 Welcome to Church of the Chair, where we love sharing the news about new books. I'm your host, E, and today we're talking about some new releases in August. Let's get into it. This August, I am excited about three books, but right up front I want to let you know this is pretty much a discussion video, even though it won't be in the discussion video playlist, because it'll have its own playlist for monthly releases. I want you to put down there in the doobly-doo, and I will do a follow-up video on this same topic showing off the stuff that you guys are excited for, because I can only find the stuff that of course I am interested in because of the algorithms and what not. What not? What night? I don't know. Tomorrow night? Tonight? Whatever. Moving on. The first book that I'm going to be talking about is a book I already have. It came out on August 2nd. Amazon broke the release date and shipped it to me on August 1st, but we ain't gonna say nothing. It's just between you, me, the wall, and the rest of the internet, okay? And that book is David Joy's newest release, Those We Thought We Knew. I'm excited to get to this, but I still have, well, fortunately, not unfortunately. Unfortunately I haven't been able to read this, but fortunately I still have it left to read, and that's the last book he came out with when these mountains burn. He always tends to release books in August, and August is my birthday, so it feels, you know, serendipitous. But anyways, so I picked this one up, I pre-ordered it ages ago. This, I don't know what it's about. I am going to read you the description, but this one right here, I want to point out upfront that it is 100 pages longer than any of his other books. Most of his books are between 200 and 250 pages. This joker clocks in, what, 350 I think I saw? No, 386. So it's considerably longer, and I've been waiting for a longer-ish David Joy book, so I'm really looking forward to this. Let's jump in to the description. Toya Gardner, a young black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in North Carolina, in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets her sights on something bigger. Meanwhile, local deputies find a man sleeping in the back of a station wagon, and believe him to be nothing more than some slack-jawed drifter. Yet a search of the man's vehicle reveals that he is a high-ranking member of the clan. And the uncovering of a notebook filled with local names threatens to turn the mountain on end. This sounds so good. After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations, richly drawn and bracingly honest. Those we thought we knew reckons with an urgent, essential question. What do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away? I am... I got... Y'all... I got goosebumps. I got goosebumps. This... This is gonna be my jam, but because of my OCD, I gotta read when these mountains burn first, and I hate it because I really want to jump into this one. Maybe I can convince myself that is okay. No one is waiting for my review of when these mountains burn, so maybe I'll just go ahead and jump right into it. Next up, we have a book that's coming out on August 8th, so this coming week. I am not a huge fan of the author, but I am a huge fan of this idea. The book is Whale Fall by Daniel Krause, and when I say I'm not a fan of the author, all I mean is I haven't been able to get into his other books, especially not the one that he, I believe, partially wrote with George A. Romero. It's one of the Don of the Dead series books, I believe. I can't remember what it's called, maybe Land of the Dead, no, that's a movie. But anyways, whatever that one's called, I couldn't get into it. I did try something else. I believe it was about teddy bears, I couldn't get into that one either, and I don't know if it's because Daniel writes YA and I'm not down with that style or whatever, I don't know what it is, but this one I'm getting on audible, so I will be listening to it instead of reading it. But here is the premise that truly sucked me in. Jay Gardner has given himself a fool's errand to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lip the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes that he has only one hour before his oxygen tank runs out, one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale. I love that this is a, of course it feels like Jonah, a retelling of the Jonah story, and I love when biblical stories are retold from a fantasy or a sci-fi thing. It's kind of one of my down low favorite kind of things when someone takes a biblical thing and kind of turns it on its head or makes it modern or what have you. So I'm really interested, super excited for this one, and if I end up loving the audiobook I'll definitely pick up a physical copy, but I want to let you guys know about this one in case you didn't know about it. This is an amazing premise and I'm looking forward to it. The next one is a new favorite author of mine, Catriona Ward, has a new book coming out. It's called Looking Glass Sound. I have not read Sundial yet, but The Last House on Needless Street was one of my favorite reads the year that it came out. So I'm really looking forward to this one. Also there is one other book of hers that I'm missing from my collection that I got to find. Also I don't have the title off the top of my head, but we're talking about Looking Glass Sound today, so let me just go ahead and jump in the description and maybe you'll see why I'm so excited. In a cottage overlooking the windswept main coast, I love anything that happens in Maine, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write. Love stories about authors too, so that's two things right off the jump. It is a story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay and the bloodstained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay and how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades forever shaping their lives. But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can't be real. Notes hidden in the cabin from an old friend, now dead. A woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help. Entire chapters he doesn't recall typing, appearing overnight, who or what is haunting Wilder. No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does. It's definitely giving Stephen King not to discount anything Catriona Ward is doing, but it's definitely giving King and as you know I'm a huge Stephen King fan, so I'm exceedingly hyped for this one and I'll probably read that one before sundial. Once again, if my OCD can be staved off long enough for me to enjoy it without constantly looking at sundial. Anybody else have that problem? Anyways, moving on. Those are all the books that I'm excited for in August, remember to leave the books that you're excited for only in August. Let me know down there in the doobly-doo and I will do a follow up video with viewer suggestions because like I said I can't find every genre out there and I can't find everything I'm interested in, especially not nowadays when there's close to 50 books coming out every single Tuesday, it was ridiculous. I went through several online lists of the best books coming out in August and each and every one of them was different. It's insane how many books are coming out nowadays, I love it because it gives us options, but at the same time it takes me quite a while to read one book. But that's the book worm dilemma, I'm sure you all feel the same way about that. That's all the time I have for you today. If you have read any of these books like ARCs or what have you, let me know whether or not you liked them down there. If you're thinking about picking these up, let me know that too. Leave all that stuff down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I'll hail the chair.