Top 5 Wednesday: Most Recent Additions To Your Wish List

Oh gosh, when was the last time that I did a Top 5 Wednesday post? According to my calendar, it was March. Now I can’t vouch for April or May, but I’m pretty damn sure that I couldn’t relate to  any of June’s topics. July though? Only my own poor timing could stop me from doing any of these.

Everything on today’s list is coming from Amazon, because that’s where I’m most likely to build a wish list. GoodReads is great for tracking my reading, but my To-Read list doesn’t make much of a distinction between what’s already in my library and what’s still in the store waiting for me to buy it. I could clean it up a bit, but all of the secondary lists are connected to the three main ones, so it’s never as clean as you want it to be.

In any case, here are the most recent additions to my Amazon wish list (for books):

1. Kai Ashante Wilson’s A Taste of Honey

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

This is not the first time that Kai Ashante Wilson has made an appearance on my wishlist, but it just goes to show that this is an author that I think is worth getting into. Outwardly, you can tell that it is a POC fantasy novel, but where I had thought that A Taste of Honey was set in a fictional version of Rome, the mention of Olorum makes me think that it’s a bit more Afrocentric.

Admittedly, it looks like a Cinderella story in reverse, set against a backdrop of deities and politics. I cannot help but be intrigued.

A Taste of Honey will be available on October 25, 2016.

 

 

 

2. Melanie Raabe’s The Trap

   

   (Photo Credit: Goodreads)

 

When I read the summary for this book, I thought it was set in the last five years. Because a woman catching her sister’s killer by turning the crime into a TV show, sounds like something that would have only been able to happen in recent years. Imagine my shock when I found out that it was originally published in 1969?

I am honestly curious as to how this would have played out from a 1960s perspective. I also think that this would be a good idea for a show.

 

 

 

 

3. Agnes Carter’s The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories

   

   (Photo Credit: Goodreads)

 

This was a Tumblr recommendation that started with a post that supposed that Snow White could have been a vampire based on her description. While there is a Snow White-based story in The Bloody Chamber, she’s more Pygmalion meets Sleeping Beauty than anything.

Personally, I love a good fairy tale retelling. It’s basically fanfiction, except you can make money off of it because the original work is considered public domain. A dark retelling of fairytales is always going to be interesting to me.

 

 

4. N.K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate

(Photo Credit: Goodreads)

Beyond the fact that this is the sequel to The Fifth Season, I shouldn’t have to tell you why I am anticipating this. The only thing of N. K. Jemisin’s that I haven’t read is the Dreamblood duology, but it’s only a matter of time. The moment I knew that The Obelisk Gate was announced, I made sure to put it on my wish list.

I need to know what happened, and I need to know why they never looked up. Or rather, what it was that they hadn’t been looking up at. I need to know what happened to the daughter!

I need to reread The Fifth Season before The Obelisk Gate comes out.

 

5. Nella Larsen’s Passing

   

   (Photo Credit: Goodreads)

I had originally planned to end this list on The Obelisk Gate, but that book will be the biggest addition to my list no matter what number it is. The book after was John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, but I think Passing is a little bit more significant.

Yet another Tumblr recommendation, this book was one of two novels from the 1920s that talked about how society treated black people based on how dark their skin was, even amongst the black community. The other book’s protagonist was a dark-skinned girl, and talked about her mistreatment by a love interest. This book is about a light-skinned girl who could “pass” for white, but chose to live her life as a black woman.

I say “chose” because part of the story has to do with her encountering an old acquaintance who also passes and had been living her life as a white woman married to a racist white man.

I usually don’t like to read pre-Civil Rights era novels, but this particular story is intriguing to me. White-passing black people have always interested me because they operate in a weird space where racial identification a choice, and their blackness is considered questionable. Just knowing that there were people out there who occupied that space made me so mad about the Rachel Dolezal scandal. It was like she was trying to invalidate an entire group of people simply to make a point.

In any case, I look forward to reading Passing, if only for the insight.

 

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It’s going to be a while before I so much as own any of these books, but I know that they’ll be worth the wait. Whether they’ll be Friday Reads or regular posts remains to be seen, but you can bet that I’ll be reviewing them all.

Here’s to hoping I’ll be able to participate in Top 5 Wednesday next week!

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Images courtesy of Amazon and Goodreads.