Books on My Winter 2021 To-Read List

Published on by Margaret

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic this week is Books on My Winter 2021 To-Read List. I don’t plan what to read in advance, so these are books on my shelves that I want to read – maybe this winter, or sometime next year. They’re a mix of NetGalley books that will be published next year and books that I’ve had on my bookshelves or on Kindle for some time.

NetGalley books:

  • The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements (pub 20 January 2022) – a Cambridge spy must find the truth behind Hitler’s death. But exactly who is the man in the bunker?
  • The Second Cut by Louise Welsh (pub 27 January 2022) – this delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on from his appearance in The Cutting Room, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.
  • A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham (pub 3 February 2022) – Chloe Davis’ father is a serial killer. He was convicted and jailed when she was twelve but the bodies of the girls were never found, seemingly lost in the surrounding Louisiana swamps. The case became notorious and Chloe’s family was destroyed.
  • The Hiding Place by Simon Lelic (pub 5 May 2022) – DI Rob Fleet investigates a cold case when the body of a boy, who went missing over twenty years earlier whilst playing a game of hide and seek, is found.
  • The Second Sight of Zachery Cloudesley by Sean Lusk (pub 2 June 2022) – Set in the 18th century Zachary Cloudesley has grown up surrounded by strange and enchanting clockwork automata. But most extraordinary of all are the things Zachary can see in other people. At the touch of a hand, he can see the secret desires, regrets and inner workings of the people he meets. When his father disappears in Constantinople he sets out to find him.

Books from my TBRs:

  • Fire from Heaven: a novel of Alexander the Great by Mary Renault – Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India. Fire From Heaven tells the story of the years that shaped him. 
  • Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Set on the Caribbean coast of South America, this love story brings together Fermina Daza, her distinguished husband, and a man who has secretly loved her for more than fifty years.
  • State of Wonder by Ann Patchett – Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. 
  • The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carré – George Smiley launches a risky operation uncovering a Russian money-laundering scheme in the Far East. His aim: revenge on Karla, head of Moscow Centre and the architect of all his troubles.
  • The River Midnight by Lilian Nattel – this is set in the fictional village of Blaszka in Poland at the end of the 19th century. Myth meets history and characters come to life through the stories of women’s lives and prayers, their secrets, and the intimate details of everyday life. 

27 thoughts on “Books on My Winter 2021 To-Read List”

  2. I have the Zachary Cloudesley to read too, am hoping it will be better than the last book I read which had clock work elements (the watchmaker of filigree street) . I have a Love in Time of Cholera on my TBR pile for winter also. I’ve started it a few times previously but couldn’t get into it so am hoping this time it will click with me.

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    1. I enjoyed the watchmaker of filigree street more than you, so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy the Zachary Cloudesley too. It’ll be interesting to compare the two books. I’ve started Love in Time of Cholera before too …

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  3. I also received Zachary Cloudesley from NetGalley – I’m not sure if it will be my sort of book, but I’m looking forward to finding out! I have a copy of Fire from Heaven on my TBR too, although I might not get to it this winter.

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  4. You’ve got some great choices here, Margaret. I’d like to read the Lelic, myself. And of course, le Carré’s books are so excellent, I’m really hoping you’ll enjoy that one. The rest of them look really interesting, too, and I hope you’ll really like them.

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  10. State of wonder is such a surprising book. It makes me laugh to think of the many plot twists. I’ not a huge fan of In Time of Cholera. But I read it many years ago and may not remember it properly.

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  11. A Flicker in the Dark was perfect airplane reading: https://tinyurl.com/4d3xbksy Of course, I have only gone on one trip in two years but I got a lot of reading done on that trip.

    I liked State of Wonder but not as much as some of her other books. I went through a Mary Renault phase in hs or college and read them all but do not remember any details.

    The Hiding Place is definitely one I will hunt down and I think The River Midnight is on my list, although not imminent.

    I really liked the My Year in Books meme you did year. Are you thinking of doing it again?

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    1. Thanks – glad you thought State of Wonder was good – that’s good to know. Years ago I read Mary Renault’s Theseus books and thought they were wonderful, so I have high hopes for Five from Heaven.

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  13. State of Wonder is very good. One scene in it, of a young boy in a boat with an anaconda snake, has stayed with me ever since I read it. I also plan to read Fire from Heaven next year. And I like the sound (and the cover) of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley.

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