Down the TBR Hole #18

This meme was created by Lia at Lost in a Story as a way to tackle the gargantuan To-Read shelves a lot of us have on Goodreads.

The rules are simple:

1. Go to your Goodreads To-Read shelf.
2. Order on ascending date added.
3. Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
4. Read the synopses of the books
5. Decide: keep it or should it go?
6. Repeat every week until the entire list has been filtered (hmm, quite a few weeks then!)

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Here are ten more books on my To-Read shelf who need to fight for bookish survival.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (added 22nd September 2016)

On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.

But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.

While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.

Verdict: Keep – There are so many positive reviews of this one it has to retain its place. 

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (added 22nd September 2016)

In a jazz bar on the last night of 1937, watching a quartet because she couldn’t afford to see the whole ensemble, there were certain things Katey Kontent knew. By the end of the year she’d learned – how to launch a paper airplane high over Park Avenue, how to live like a redhead, and how to insist upon the very best.

Verdict: Keep – You can see what happened here, I added both of this author’s books at the same time. I can’t see a reason to keep one and not the other. 

The Beggar King (The Hangman’s Daughter #3) by Oliver Pötzch (added 30th September 2016)

1662: Jakob Kuisl, the hangman of a village in the Alps, receives a letter from his sister calling him to the imperial city of Regensburg, where a gruesome sight awaits him: her throat has been slit. When the city constable discovers Kuisl alongside the corpse she locks him in a dungeon, where Kuisl will experience first-hand the torture he’s administered himself for years. As nightmares assail him, Kuisl can only hope to prevail on the Regensburg executioner to show mercy to a fellow hangman.

Kuisl’s steely daughter, Magdalena, and her young doctor paramour, Simon, rush to Regensburg and try to save Jakob, enlisting an underground network of beggars, a beer-brewing monk, and an Italian playboy for help. Navigating the labyrinthine city, they learn there is much more behind the false accusation than a personal vendetta: there is a plan that will endanger the entire German Empire.

Verdict: Keep – As I’ve read and enjoyed the previous two books in the series (although it was a while ago) I’m inclined to keep this one. 

The Boy Who Saw (Solomon Creed #2) by Simon Toyne (added 1st October 2016)

Who is Solomon Creed? A dangerous psychiatric patient, who has escaped from a high-security facility in America, or an innocent amnesiac trying to establish his true identity?

His search for the truth about himself takes Solomon to the beautiful southern French town of Cordes. But his arrival coincides with the brutal murder of an elderly French tailor, the words Finishing what was begun’ daubed in blood on the walls.

Instinctively, Solomon knows he must help the tailor’s granddaughter and great grandson escape, and together they go on the run. Their flight, though, will set in motion a terrible sequence of events, leading to the exposure of a far-reaching conspiracy with its origins in the Holocaust but with terrible consequences for modern-day Europe. And what will it mean for Solomon himself?

Verdict: Keep – OK, a few reasons to justify my decision. First, I very much enjoyed the author’s Sanctus trilogy, secondly I also enjoyed the first book in this series, and finally I won a copy of the book. This is going really well so far, isn’t it?

The Girl From Venice by Martin Cruz Smith (added 1st October 2016)

Cenzo is a world-weary fisherman, determined to sit out the rest of the war. He’s happy to stay out of the way of the SS, quietly going about his business of fishing in the lagoons of northern Italy. Then one night, instead of pulling in his usual haul, Cenzo fishes a young woman out of the canal. Guilia is an Italian Jew who has managed to escape capture and is determined to find her family. This meeting results in them both taking an entirely unexpected journey, and Cenzo suddenly finds himself thrown headlong into the world of international wartime politics, where everyone has their own agenda and nowhere is safe…

Verdict: Keep – Look, its tagline is ‘a World War II love story set against the romance and danger of occupied Venice’. How can I get rid of a book like that? Gorgeous cover as well if you need more persuading… 

Thin Air by Michelle Paver (added 20th November 2016)

The Himalayas, 1935.  Kangchenjunga. Third highest peak on earth. Greatest killer of them all.

Five Englishmen set off from Darjeeling, determined to tackle the sacred summit. But courage can only take them so far – and the mountain is not their only foe. As mountain sickness and the horrors of extreme altitude set in, the past refuses to stay buried. And sometimes, the truth won’t set you free. .

Verdict: Dump – I was attracted to this by its description as a ghost story and the period setting but reading some of the reviews it comes across as more like horror which isn’t really my thing. 

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (added 20th November 2016)

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark…

Verdict: Dump – Same reason as above.

The New Mrs Clifton by Elizabeth Buchan (added 1st December 2016)

As the Second World War draws to a close, Intelligence Officer Gus Clifton surprises his sisters at their London home. But an even greater shock is the woman he brings with him, Krista – the German wife whom he has married secretly in Berlin.

Krista is clearly devastated by her experiences at the hands of the British and their allies – all but broken by horrors she cannot share. But Gus’s sisters can only see the enemy their brother has brought under their roof. And their friend Nella, Gus’s beautiful, loyal fiancée, cannot understand what made Gus change his mind about their marriage. What hold does Krista have over their honourable and upright Gus? And how can the three women get her out of their home, their future, their England?

Haunted by passion, betrayal, and misunderstanding these damaged souls are propelled towards a spectacular resolution. Krista has lost her country, her people, her identity, and the ties that bind her to Gus hold more tightly than the sisters can ever understand…

Verdict: Keep – This has some very positive reviews from book bloggers whose opinion I trust and any novel featuring WW2 is an instant attraction.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamed (added 5th December 2016)

In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, Saeed and Nadia share a cup of coffee, and their story begins. It will be a love story but also a story about war and a world in crisis, about how we live now and how we might live tomorrow. Before too long, the time will come for Nadia and Saeed to leave their homeland. When the streets are no longer useable and all options are exhausted, this young couple will join the great outpouring of those fleeing a collapsing city, hoping against hope, looking for their place in the world . . .

Verdict: Keep – This is the sort of book that puts me in a quandary. On the plus side, I have a lovely copy that I won in a giveaway and it was nominated for a host of literary prizes. On the negative side, it has an element of magical realism which is something I’ve found difficult to get on with in the past. However, I’m prepared to give it a go but this is a book that if it isn’t grabbing me may well end up as a DNF. 

The Constant Soldier by William Ryan (added 9th December 2016)

The pain woke him up. He was grateful for it. The train had stopped and somewhere, up above them, the drone of aircraft engines filled the night sky. He could almost remember her smile . . . It must be the morphine . . . He had managed not to think about her for months now.

1944. Paul Brandt, a soldier in the German army, returns wounded and ashamed from the bloody chaos of the Eastern front to find his village home much changed and existing in the dark shadow of an SS rest hut – a luxurious retreat for those who manage the concentration camps, run with the help of a small group of female prisoners who – against all odds – have so far survived the war.

When, by chance, Brandt glimpses one of these prisoners, he realizes that he must find a way to access the hut. For inside is the woman to whom his fate has been tied since their arrest five years before, and now he must do all he can to protect her.

But as the Russian offensive moves ever closer, the days of this rest hut and its SS inhabitants are numbered. And while hope – for Brandt and the female prisoners – grows tantalizingly close, the danger too is now greater than ever.

And, in a forest to the east, a young female Soviet tank driver awaits her orders to advance . . .

Verdict: Keep – I told you I find it hard to resist a book with a WW2 setting and here’s another example. 

The Result – 8 kept, 2 dumped. Not a great result plus I was really hoping we’d have progressed to books shelved in 2017! Would you have made different choices?