WWW Wednesday: 26th of February 2020

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book tag hosted by Taking on a World of Words that is all about what we’re currently reading. I’ve regularly seen WWW posts on several of the blogs I follow so I figured it was about time I jumped in on the fun!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

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Currently Reading:

I have a feeling my weekly answers to this question will send some of you running away screaming as I’m a serious polygamous reader. At any given time I’m usually reading half a dozen books across different formats and genres. It’s what works for me and helps battle reading fatigue, but it also means I’m always in the middle of a bunch of books.

This week’s pile is shorter than usual and is pretty science-fiction heavy: Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov, The New Voices of Science Fiction edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman, Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward, and Break No Bones by Keithy Reichs.

Finished Reading:

This week I finished two ARC’s as well as an audiobook from my library. Both of the ARCs will be reviewed in the coming weeks on my blog once their publication dates come up.

The first one I finished, Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole, completely blew me away. After I had read the final page, I stumbled into the dining room where my husband was working and just kept repeating, “Oh my god, this book!” Looks like my first impressions were right on the mark!

The other ARC was Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, a quirky novel set in 1960’s Iceland. The cover and writing style imply that this book is on the lighter side, but if you really look into what’s going on you can see that things are much grimmer than they seem. And that’s not just because of the long nights in Iceland!

The audiobook I finished listening to was one I’ve been meaning to read ever since my undergraduate days. I’d read excerpts of it and works that cited it, but I’d never actually read the book in its entirety. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond is a monumentally important publication now more so than ever. It tackles the complexity of how societies who were once at the forefront of human development were eventually overcome by Eurasians.

His answer to this question is multi-facted, but broadly what he believes it comes down to is not the Eurasian-centric belief that these people were somehow genetically inferior, but that it was just luck of geography. It was fascinating premise that was well explored, plus I learned a lot about Austronesian development. If you get a chance I’d highly recommend reading this one!

Up Next:

I’ve got quite a few ARCs lined up to be read but the first two I’m going to be starting are two that are due to be released in the next month or so.

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

A couple of years ago when I decided I needed to give short stories another shot, Moshfegh’s collection Homesick for Another World was one of my first stops. The stories were seriously creepy and really got under my skin, so much so that two years later I still shudder when I think of that collection. I liked it, but it was definitely bizarre.

This time around I’ll be reading her latest novel, Death in Her Hands, which has been described as “haunting metaphysical suspense.” Sounds like I’m in for another unusual one from this author!

The Road to Delano by John DeSimone

The Road to Delano is a book set amidst the backdrop of the Central Valley’s farming community and I’m excited to read it because of my family’s background. My father’s family were farmworkers in California in the early and mid-20th century and his father was a minister who served the migrant farmworking communities throughout the state.

While not a farmer, my mother was very active with the United Farmworker’s Union (UFW) and I remember as a kid going to rallies with her and volunteering at their offices near Monterey. Cesar Chavez was a pretty revered name in my house. DeSimone’s book has an introduction from Cesar Chavez’s spokesman and speechwriter Marc Grossman so we’re already off to a great start. ¡Si Se Puede!

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Those are my books for this installment of WWW. What are your WWW’s this week? Let me know in the comments!