What Fiction are you reading this week, Jan. 17, 2021?
I know the feeling...
Lock Every Door is a thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager. I'm about halfway through and it certainly is suspenseful, sometimes. Then sometimes it has me wondering if Mr. Sager got paid by the word for this one as a lot of the words seem superfluous. This book definitely doesn't fall under the "literary" genre. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not a good book, but it did got me wondering what exactly being a New York Times bestseller really meant. So, I looked it up.
No one knows exactly how this (list) is compiled, but large publishers know certain things about getting onto the list, and that’s why you find many of the large publishers’ books on there. It is a well-known fact among publishers that the New York Times gets its book sales data from a scattered few bookstores (like the Nielsen’s) and it doesn’t take into account the actual sales of the books (which Amazon.com does in order to rank), but how many books were shipped to these particular sampling of stores in anticipation of sales.
The New York Times list heavily counts sales in select brick-and-mortar stores, so if your books aren’t in these particular bookstores, then chances of making the New York Times bestseller list are minimal.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1813678/what-being-bestselling-author-really-means
Well, that's good to know. Anyway, I'll see this one through to the end and let you know next week how it turns out.
Listening to Silent Bite by David Rosenfelt, the 22nd Andy Carpenter novel. This one is equal parts mystery and Christmas holiday cheer. I had hoped to get it sooner but had to wait my turn on the library list. I really enjoy when Andy is arguing a case in court. He is such a wit.
What books are you enjoying this week? Best wishes to everyone. Stay safe.
= new reply since forum marked as read
was some other interesting stuff going on here and there....
And, yeah. Life is going to be so much more pleasant now. Not having to run screaming from the room every time there's a new announcement from the President. 
Feeling like a kid at xmas! 
Just finished Evanovich's new one: "Fortune & Glory." This one was okish, but seemed as if someone else wrote the dialogue. Lula just was not Lula, for example. Just felt flat to me.
Also just tinished "Tourist Season," by Hiaasen. A bit graphic for my taste. Not one of his best works, imo.
Back to Joe Grey! 
One I'd had on hold with library for months. Likely they just re-upped e-version license.
I'm sure it will be delightful, as are all in this series!
Green shoes, eh? I recall some years ago shoes with feet in them were washing up on beaches in Canada. Don't remember whatever came of it, though. 
From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events--a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients’ accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, the business of international shipping, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.
Being in a year of limitations, not able to travel, go to movies, eat out, I have given myself unrestricted book downloads. It is one of my few pleasures. The other pleasure is kitten fostering. I fear that my little babies will go to rescue this next week and can't imagine a home without their antics. These 2 siblings have been a challenge with many health issues, but lots of joy, love, and kittenhood.
Thanks, hermetic, for the weekly thread and for the adorable little facedown kitten in the OP. Edit to add: I know there will be more kittens to foster, soon.
so I want to read this one. Glad it's not dystopian. Had enough of that for a while.
My library has kept me sane. They have an easy to use website so I select 6 books at a time and in a few days they are ready to pick up. It's a half hour drive so it gets me out of the house. I park in their lot, right next to the door, and call in with my name and in a few minutes they bring me out a bag full of books. We're both masked and they set the bag on my car and leave, then I put the bag in my car and have a nice drive home. Plus they have made their Overdrive selection larger and more accessible. So, happy reader here.
Hope those little beauties find wonderful homes. Too bad you don't live here; I could set you up with some new companions right off the bat.
It's looking like I can get vaccinated next month. Hope the same for you. Life seems like it's about to get a lot better. 
