Mailbox Monday #12

Happy Monday! It's another week full of fun things coming up and one deadline. I'm due to write a paper on the Bayeux Tapestry and it's super interesting but also a little outside my comfort zone so wish me luck! Also, this weekend we finally had some sunshine so I had a lovely walk or two in the local park which really helped lift my mood. But let's get onto all the literary goodies that came into our mailboxes this week!

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads!

All Societies Die by Samuel Cohn (Cornell University Press, 4/15/2021)

In All Societies Die, Samuel Cohn asks us to prepare for the inevitable. Our society is going to die. What are you going to do about it? But he also wants us to know that there's still reason for hope.

In an immersive and mesmerizing discussion Cohn considers what makes societies (throughout history) collapse. All Societies Die points us to the historical examples of the Byzantine empire, the collapse of Somalia, the rise of Middle Eastern terrorism, the rise of drug cartels in Latin America and the French Revolution to explain how societal decline has common features and themes. Cohn takes us on an easily digestible journey through history. While he unveils the past, his message to us about the present is searing.

Through his assessment of past—and current—societies, Cohn offers us a new way of looking at societal growth and decline. With a broad panorama of bloody stories, unexpected historical riches, crime waves, corruption, and disasters, he shows us that although our society will, inevitably, die at some point, there's still a lot we can do to make it better and live a little longer.

His quirky and inventive approach to an "end-of-the-world" scenario should be a warning. We're not there yet. Cohn concludes with a strategy of preserving and rebuilding so that we don't have to give a eulogy anytime soon.

I know, that sounds intense but for me there is something of a comfort in knowing that ups and downs, and even ends, are normal, even inevitable.

Remembering Shanghai by Isabel Sun Chao & Claire Chao (Girl Friday Books, 9/14/2021)

True stories of glamour, drama, and tragedy told through five generations of a Shanghai family, from the last days of imperial rule to the Cultural Revolution.

A high position bestowed by China’s empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and ’40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever.

When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home—and that she will never see her father again. She returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family’s past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering palaces and underworld crime bosses.

Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss and redemption against an epic backdrop.

As some of you know, I lived in Shanghai for four years and I do really miss it at times. In my years there I got a great impression of modern Shanghai, but i would love to know a little bit more about its history and I think this will be a great start! 

Her Perfect Life by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Macmillian-Tor/Forge, 9/14/2021)

Everyone knows Lily Atwood—and that may be her biggest problem. The beloved television reporter has it all—fame, fortune, Emmys, an adorable seven-year-old daughter, and the hashtag her loving fans created: PerfectLily. To keep it all she has to do is protect one life-changing secret.

Her own.

Lily has an anonymous source who feeds her story tips—but suddenly, the source begins telling Lily inside information about her own life. How does he—or she—know the truth?

Lily understands that no one reveals a secret unless they have a reason. Now she’s terrified someone is determined to destroy her world—and with it, everyone and everything she holds dear.

How much will she risk to keep her perfect life?

Of course I couldn't not request this amazing sounding thriller!

In Another Light by A.J. Banner (Lake Union Publishing, 10/5/2021)

The death of a look-alike stranger leads a grieving woman down a troubling path in this riveting novel by A. J. Banner, bestselling author of The Poison Garden.

Three years ago mortuary cosmetologist Phoebe Glassman lost her husband in a tragic accident. No longer the hopeful wife and mother she once was, Phoebe is disappearing into her grief and into the quietude of her job—restoring to the dead the illusion of life. Then the body of a woman named Pauline Steele arrives in the mortuary, and for Phoebe, everything changes.

Pauline is unmistakably Phoebe’s mirror image and bears an alarmingly familiar tattoo. Even more startling is that among Pauline’s effects is a faded photograph of Phoebe. Aided by an eccentric colleague, her curiosity sparked, Phoebe investigates her doppelgänger’s life and death—and uncovers surprising clues to a shared past.

Phoebe’s emotional journey soon leads to shocking revelations about those closest to her…and even herself. When she’s driven to the brink, how much of what she discovers can she trust?

I still haven't read The Poison Garden but I've heard great things about it, so I'm very excited to get a chance to read In Another Light. And of course it has that thriller element of the Double that I couldn't resist!

So those are the books I got my claws on this week! What's in your Mailbox?