What to Read This Week

Here are the books I’ve added to my to-read shelf this week and think you should too!

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell: So, much like he title implies this book is about a group of girls who have been raised by wolves and are brought to a special school to learn how to act like human children again.  But that’s not the only story in this book, in fact, it’s a collection of them.  With everything from wolf-girls to minotaurs.  This book sounds like a lot of fun, with Grimm’s Fairy Tales being re-popularized with shows like Once Upon a Time and Grimm it’s also turning into a new wave of fiction (although not that new as this book was originally published in 2006).  The thing about fairy tales is things can go from good, to bizarre, to downright awful fairly quickly.  I’m always a little skeptical to pick up reimagined books (like techno-Cinderella Cinder) but this one sounds like it may just be original enough to be worth the splurge.  Then again, there’s always the library.
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins: Another non-fiction book on the list, aren’t you proud, I’m doing so much better trying to expand the range of books I’m thinking about reading some day in the future.  If you ever wanted proof that the geeks really do surpass the cool kids for success later in life, here it is.  Sold as both a book for former nerds and parents of teens this book is supposed to tell you everything about why the nerds end up succeeding.  I’m interested in seeing what research there is to back up these claims (not like we all didn’t know it was true…) and this sounds like a non-fiction book I’ll be happy to give some time to.  After all, who doesn’t want to talk about Quirk Theory at a dinner party.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: I keep hearing confusing things about this book and a lot of reviewers have trailed off into the realm of “I’m not really sure what’s just happened but I think it was pretty cool”.  And I’m all for that.  The story of people throughout time and space there’s no real chronological order, or logical anything, but supposedly the writing is brilliant and set any part of anything in the 1800s and I am there.  This is another one I’m saving for the summer (which will be here in 5.5 short weeks for me!) because I feel like it’s the kind of book I can fall inside and not come out until it’s over.  And we all need those kinds of books over the summer.