes them so unique, and includes such specific details about every single one. I would read a 500-page book about people making breakfast if she wrote it. Not only that, but the plotting in this story made me enjoy it way more than I usually do with science fiction. And, best of all, she writes some of the most beautiful sentences, even when describing horrible things.
What book did Kris Waldherr pick for #read99women? This "tour de force" from @ErikaSwyler : http://www.greermacallister.com/blog/2020/2/13/read99women-kris-waldherr
pickA very complex and thoughtful book. Definitely partially sci-fi, part family drama, and part historical fiction about 1980s Florida and the space program. I didn't find the characters very engaging- they came across a bit cold and wooden to me- but overall I thought this was a unique and very interesting read.
pickThis book. What to say about this book? I didn‘t understand it; I‘m not sure if I actually liked it; I couldn‘t stop reading it; I can‘t stop thinking about it.
The perfect New Year‘s Eve with my book and my cat. (And my husband. Not pictured. 😀) Satisfaction level: Complete. 🥰
Last book started for 2019. Will be the first one I finish in 2020.
pickI was unsure about if I liked this book or not until the last 20% or so. I have to admit that I just didn‘t understand the science and couldn‘t picture some of the things that were being explained. It was the human parts of it that I liked, the connection between Nedda and all those that surrounded her, both on earth an in space.
Couldn't resist taking part in the 50% off Barnes and Noble Sale last week! I ordered online to get the extra discount! 😁👍The box finally arrived today! Gotta love bookmail! I've been wanting to read the Grim Lovelies duology and the tagged book is one of my favorite books of 2019 so far and am happy to have my own copy! 💕📚 #barnesandnoble #bookhaul #bookmail
This book is gorgeous so far. I remember looking for Halley‘s Comet and the subsequent Challenger explosion when I was in elementary school as well. My experiences of those two events were very similar to Nedda‘s, except she was so close to the shuttle launch, her school shook! #sleepingsatellite #ayupaugust
pickIs this sci-fi? Yes. Is this a book about family? Yes. Is it a study of human dynamics? Yes. Speculative, alternative fiction? Yes. Is it excellent and trippy and poignant and immersive? Yes. Highly recommend for book groups! 📚👥
I‘m 1/4 through this book and saw the author tweet yesterday that she would be at a library close to my job tonight. Perfect timing! I love her moon dress and kick ass red boots! Here she‘s reading a passage about the Challenger explosion. I was about the same age as the main character and remember watching with horror in school as it happened live.
From the author of national bestseller The Book of Speculation, a poignant, fantastical novel about the electric combination of ambition & wonder that keeps us reaching toward the heavens. Light from Other Stars is about fathers and daughters, women and the forces that hold them back, and the cost of meaningful work. It questions how our lives have changed, what progress looks like, and what it really means to sacrifice for the greater good.
pickThis is science fiction, with much emphasis on the science, so be prepared to engage your brain muscles as you read. It's also a story of loss, and lonliness, and the lies we tell in hopes of saving others, so don't be surprised when it tugs on your heart muscles, as well. Thoughtful, sometimes painful. One I could read again.
pickMy library‘s theme for summer is space, so for book club, the librarian chose this book. Think it‘s sci-fi but has main themes of grief, family relationships, mortality, & wanting children to stay children. About halfway through, I wasn‘t sure I liked the sci-fi part, but then I stayed up last night to finish it. A bonus—first book I‘ve read where the Challenger explosion is talked about & the girl is about the same age I was when it happened.
“A ship with gravity would have helped their bodies hold up. .... But the colony mission had a timeline: boots on planet by the end of the decade. Droughts, wildfires, and Manila sinking had served only to increase that pressure. Climate change had at last caught up and surpassed the rate of technological advances.”
I wonder if this last sentence is where we are now.
1. Tagged book and listening to The Study of Scarlet Women
2. Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
3. 4 print, 1 audio
#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain
This dedication is just 🌟Every time I see it, I‘m just happy 💜
Started this one. Sci-fi with past family issues. Not my normal genre, but it‘s for library book club, and the librarian has picked good ones so far.
pickTook me a little while to get into the story, but once I was in, it carried me away.
Light had carried her here, brought her decades from where she‘d begun. In the planets purple glow she found her father, the brother she never knew and his single painful hour...They‘d brought her traveling to the sky‘s end. They‘d woken her to life. She saw her mother...her good eye watered but it wasn‘t crying. It was washing away. The mass of words she‘d held inside her for a lifetime dissolved. She saw. She touched the face of God
I had to stop the madness of listening to the audiobook of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle —14 hrs in—-couldn‘t follow it anymore and was not enjoying it that much. Moving on...
pickI had no idea what this book was about apparently, as I was pleasantly surprised when it took a bit of a horror/scifi turn. I was definitely the target audience for this book. I currently live an hour from where the majority of the book takes place and love the space program. I definitely recommend this and can tell that this is a story I will routinely think back to.
Super excited about my library hold that finally came in! I've heard a lot of really great things about it! 💕📚 #librarylove
Got to see Erika Swyler tonight at my local indie @bookshopsc and she‘s so smart and funny and cool. Can‘t wait to read her new one!
What a cool night! Erika Swyler is such a passionate woman, I was rapt listening to her speak about her new book. I‘ve had it from NetGalley for a little while, but I happily bought a copy (and got it signed). ☺️
pickIf you were ever a little girl who loved science you will love this book. Science fiction with a dose of horror that Stephen King would approve of. 4⭐️s
#lightfromotherstars
#netgalley
#bloomsbury
so-soThe story is framed in two time periods—at the time of the Challenger explosion and then in the future. It was the futuristic timeline/time in space that was disengaging and I was happy to be immersed in the earlier timeline.
What I did enjoy was the writing, there is no doubt that Swyler is a talented author, but I felt bogged down by the terminology and high level of detail and therefore was emotionally disconnected.
so-soThe writing was excellent but at times this book got very technical and lost me. The story takes places on two time lines one in 1986 right at the time of the Challenger explosion and then later upon a space ship. Again for most of the stories I was totally engaged and wanted to follow this family in the earlier timeline and the when they were in space. Only when it went into is technical science jargon I was a goner.
pickSwyler‘s first novel was so charming, it‘s among my all-time favorites. This new one is mind-bending and heartbreaking and original. It gets published on May 7. Put it on your list now! #netgalley
pickNedda is 11 & space-obsessed, when Challenger explodes over her town. Her father, a scientist grieving his infant son, Nedda‘s fleeting youth, & the degeneration of his hands, alters time in wondrous & tragic ways after Challenger. Years later, Nedda is flying toward a distant planet when a dire malfunction makes her reckon with her past. LFOS is a thrilling journey through space & time & a moving exploration of the bond between parent and child.
pickThis book is absolutely beautiful. The narrative is split between present day, when Nedda is an astronaut, and 1986, when she's growing up in a small Florida town with a scientist father who used to work for NASA. It's a work of speculative fiction, sure--but also a poignant reflection on relationships, family, death, and time.
