#WWWWednesday – 16th February 2022

Posted on by whatcathyreadnext

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

The Mirror Game CoverThe Mirror Game by Guy Gardner (ARC, The Book Guild) 

London 1925. When Adrian Harcourt, a politician and captain in the army believed dead with his company on the battlefield of Flanders, is sighted looking like he’s been living rough, Harry Lark, a war veteran and journalist, is enlisted by his friend and benefactor Lady Carlise to investigate. As he becomes drawn further into the case and the deaths mount up, he can see that things don’t add up. Where has Adrian been for so many years? Why can’t he remember parts of his past?

Looking further into Adrian’s previous life, even as his own dark past and addiction to laudanum threatens to overwhelm him, Harry begins to fall for Lady Carlise’s beautiful daughter Freddy, who was also Adrian’s fiancé. Chasing the leads as they continue to unravel, can Harry solve the mystery behind what really happened to Adrian before it’s too late? 

Islands of AbandonmentIslands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn (William Collins)

This is a book about abandoned places: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands – and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place.

In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods.

This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world – and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery.

By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?

Recently finished

The Paris Network by Siobhan Curham (Bookouture)

The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman (Muswell Press) 

The Porcelain Doll by Kristen Loesch (Allison & Busby) 

Music of the Night edited by Martin Edwards (Flame Tree Press)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Ghosts of Spring Final Cover ImageGhosts of Spring by Luis Carrasco (ARC, époque press) 

A young girl, anonymous and ignored, sits through a cold, hard west-country winter, begging for change and searching for a warm place to sleep.

Ghosts of Spring explores one girl’s desire to transcend the limits of her environment and forge a new life against all the odds. 

7 thoughts on “#WWWWednesday – 16th February 2022”

  5. Islands of Abandonment sounds interesting. It’s nice that areas where humans don’t dominate any longer can be found. Of course, it’s sad when nuclear disaster or similar lies behind.

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