Forthcoming books...not to be missed

I was reading reviews of books online from Library Journal, Amazon and Publisher's Weekly today and thought I would share information on the books that I found most intriguing.

Bernard Cornwell, author of the Sharpe series and the thrilling Anglo Saxon series, has a new book coming out in Januray entitled Agincourt. It is based, of course, on the English victory over the French in 1415. The reviewer felt this book "perfectly captures the spirit of 15th-century France." I can't wait to read this one!

Georgina Harding's novel, The Spy Game, is one I really want to read. It's about two children in 1961 England whose mother dies when they are young and the mysteries they encounter when trying to piece together the mother's life. Was the mother a spy? Can't wait to get a hold of this one!

Also recommended by LJ are Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakuli and Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance by Lloyd Jones. The first is a novel about artist Frida Kahlo and the latter a book about Quakers in hiding from military service in New Zealand.

Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, has written another memoir entitled, Things I've Been Silent About: A Memoir. Recommended by Publisher's Weekly, this seems to be a haunting work about the author's terrible home life. I've never read her first memoir, but the Middle Eastern authors that I have read, such as Naguib Mahfouz, write searing novels that are superb works, but at the same time, painful reading for me. Mahfouz's Palace Walk was the only one in his trilogy that I wanted to read. He deservedly won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but his account of an Egyptian family is unforgettable to say the least. I didn't think I could handle the rest of the trilogy. I've been told Reading Lolita is excellent, so I'll probably try to read that soon before embarking Things I've Been Silent About.

As for mysteries, I enjoy Jacqueline Winspear's Maise Dobbs series; they are simply fun reads and have a different take on the genre. Winspear's new book in the series, Among the Mad, comes out in February 2009.