Recently I received a few new books which will be published in February. They all sound good and I want to dive into them now but you know how that is. Anyway, want to hear about the books?

First, there’s Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. I received this one from the BookBrowse First Impressions program. This book is an epic novel that features twin brothers who grow up in Ethiopia after their mother dies and their father abandons them. Matt recently mentioned this was one of his favorite reads in 08.

Then I have The Vagrants by Yiyun Li. This story takes the reader to Communist China in 1979 when Beijing was rocked by the Democratic Wall Movement, an anti-Communist groundswell designed to move China beyond the dark shadow of the Cultural Revolution toward a more enlightened and open society.

Finally, I also have Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni. American-born journalist Azadeh Moaveni returns to Iran in 2005 to cover the rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While she’s there, the unexpected happens: she meets her soul mate, falls in love, and becomes pregnant. Now she must face a future that she didn’t quite plan.

What about you? Which books are you looking forward to, and have you been lucky enough to score an ARC? Tell me so I can add more books to my list.

Aside from Sharp Objects, I’ve also got a couple of other books going on this week.

I’m almost done with Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. This book seems so simple yet describes so beautifully the pain of losing a loved one. It would be easy to race through this book but I’ve enjoyed taking my time with it. This book will also count towards my Japanese Reading challenge.

My next book was not one I had planned to read just yet but as I’m in Dallas and plan to visit with one of my former book groups it ended up jumping ahead of others. The group is reading Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, which was named one of the NYT best books of the year. Even though I’m only half way through the novel, I can see why. The book is a very intimate look at the memories of a 67-year-old man. I hope I can finish this in time for discussion but either way, I can’t wait to see what the group has to say about this one.

Finally, when I met with one of my friends last night we talked about the upcoming movie Watchmen and her husband recommended I read the book. He loaned me his copy and I had to steal a few glimpses into it. I think I’m really going to enjoy this graphic novel.

Of course I have a bunch of other books I can’t wait to read and some really exciting ARCs have come my way but I’ll tell you about those next post.