Jennifer’s
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(group member since Dec 03, 2021)
Jennifer’s
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The focus genre for July is Summer Reads. Looking forward to seeing your picks! As for me, I have the last Nantucket series book from Elin Hilderbrand around here somewhere...
The Queen's SecretKaren Harper
1939. As the wife of the King George VI and the mother of the future queen, Elizabeth—“the queen mother”—shows a warm, smiling face to the world. But it’s no surprise that Hitler himself calls her the “Most Dangerous Woman in Europe.” For behind that soft voice and kindly demeanor is a will of steel.
Two years earlier, George was thrust onto the throne when his brother Edward abdicated, determined to marry his divorced, American mistress Mrs. Simpson. Vowing to do whatever it takes to make her husband’s reign a success, Elizabeth endears herself to the British people, and prevents the former king and his brazen bride from ever again setting foot in Buckingham Palace.
Elizabeth holds many powerful cards, she’s also hiding damaging secrets about her past and her provenance that could prove to be her undoing.
In this riveting novel of royal secrets and intrigue, Karen Harper lifts the veil on one of the world’s most fascinating families, and how its “secret weapon” of a matriarch maneuvered her way through one of the most dangerous chapters of the century.
Denise, I'm picking
People We Meet on Vacation for you, which I liked, but *man* was it hard to pick for you! So many good choices!
July's cover colors for the monthly color challenge are red and blue. Looking forward to seeing your picks!
Hi, everyone!For anyone unfamiliar, this is a monthly challenge where you post a link to a shelf you created. It can be named "PIFM" or "Pick It For Me" etc, if you want one dedicated only to this challenge, or you can use an existing shelf you already have, as long as it has 100 or fewer books on it. The link must be to the specific shelf, or you will not be partnered.. Indicate how many books you would like to have picked for you from that shelf for the month in question. There is no lower limit as to how many books you can have on your shelf, but, of course, they should be books you are interested in reading during the next month and have ready access to.
On or about the 19th of each month, I will post the next month's challenge.
On or about the 25th of each month, I will post who picks for whom. In order to accommodate an uneven number of participants, pairs will not be reciprocal -- in other words, it won't be Joanne picking for Jennifer and Jennifer picking for Joanne. It may be Joanne picks for Jennifer, Jennifer picks for Herman, and Herman picks for Suzanne, and someone else entirely picks for Joanne.
If anyone has not been "picked for" by the 30th, I will pick for them if the designated picker can't be contacted by PM.
When you are assigned someone to pick for, note the number of books in parentheses after that person's name in the pick list, go to the link for their shelf, and pick that number of books for them. Post the books in a new message here. That person has the entire following month to read his/her picks. Someone will be picking for you the same way. We all like to see what people think about their picks, so we hope you will keep us posted in this thread!
Example: "In for five, please!
PIFM"
The HTML template for linking your shelf can be found HERE and if you have trouble, PM me and I will help you.
Your designated shelf must be set so that others can see it. To set up a PIFM shelf for those who would like to, go to the "MY BOOKS" link in the GOODREADS toolbar, scroll down below your shelves on the left until you see the "add shelf" button, and click that. Name it PIFM or Pick It For Me. Add books to it, and post the link to it in this challenge as described above. Again, if you need help, please don't hesitate to PM me!
If you are in, post your shelf and the number of picks you'd like to have below. See you on picking day!
July Pairs:
Jelena picks 5 for Joy
Vikki picks 4 for Lance
Jennifer picks 1 for Denise
Denise picks 1 for Beth
Beth picks 1 for Vikki
Jackie picks 1 for Madeline
Lance picks 1 for Jackie
Joy picks 2 for Jelena
Madeline picks 5 for Jennifer
Reading dates: 7/1/2025-09/30/2025The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite Nonfiction (2024)
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set off to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic Politics and the English Language, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk” city of “old traditions and new machinery,” but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.
He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning” of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.
And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
Beth, I feel your pain. I have no idea what grimdark is, but microhistories are focused histories on one small thing. 
Joy D wrote: "Glad to see you enjoyed that one, Lance! I'm planning to read it too."me three....
I'm glad to see you liked that book. I loved
when I didn't expect to, and have been eyeing this new one.
I'm going to nominate Microhistories.
Hi, everyone!Please nominate a genre for July 2025 in this thread, if you would like to. The only rule for genre nominations is that you cannot nominate a genre that we've already read this calendar year. Below is a list of the genres that have already been chosen this calendar year, which are therefore ineligible.
List of Ineligible Genres
Historical Fiction
Romantic Comedy
Police Procedural Mystery
Short Stories
Cozy Mystery
Banned Books
Domestic Suspense
Not planning to be a huge stickler on the "genre vs subgenre" thing. If it's a recognized book category (i.e. you can reasonably expect the average Goodreads reader to know what it is), post it.
Nominations open until 6/14, poll to follow.
Joy, thanks for hooking Denise up! I was wondering where she was and thinking of PMing her. :)
The Girl Behind the WallMandy Robotham
A city divided.
When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta.
Two sisters torn apart.
Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime.
One impossible choice…
When Jutta finds a hidden way through the wall, the twins are reunited. But the Stasi have eyes everywhere, and soon Karin is faced with a terrible decision: to flee to the West and be with her sister, or sacrifice it all to follow her heart?
This month's focus genre is Domestic Suspense. Looking forward to seeing your picks!
Lance wrote: "Hi Jennifer: Your shelf is always an eclectic collection! Here are the sections in no particular order or for any particular reason:Borderlines
[book:Killing Me Soufflé|211003711..."
It's a lovely variety. Thank you!
