I decided to skip December. Is the book club continuing this year? I have a couple of recommendations if anyone is interested.
The Chestnut Man by Søren SveistrupThriller - I found the Spanish version avaliable on Kindle Unlimited. It seems like the book was translated into quite a few languages too.
A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen.
His calling card is a “chestnut man”—a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts—which he leaves at each bloody crime scene.
Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery—a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered a year ago.
A tragic coincidence—or something more twisted?
To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues.
Because it’s clear that the madman is on a mission that is far from over.
And no one is safe.
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo MbueFiction - Amazon ahs the book in German, French, Italian and Portuguese. it looks like it's been translated into a couple of other languages too according to goodreads.
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.
However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades.
When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.
Educated: A Memoir by Tara WestoverNonfiction/Biography - This book has been translated into quite a few languages as well.
Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.
Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
The Murder on the Links by Agatha ChristieClassic Mystery - Amazon has an ebook version of this in Malay so I plan to read this book at some point anyway. It's been translated into a lot of languages.
Master detective Hercule Poirot is summoned to Northern France by Paul Renauld, but upon arriving at Renauld’s home, the police inform Poirot that Renauld had been stabbed in the back with a letter opener and his body had been found in a freshly dug grave next to a golf course. Renauld’s wife claims masked men tied her up and then took her husband away from her, and until then, she had not known her husband had been murdered. A mystery that is seemingly unsolvable, but nothing ever escapes Papa Poirot.