The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration (often unsolicited). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.
This week brought three books, but I’ve already talked about two of them before (and I do plan on reviewing both of them since they’re books I’ve been looking forward to reading). So I’m just going to write about the one that showed up that I haven’t already covered before.
For reviews, I haven’t had a chance to start a new one since posting my review of Radiant by Karina Sumner-Smith on Wednesday. I’m still trying to decide if I should review Dust and Light by Carol Berg or The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman next. Both of these were books I very much enjoyed.
There is also still time to enter to win a copy of Impact Velocity by Leah Petersen in the international giveaway! The last day to enter is Wednesday of this week.
On to this week’s book!
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Kelly Link’s latest short story collection, Get in Trouble, will be released on February 3 (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). There is a book tour for this release with events in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, California, and Michigan. Check out the list of Get in Trouble events on the publisher’s site to see if there’s an event near you!
I haven’t read any of Kelly Link’s short stories yet myself, but I’ve heard they are wonderful.
She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection—her first for adult readers in a decade—proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.
Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers. In “The Summer People,” a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In “I Can See Right Through You,” a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In “The New Boyfriend,” a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll.
Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids . . . These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty—and the hidden strengths—of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.
