Most Intriguing Recent Titles

It's the middle of December, and all I can say is NaNoWriMo fried my brain. I didn't even hit 50,000 new words. Day job plus 3 a.m. job of writing were just too much. The little gray cells are slowly regenerating, and I'm hoping that 2020 will be full of fabulous blog posts. Until then, I'm going to write something that is really lame for a book blog because it's about books that I haven't read yet. Obviously, no, this isn't a review because I haven't read these. For totally valid reasons, you might be wondering: why post this?

I recently attended a book release party and someone there, another writer, asked me which books at BookBar looked the most interesting to me. Surprisingly, I have reasons behind my TBR pile. If you are a fast reader and you're hungering for new options, this might offer you some inspiration. If you're looking for further evidence to assure yourself that I need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for inspiration, you will probably find that here too. Merry Christmas!

Bunnie by Mona Awad. I found this on the Staff Recommendations shelf at BookBar and I'm not sure how I resisted picking it up. It's now on my wish list and I don't feel right purchasing anything from that until after 12/25. Such a bind. I've been extremely naughty this year, so I have no idea why I'm expecting gifts, but you never know. Anyway, the book: so the staffer mentioned something about wicked MFA students who call each other "bunny." I was sold. I keep hearing things that make this book sound better though. Margaret Atwood liked it (if you've been under a rock for the past decade, she wrote The Handmaid's Tale.) It's also thought of as dark humor, and by some, horror. Further sold! Okay, anyone who knows me really doesn't need an explanation for this one. The cover is awesome. The title is awesome. It's funny, gross, and it's focused on death--specifically, what happens to dead bodies. Mortician Caitlin Doughty gives her serious responses to kid's questions about what happens to dead bodies, and so far, people are loving it. My friend at the party almost walked off with it, and this book just snagged a 2019 Goodreads Readers' Choice Award. The people have considered the data and they're voting yes.At the risk of sounding like 6th grade me in a book report, this caught my attention because I am generally a fan of the Best American series, and for this particular volume, the guest editor is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me. Preach. I also love great essays, and these books are a wonderful way to sample some exciting new writers.I'm a long time Margaret Atwood fan and I love The Handmaid's Tale so I don't think I really need to provide an explanation here. I'm slightly afraid of being disappointed, but I'm going to read it, for sure.I have trouble with Karen Russell. In fact, I have more trouble than I used to have with her because I read "Black Corfou" in Best American Short Stories 2019. (For the true literati, it originally appeared in Zoetrope.) I hated that story. I was hoping for something exciting with zombie-like creatures and it just failed epically. I didn't even care for her breakthrough novel, Swamplandia! Why did I buy this book? I'm not sure. Hope springs eternal. They're short stories, and it's orange.I don't know how I'll actually feel about On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous. It sounds like the writing could be beautiful. It also could be preachy and condescending.Liz Phair wrote a memoir and it's pink. I think that tells you everything you need to know about my interest in this book.Eileen looks like dark women's fiction for those of us who want to break from the herd of little sheep reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation to later whine about it being mediocre.