#BookBingoNW2020: Two Books by the Same Author

Can’t believe this is our last Book Bingo square post! It’s definitely been an added challenge to stay focused. I’ve found with two books by the same author that you can go back to some of those authors you love. Re-read your favorite novel of theirs and grab one of theirs you haven’t read yet and tah-dah! Two squares done!

As a reminder Book Bingo ends September 8th and there are so many ways to get your card counted. Check out our Book Bingo page on how to play. And if you have any additional questions reach out to us on Ask Us!

T. Greenwood: I have read quite a few of Tammy’s books over the years and have found that they are all equally amazing. Her story telling creates a reality that will have you believe the characters live in your everyday life.

Breathing Water
This was the first book I read by the author, it chronicles an abusive relationship. Effie Greer confronts the ghosts of her past by going back to face the trauma of a violent day. She finds strength in the unexpected.

Rust & Stardust
Sally Horner was kidnapped in 1948 by Frank La Salle, who in order to win her trust pretended to be an FBI agent. This novel is a fictionalization of the true story that inspired Nabokov’s Lolita, but told from the perspective of Sally.

100 Years of Agatha Christie

In October of this year, we get to celebrate Agatha Christie being brought into our lives. Her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in the U.S. in October of 1920. The United States was first to be introduced to Hercule Poirot. He would go on to be the main character in 33 of her novels, 2 plays, and 50 short stories, and be the only literary character to ever have a written obituary in the New York Times. His death was written into Agatha Christie’s novel Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. Poirot had his own television series that aired for 24 years on ITV, not to mention many renditions of his books made into movies, most recently Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express.

Book Series by Volume – Sleuth Edition

Today’s Book Series by Volume adds three more cubic feet to your already stuffed bookshelves (if they aren’t over-stuffed then you need to get to work on that) with three series you should investigate.

Leaphorn and Chee by Tony Hillerman – This series of 18 books fills in about one cubic foot, though the area it covers is as large as the Navajo Nation. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police Department is a craggy, quiet, and thoughtful man who is intensely curious and logically rigorous. Officer Jim Chee holds Leaphorn in great esteem, but feels the weight of his shadow at times. Chee has a greater attachment to Navajo spirituality than the Lieutenant which, at times, causes an odd juxtaposition where the younger man espouses traditionalism versus the older man’s respectful rejection of superstition.

Throughout this series, Hillerman educates the reader in Navajo social, spiritual, and artistic culture and somehow makes the intensely hot, dusty, and rocky expanse of the Navajo Reservation a thing of beauty. For someone born and raised here in the Evergreen state of Washington as I am, that is quite the trick.

Book Series By Volume: Hard-boiled Edition

For this installment of Book Series By Volume I’m sleuthing out detective novels. There are several bulky series to look at, but I’ve picked my personal big three.

Harry Bosch Series by Michael Connelly

The 22 books cover about one and a half cubic feet, but Bosch shows up in a couple other satellite series by Connelly and is probably one of the more complex detective characters out there. Grizzled, aging, angry at the scrutiny his bosses in the LAPD put him under, and slightly annoyed at carrying the name of a well-known 15th-century Dutch artist, Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch is a detective from the old noir school of investigation. A deeply flawed man, Bosch is all too aware of his failings, but uses those perceived short-comings to bolster his unwavering belief in justice over correctness and justify his methods in achieving it. Despite being saddled with partners throughout the series, Bosch is an unapologetic loner, which is often what puts him in difficult positions. If you like gritty noir, this series should be on your nightstand.

#BookBingoNW: Published in the 1920s

Book Bingo is taking us back in time to the 1920s! Books published in the 1920s made up most of my English curriculum and though it was often hard to love a book that was assigned, that century on its own has held a lot of fascination for me, especially now, a hundred years later.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

This was one of the few books assigned to me that stuck and stuck hard. I fell in love with Gatsby’s world, this idea of trying so hard to battle where you come from. The thought of losing oneself to become what someone else wants no matter the cost was mind blowing to me. But also the visually stunning landscape, the decadence, when Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby film came out it felt like it was made for me. It had all the beauty and the darkness visualized perfectly, with an amazing soundtrack!