Welcome to This Week in Books, where we share what we’ve been up to in bookland this week and look ahead to next!
Happy Wednesday blog friends. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week…
Now:
Member of the Family: Manson, Murder and Me ~ Dianne Lake
I don’t read a huge amount of true crime but I’ve always had a weird fascination with Charles Manson, so I had to pick this up when I spotted it in the library last week. Not much to report so far, but hoping it’ll be an interesting read.
In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most notorious criminals and life as one of his “girls.”
At age fourteen, Dianne Lake—with little more than a note in her pocket from her hippie parents granting her permission to leave them—became one of “Charlie’s girls,” a devoted acolyte of cult leader Charles Manson. Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.
Though she never participated in any of the group’s gruesome crimes and was purposely insulated from them, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family, and eventually learned enough to join the prosecution’s case against them. With the help of good Samaritans, including the cop who first arrested her and later adopted her, the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.
While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.
Then:
Emily Windsnap and the Falls of Forgotten Island
This was my first Emily Windsnap book and it was great. Cute, with a great adventure…and I love a good prophecy! I was also really pleased that it read well as a stand-alone.
Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda ~ Becky Albertalli
I knew I would enjoy this book, but I do think it was hyped up a bit too much. I was expecting something more unique, but that’s not to say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it, because I did!
Next:
Either Anything You Do Say, or Mother of Eden. What would you go for?
Joanna is an avoider. So far she has spent her adult life hiding bank statements and changing career aspirations weekly.
But then one night Joanna hears footsteps on the way home. Is she being followed? She is sure it’s him; the man from the bar who wouldn’t leave her alone. Hearing the steps speed up Joanna turns and pushes with all of her might, sending her pursuer tumbling down the steps and lying motionless on the floor.
Now Joanna has to do the thing she hates most – make a decision. Fight or flight? Truth or lie? Right or wrong?
“We speak of a mother’s love, but we forget her power.”
Civilization has come to the alien, sunless planet its inhabitants call Eden.
Just a few generations ago, the planet’s five hundred inhabitants huddled together in the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees, afraid to venture out into the cold darkness around them.
Now, humanity has spread across Eden, and two kingdoms have emerged. Both are sustained by violence and dominated by men – and both claim to be the favored children of Gela, the woman who came to Eden long ago on a boat that could cross the stars, and became the mother of them all.
When young Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no inkling that she will become a stand-in for Gela herself, and wear Gela’s fabled ring on her own finger—or that in this role, powerful and powerless all at once, she will try to change the course of Eden’s history.
What have you been reading this week? Leave a comment/link and I’ll do my best to take a look 🙂
Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. 
Jack
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