I am officially unemployed – my company furloughed me for one week. During COVID-19, that means I’m stuck indoors, and to a bookworm, that’s a perfect timing to go through the ever-growing TBR list!

I have 7 days and plan to go through 10 books. I can’t wait.

1. The Sandman – Neil Gaiman
   Audible’s The Sandman audio drama is one of the best I’ve heard. I started listening a few days ago, but plan on finishing it soon. It harkens back to the days of radio dramas, with a splendid cast of voice actors and sound effects that transport you to another world. Well worth the 10+ hours of listening time.
   
2. The Girl in Red – Christina Henry
   A Little Red Riding Hood retelling, where Red herself isn’t what she seems.
   
   There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined. Red doesn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods….
   
3. Thorn: Dauntless Path – Intisar Khanani
   Finally going to get on this bandwagon and continue the trend of reading retellings, this one of Aladdin, one of my favorite stories.
   
   Princess Alyrra has always longed to escape the confines of her royal life, but when her mother betroths her to a powerful prince in a distant kingdom, she has little hope for a better future. Until Alyrra arrives at her new kingdom, where a mysterious sorceress robs her of both her identity and her role as princess – and Alyrra seizes on the opportunity to start a new life for herself as a goose girl. But as Alyrra uncovers dangerous secrets about her new world, including a threat to the prince himself, she knows she can’t remain silent forever. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, Alyrra is caught between two worlds, and ultimately must decide who she is and what she stands for.
   
4. The Automobile Club of Egypt – Alaa al Aswany
   The YMERC book of the month, I plan on finishing it in time to end the month.
   
   Full of absorbing incident and marvelously drawn characters, Alaa Al Aswany’s novel gives us Egypt on the brink of changes that resonate to this day. It is an irresistible confirmation of Al Aswany’s reputation as one of the Middle East’s most beguiling storytellers and insightful interpreters of the human spirit.
   
5. Only Humans Need Apply
   A book I’m reading for class, I plan on finishing both as a coursework requirement and as a book of the month for July.
   
   Nearly half of all working Americans could risk losing their jobs because of technology. It’s not only blue-collar jobs at stake. Millions of educated knowledge workers are threatened by accelerating advances in artificial intelligence. In Only Humans Need Apply… [they] reframe the conversation about automation, arguing that the future of increased productivity and business success isn’t either human or machine. It’s both.
   
6. Pharmacology
   The Ultimate Guide to Memorizing Pharmacology. Improve Your Medical Education Through Clinical Pharmacy Pearls, Case Studies, and Common Sense
   
   I know nothing of medicine and want to remedy that. I plan on listening to the audiobook, more as a way to hone my audio-memory skills. As one reviewer said, “This audiobook makes memorizing drugs very easy by taking a system-by-system approach and providing the reader with memorization techniques for each drug. Guerra also has an elaborate understanding of the roots an stems of each drug class and how the drug names are created. The explanation of the origin of the drug names and the roots that they have in common have been very helpful to me when learning these drugs.” – Linda A. Averett
   
7. Atomic Habits
   A seeming tour de force of the self-help type, I’ve heard about this book so much I might as well read it.
   
   No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving – every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
   
8. The Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience
   This was required reading for my undergraduate program, and I’ve since forgotten a lot of the details.
   
   Reflecting recent changes in the way cognition and the brain are studied, this book provides a comprehensive and student-friendly guide to cognitive neuroscience. Throughout, case studies, newspaper reports and everyday examples are used to provide an easy way in to understanding the more challenging ideas that underpin the subject.
   
9. City of Brass
   It’s been on my list for ages, and I’m in the mood for it finally.
   
   Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly she has power; on the streets of 18th-century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by – palm readings, zars, healings – are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills, a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles and a reliable way to survive……..In Daevabad, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. A young prince dreams of rebellion. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.
   
10. The Wednesday Club
    One of my Popsugar Reading Challenge books for this year.

1938. Hitler’s expansionist policies are arousing both anger and admiration, not least in the ‘Wednesday Club’ in Helsinki. Something of a relaxed gentlemen’s club, the group’s members are old friends of lawyer Claes Thune. They socialise, discuss politics and drink together, but this year it is apparent that the political unrest in Europe is having an effect on the cohesion of the club.
1939. Thune, who has returned home after several years serving as a diplomat in Moscow and Stockholm, has recently divorced and is at something of a loss; he runs his law practice without any great enthusiasm, and the growing political anxiety and the chaos in his own life feel like two sides of the same coin. Fortunately he has the assistance of his new secretary, Matilda Wiik.
1940. But behind her polished exterior Matilda is tormented by memories of the Finnish Civil War, when at the age of just seventeen she experienced things she has been trying to forget ever since. Then one day her memories catch up with her. When the Wednesday Club gathers for a meeting in Thune’s office, she hears a voice she had hoped she would never have to hear again.