The Books I'm Reading Now
I'm listening to Kirsten Miller's entertaining novel about a lending library and banned books in a small Southern town, Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books; I'm reading the recently published A Language of Dragons, a reimagined Bletchley Park codebreaking story featuring a tenuous dragon-human truce; and I'm listening to the romance My Oxford Year, in which ambitious American Ella Durran's studies at Oxford turn out to lifechanging in unexpected ways.
What are you reading, bookworms?
01 Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
In a small Southern town, a lending library and a battle over banned books pits nemeses Beverly Underwood (on the school board) and Lula Dean (determined to rid public libraries of "inappropriate" books) against each other.
Lula generously (she believes) sets up a Little Free Library full of appropriate books. But someone mischievous has put the dust jackets of her wholesome books on LGBTQ+ novels, romances, literary classics, Judy Blume books, and other banned titles.
The reality of her personal library seems destined to come to light--just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other in a mayoral race that could decide the reading future of their community.
I'm listening to Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books as an audiobook.
02 A Language of Dragons: An Epic Tale of Forbidden Romance, Dragon Languages, and Civil War in an Alternate 1920s London by S. F. Williamson
In an alternate 1923 London, a young woman inadvertently disturbs the peace between humans and dragons in a reimagined Bletchley Park.
Vivienne Featherswallow is angling for a summer internship studying dragon languages--and if she frees just one dragon, she'll secure a future for her sister that ensures she'll never be looked down upon again.
But now her family is in prison and her sister is missing. If Vivienne succeeds in breaking dragon-language codes at Bletchley Park, her family will be freed. But if she can't...they remain in mortal danger.
She's discovering that the humans' fragile truce with the dragons is corrupt--and her unraveling of the secrets holding it together might start a civil war.
I received a prepublication edition of A Language of Dragons courtesy of HarperCollins Children's Books and NetGalley.
03 My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan
American Ella Durran has had a plan for her education and career sine she was 13: study at Oxford.
Now she's 24, she's just as driven, and she's finally at Oxford.
She's agreed to be an education policy consultant for a potential presidential candidate back home, which means she's on call at all hours.
She's decided to study literature, and at Oxford that means no syllabus, few concrete expectations, and a lot of winging it, all which is definitely out of her comfort zone.
Oh, and she's sleeping with her rakish professor.
I'm listening to My Oxford Year as an audiobook.
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