by Damla
February might be a short month, but it was packed with some strong bestsellers.
At the top of the list in all our stores once again, we have both installations of Rachel Reid’s hockey romance about Hollander and Rozanov, Heated Rivalry and The Long Game. This is certainly no surprise given the massive popularity the HBO adaptation of the series has amassed in a short time, with the interest clearly reflecting in the book sales.
Other screen adaptations have also sparked much interest in their original source material this month, namely A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Wuthering Heights, and Project Hail Mary.
Christian Kracht’s darkly comedic Eurotrash, Olga Tokarzcuk’s Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead, and Elizabeth Heider’s Children of the Savage City have been eye-catching fiction bestsellers in February. And of course, the classics are ever-consistent bestsellers at the ABC, with Dostoyeveksi’s White Nights and Crime and Punishment leading the charge this month along with Fahrenheit 451.
For this month, we also have many titles continuing their popularity from last month: Jenette McCurdy’s most anticipated fiction debut Half His Age, both of Patti Smith’s memoirs Just Kids and Bread of Angels, as well as the inspirational little art guide A Dictionary of Color Combinations.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray D. Bradbury
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When his wife Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht
Eurotrash is a bitterly comic, vertiginous mirror-cabinet of familial and historical reckoning about a a wealthy Swiss-German mother and son’s road trip through Switzerland as they try unsuccessfully to give away or squander the fortune she has amassed from investing in armament industry shares. Kracht’s novel is a narrative tour-de-force of the tenderness and spite meted out between two people who cannot escape one another.
Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.
Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them – in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before. What unfolds is the tale of the intense love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Catherine, forced to choose between and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrenders to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin
These never-before-collected adventures recount an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living consciousness. A young, naive but ultimately courageous hedge knight, Ser Duncan the Tall towers above his rivals—in stature if not experience. Tagging along is his diminutive squire, a boy called Egg—whose true name is hidden from all he and Dunk encounter. Though more improbable heroes may not be found in all of Westeros, great destinies lay ahead for these two . . . as do powerful foes, royal intrigue, and outrageous exploits.
Bread of Angels by Patti Smith
A radiant new memoir from beloved artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids.
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Set in St. Petersburg, it is the story of a young man fighting his inner restlessness. A light and tender narrative, it delves into the torment and guilt of unrequited love. Both protagonists suffer from a deep sense of alienation that initially brings them together. A blend of romanticism and realism, the story appeals gently to the senses and feelings.
Children of the Savage City by Elizabeth Heider
Some cities feed on secrets. Naples is ravenous. A peaceful evening mass at the historic Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo is shattered when a young au pair is killed in one of the cathedral’s quiet chapels. The daughter of the US Ambassador sees it happen—but she’ll speak only to one person: Nikki Serafino. But this case threatens Nikki’s self-imposed invisibility, after having been shaken by betrayal in her last high-profile case—drawing her into a web of lies and resurfacing old wounds and buried loyalties. The murder investigation leads Nikki and her friend, Naples officer Valerio Alfieri, into a shadow architecture of power: built to protect the guilty and hide their secrets at any cost.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
(Book two in the Game Changers series.)
Nothing interferes with pro hockey star Shane Hollander’s game.
Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that – definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate.
Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane’s not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he’s as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him, except Shane. Publicly, they’re enemies. Privately, they can’t stop touching each other.
The smart thing to do? Walk away, once a few secret hookups turn into a struggle to keep their relationship out of the press. The truth could ruin them both. But for Shane and Ilya, secrecy is soon no longer an option…
Our Naomi’s Staff Choice. She will be writing a more in-depth review later this month.
The Long Game by Rachel Reid
Shane and Ilya’s story, first seen in Heated Rivalry, continues in this long-awaited hockey romance from Rachel Reid.
To the world they are rivals, but to each other they are everything.
Ten years. That’s how long Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have been seeing each other. How long they’ve been keeping their relationship a secret. From friends, from family… from the league. If Shane wants to stay at the top of his game, what he and Ilya share has to remain secret. He loves Ilya, but what if going public ruins everything?
Ilya is sick of secrets. Shane has gotten so good at hiding his feelings, sometimes Ilya questions if they even exist. The closeness, the intimacy, even the risk that would come with being open about their relationship… Ilya wants it all.
It’s time for them to decide what’s most important – hockey or love.
It’s time to make a call.
Just Kids by Patti Smith
It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids -Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe – made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years. Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination – and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk’s native Poland.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
The apocalypse will be televised!
You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.
Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest and most readable novels ever written. From the beginning we are locked into the frenzied consciousness of Raskolnikov who, against his better instincts, is inexorably drawn to commit a brutal double murder.
A Dictionary of Color Combinations by Sanzo Wada
This book is a collection of 348 color combinations originated by Sanzo Wada (1883-1967) who, in that time of increasingly avant-garde and diversified use of color, was quick to focus on the importance of color and laid the foundation for contemporary color research.
