Welcome back to Get Rec’d!
This time around, we have a couple non-fiction titles, a middle grade graphic novel, and a mystery. I feel like sometimes, I know exactly which books I want to mention. But in this case, I had to consult my notes. (Yes, I do keep notes of books I recommend or remember throughout the week.)
How have you been recently? Get any good recommendations?
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The Age of Wonder
This was more of a rec to me and then passed along to you. I saw this one on Kelly Faircloth’s instagram stories and I was delighted to learn we already have a review!
The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science.
When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes’s thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still.
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How to Be Alone
When the pandemic just started, I received a lot of requests for non-fiction about loneliness and this was one of my top five recommendations.
The former Sex & Relationships Editor for Cosmopolitan and host of the wildly popular comedy show Tinder Live with Lane Moore presents her poignant, funny, and deeply moving first book.
Lane Moore is a rare performer who is as impressive onstage—whether hosting her iconic show Tinder Live or being the enigmatic front woman of It Was Romance—as she is on the page, as both a former writer for The Onion and an award-winning sex and relationships editor for Cosmopolitan. But her story has had its obstacles, including being her own parent, living in her car as a teenager, and moving to New York City to pursue her dreams. Through it all, she looked to movies, TV, and music as the family and support systems she never had.
From spending the holidays alone to having better “stranger luck” than with those closest to her to feeling like the last hopeless romantic on earth, Lane reveals her powerful and entertaining journey in all its candor, anxiety, and ultimate acceptance—with humor always her bolstering force and greatest gift.
How to Be Alone is a must-read for anyone whose childhood still feels unresolved, who spends more time pretending to have friends online than feeling close to anyone in real life, who tries to have genuine, deep conversations in a roomful of people who would rather you not. Above all, it’s a book for anyone who desperately wants to feel less alone and a little more connected through reading her words.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!How to Be Alone by Lane Moore
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The Okay Witch
Middle grade graphic novels are so much fun, no matter the age. This is one of my favorite books to recommend fantasy-loving, graphic novel-reading kiddos.
Magic is harder than it looks.
Thirteen-year-old Moth Hush loves all things witchy. But she’s about to discover that witches aren’t just the stuff of movies, books, and spooky stories. When some eighth-grade bullies try to ruin her Halloween, something really strange happens. It turns out that Founder’s Bluff, Massachusetts, has a centuries-old history of witch drama. And, surprise: Moth’s family is at the center of it all! When Moth’s new powers show up, things get totally out-of-control. She meets a talking cat, falls into an enchanted diary, and unlocks a hidden witch world. Secrets surface from generations past as Moth unravels the complicated legacy at the heart of her town, her family, and herself.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner
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The Twyford Code
This has a book-themed mystery with a focus on puzzles, ciphers, and some epistolary elements. I’ve heard it’s particularly good on audio, though I’m mostly a print girlie.
The mysterious connection between a teacher’s disappearance and an unsolved code in a children’s book is explored in this new novel from the “modern Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times, London) and author of The Appeal.
Forty years ago, Steven “Smithy” Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. When he showed it to his remedial English teacher Miss Iles, she believed that it was part of a secret code that ran through all of Twyford’s novels. And when she later disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy becomes convinced that she had been right.
Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Smithy decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. In a series of voice recordings on an old iPhone, Smithy alternates between visiting the people of his childhood and looking back on the events that later landed him in prison. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn’t just a writer of forgotten children’s stories. The Twyford Code holds a great secret, and Smithy may just have the key.
“Filled with numerous clues, acrostics, and red herrings, this thrilling scavenger hunt for the truth is delightfully deceptive and thoroughly immersive” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
I looooooooooooooved TWYFORD CODE!!! Janice Hallett is my favorite discovery of 2023 so far. Heads up, her books can be dense with characters and there isn’t a lot of physical descriptions. I find everyone very distinguishable by character voice, but my mother-in-law was trying to read a few pages of a Hallett book at night before bed and wasn’t having much luck.
I have the first Hallett book, lost in TBR-land, but thanks, @Jill Q, for sharing your enthusiasm for the series. I’ll get right on it, hopefully.
My recommendation is for TRESS OF THE EMERALD SEA by Brandon Sanderson. This is the only book of his I’ve read and it is a keeper, a KEEPER. So much fun and pirate peril and character growth, such tangled lines. Are his other books like this? Probably not, right? I wanted to underline so many passages. I may even need a physical copy because the illustrations are outstanding.