So many books

 So little time...even in covid times, somehow I haven't been able to read all that I would like to, but here is a small bit of a sampling.  After thoroughly enjoying the new David Mitchell book "Utopia Avenue", which some critics said was "too much like his other novels" (well, exactly, that's why I liked it...) I read a book that he provided a blurb for (do I make reading decisions based on back cover blurbs.  YES.  I admit it.  I confess to even judging a book by its cover sometimes.  If it is aesthetically pleasing, I'd much rather live with it for a week or two.  At any rate, Mitchell recommended "Piranesi" by Susanna Clark, a singular book worth reading to its delicious end.  From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. .... (from our catalog)

Not in the mood for fantasy (I might ask why not these days..?.), there's a new coming of age novel about a gay African American man in graduate school in a midwestern university, short listed for the Man Booker prize.  It is tense and moody and insightful.  

Last one for the moment: I just finished and loved loved  "The Great Unknown" by Peg Kingman.  It is a wonderfully diverting tale set in 1840s Great Britain and then in Paris.  A young woman searches for the story of her birth with an intertwining of debate on the books coming out at the time on the origins of the universe and geologic time, topped off with fossil hunting.  The young woman in question earns some extra money by designing patterns for fabric based on plant fossil images (see below).  Just a plain good old fashioned read.  With a great cover...and that title.  That about sums it up.  

And sometimes, the cat even wants to get into the reading act, which causes certain challenges for her humans...