Curious Tuesday #1 – Current Popular Reads

Posted March 23, 2021 by elzaread in Curious Tuesday / 23 Comments

Greetings you all! It’s Tuesday and that means that it should actually be time for Top Ten Tuesday, one of our favorite weekly features. But my Mommy did a Ten Feline Book Titles that made me laugh out loud post a couple of weeks back and it is quite similar to this week’s prompt of Funny Book Titles. Don’t worry, we will go and visit all your funny titles later today!

I have been nudging my Mommy to start a feature where I can simply quince my curiosity. I’m a cat and therefore, I am very inquisitive. Not to such a degree that it might kill me, but one never knows. I always have lots of questions and things that I wonder about and it normally starts with The Sunday Post. But by the next Sunday, we’ve forgotten all about it. Sometimes I am curious about a book that we see featured everywhere, sometimes about a movie or a show and sometimes just about random things that pop up in everyone’s discussions. 

We don’t normally have time for all those lovely, long discussion posts, but maybe on this Curious Tuesday feature, we can also lay an egg or two every once in a while. We’ll talk about Easter Eggs and the Easter Bunny next week. Mommy says I need to start this feature with something that is still mostly related to books. That is what we blog about after all. So for today, I am curious about the books that are the most popular at the moment according to you guys here on the blogosphere and social media apps.

1.  The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah  – Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.


This is very popular on Facebook at the moment and also in the Book Shops here in South Africa. Will my curiosity on this one threaten to kill me? Mommy already took care of that and this book is waiting for us on the nightstand. 

2. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig  – Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

Still popular everywhere. On Facebook, Instagram and on the Blogosphere. This one won’t kill me either as Mommy got this one for Christmas. We just didn’t get to reading it yet. So yes, maybe my heartrate is in a bit of a danger zone. 

3. The Push by Ashley Audrain  – Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.
But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.
Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.
The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.
 

I guess I should have listed this one first as this book shows up everywhere. But I don’t think it’s quite for us. We tend to rather stay clear from books with small children and motherhood issues. I might be a bit curious about this one, but I don’t think it’s worth wasting one of my nine lives. What would happen to my Mommy when I’m gone?
4. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn  – 1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart. 1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter–the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger–and their true enemy–closer…

Now this is the one that will steal one of my nine lives for sure. Easily the most popular read here on the blogosphere at the moment and we really, really want to read it too. We just need to get our hands on it.

Have you read any of these? What popular reads are you curious about at the moment? If you have anything that you are curious about and want us to discuss it, let me know. You are welcome to join in if you want to!
Lots of Love,

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23 responses to “Curious Tuesday #1 – Current Popular Reads

  1. I haven’t read any of them and to be honest is it bad to say I don’t really fancy them plus my whole book buying ban puts a stop to any happy book buying! However you have reminded me of the truly awful Curiosity Killed the Cat my favourite band from back in the 80s!

    • I still think your No new book buying ban is a good idea! One do tend to get overwhelmed. I might have to try it next year!

      These four are the ones that I see around the block most lately and the only one I'm not sure of, is The Push. Just for the content matter and personal history.

  2. I loved Midnight Library, but it has themes that I always find in my favorite books—loss, mental illness, loneliness, and, ultimately, some sort of redemption.(Hope I didn't say too much.)

    • Hi dear Debbie! No, you didn't say too much. You just make me want to read it more urgently! In 2 months time it is my turn for book club and I don't plan on buying new books, but read all the books I want go add to book club! I think it's going to be a great read.

    • I am going to try to take a reading day tomorrow. It's holidays after all! And make a HUGE dent in The Evening and the Morning and then start with The Four Winds.

      Thanks Helen!

  3. We often tell Comet that he is the cat curiosity killed because he has to find out what we are doing constantly. He gets locked in rooms and closets all the time because he followed someone in there. The Kate Quinn is the one that's calling me the most. All of her books sound amazing.

    • My oldest cat tend to climb into cupboards and get "lost" there. Max once hid Stinkie in one of the kitchen cupboard and thought it was very funny to send me on a treasure hunt. He was still a kitten and could make one massive noise.

      Oh yes – definitely the Kate Quinn one!

    • Hi there Lindsey! I hope I can get to The Midnight Library soon, I keep on moving it to the back of the stack and I actually don't know why! The Rose Code is still need to get my hands on, but I will.

  4. "Sorry, it's curiosity". Haha, that made me laugh so bad. Is it one of those New Yorker cartoons / cartoonists? The style looks familiar somehow.

    I have definitely seen the Rose Code doing the rounds, but the others are unfamiliar. I've been on the fence about Rose Code, I want to avoid wartime fiction right now…

    ~ Lex (lexlingua.co)

    • Hi Lex! I actually have no idea where it's from. I got it from my friend Google. I guess I need to starting a bit closer.

      I will definitely read The Rose Code, loved The Alice Network. Yes, it's wartime fiction, but with a bit more. So you can give it a try!

  5. I haven't read any of the lovey books you feature this time, although many people received review copies of 'The Rose Code' this week.

    I really can't afford to be as curious as Elza, for even under my new regime of being super organised with my reading / reviewing, I just don't have any more spare space … I wonder if I can just schedule four more books in somewhere!! 🙂 🙂

    See. you twisted my arm again – A great post and I hope that you are enjoying your time away from work :)xx

    • HI Yvonne! Of course you can fit in at least four more books! You very close to being Superwoman. Believe in your powers…!! LOL!!

      No, I know your schedule is hectic and it is difficult to fit everything in. But you are still doing a great job!

    • I was one of the very few people who took quite some time to get into The Nightingale. But when it gripped me, I was hooked and read quite a few Kristin Hannah books since. I am busy with the doorstop called The evening and the morning, and then it's me and The Four Winds. Yea!