MADreads Reviews

The Wisconsin Book Festival released its 2018 festival schedule on August 21. The four-day festival will take place October 11-14, 2018, in and around Madison Public Library’s Central Library in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. The festival will feature more than 60 events over four days with plenty of opportunities to meet authors, discover new books or favorite writers, and have books signed. See the full festival lineup at wisconsinbookfestival.org.

Everyone’s favorite boy wizard is turning twenty this year! Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone first hit shelves in 1997, sparking a cultural phenomenon that’s still going strong. To celebrate, Overdrive is offering free access to the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ebook between August 27 and September 10.  Enjoy reconnecting with favorite characters or take the opportunity to introduce a new generation to the series.

A young blacksmith's apprentice named Greta discovers a lost tea dragon at the market and uncovers the forgotten world of the Tea Dragon Society. The book follows a year of seasons starting with spring and the developing friendships between Greta, the tea dragon masters, Hesekiel and Erik, and a mysterious and shy girl named Minette.

This isn't your typical mysterious death mystery. The death that starts the book off is explained in the first chapter, so now what? Turns out the now what is quite a lot and all of it good.

In a time not too far in the future in an America that seems all to scarily possible at times, half the population has been silenced. For fans who have binged through The Handmaid's Tale (and/or read the book) Vox can be your next dystopian read.

As readers and publishers head into fall, the year’s publishing trends show no signs of stopping. Crunching the numbers, Publisher’s Weekly reports that Americans seem to be embracing reality, at least of the printed variety: nonfiction sales are up 5% from last year, driven in large part by political titles. It comes at the cost of fiction sales, which are down about the same amount. Not surprisingly, publishers are responding by bringing out and promoting their big nonfiction titles, and as September marks the start of the fall publishing push, some of those titles are hitting sh

There are people who don't recognize good and bad. They appear normal, even charming, but lack conscience and empathy. They see others as objects to use for their own benefit. They are called psychopaths. They are out there, wandering among us, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Liz Nugent's Lying in Wait is about just such a person. The path to who this person is and what they are willing to do leads the reader on a terrifying maze of twists and turns of shock and second-guessing, and in my case, a little shrieking.

Get off your devices. That’s right, just set them aside, grab this book and open to the title page spread where you will see the cutest!!, most adorable, awwww- inspiring photograph of a mama three-toed sloth and her baby in their natural environment.  And that’s just the title page. 

In Guillory's second contemporary romance the hero's best friend from book one (The Wedding Date) gets his chance to find love - even if he's convinced that he doesn't have the time or space in his life for it. 

"Ghosting" according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication. Several recent reports tout it as the new toxic behavior. It's cowardly, it's destructive and it doesn't resolve anything.  

Do you want something funny to read? I ran across a Publishers Weekly article where an essayist with a new book listed her 9 favorite essay collections. Below is her list, along with her new book.   

Not only is this an open letter to the women who will run the world one day, it's also a first-hand account of what it was like to be a part of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and how future candidates (and all of us) can learn from the way a woman candidate was treated and how upcoming elections will be different.

Resourceful cook Kat Holloway has a new mystery to solve in the second of this historical mystery series. Though Kat is still the cook for Lord Rankin's household in Victorian London, but the people she's cooking for have changed a bit (after the events of Death Below Stairs). Lord Rankin has departed for the country and Lady Cynthia, though nominally chaperoned by an aunt and uncle, is left mostly to her own devices.

I knew nothing about Ruocchio's debut, first in the Sun Eater series, other than it's pretty long, it's going to take a long time to read. If I say I finished it in a couple days, you'll get an idea as to how exhilarating it was and how much I loved it.

I’m a total Carrie.

How about you?

If you’re fan enough to get my meaning, especially if you dig behind-the-scenes showbiz nonfiction, you will probably love entertainment journalist Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s fresh look at the enduring zeitgeistiness of HBO’s landmark sitcom Sex and the City.   

I picked this book up thinking it was a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on fairy tales. Perfect! That is just my cup of tea! But there's more to it than that. The Merry Spinster is a collection of stories representing classic children's literature, Grimms' Fairy Tales, Scottish folklore, the Book of Genesis, and more. That's a lot to take on!

Jade Dragon Mountain is a classic manor mystery set in 18th century China. Playing the role of Poirot (or Nero Wolfe or Ellery Queen, you can make your reference of choice) is Li Du. Li Du is a librarian who was exiled from the Imperial City and has spent the last five years traveling on his own throughout China. His recent travels have brought him to southern China (near the Tibetan border) and he has to seek permission from the local magistrate to travel within the district.

This book is an interesting view on immortality and complete harmony. Centuries into the future, anything that brought despair has been eliminated - government, war, illness, famine, etc. This leaves life almost limitless. The only people who can kill are in the Scythe Legion. Offending a Scythe leads to certain death. However, the main character, Citra, is taken to be an apprentice Scythe. This novel creates a very realistic world, if the world was a perfect, idealistic, utopia.

This month’s new releases are filled with familiar names as publishers compete for readers’ attentions in the final month of the summer season. On to the highlights: