Hello, readers! Welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I have to pick five books from my to-be-read pile that fit the week’s theme.

This week’s theme: Woods

5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook where you chose five books from your to-be-read pile that fit that week’s theme. If you’d like more info, head over to the announcement post!

Title: Into the Forest
Author: Jean Hegland
Publisher: The Dial Press
Publishing Date: September 1998
No. of Pages: 241

Synopsis: 

Eva, eighteen, and Nell, seventeen, are sisters, adolescents on the threshold of womanhood – and for them anything should be possible. But suddenly their lives are turned upside down, their dreams pushed into the shadows, as sickness and anarchy rage across a country on the brink of collapse. In a time of suspicion and superstition, of anger, hunger, and fear, Eva and Nell are left to forage through the forest, and their past, for the keys to survival. They must blaze a new path into the future as pioneers and pilgrims – not only creatures of the new world, but creators of it. Gripping and unforgettable, Into the Forest is a passionate and poignant tale of stirring sensuality and profound inspiration – a novel that will move you and surprise you and touch you to the core.

Title: When We Were Birds
Author: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Publisher: Doubleday
Publishing Date: 2022
No. of Pages: 288

Synopsis: 

A mystic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.

In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rain forest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: one St. Bernard woman in every generation must shepherd the city’s souls into the afterlife. But after years of suffering her mother’s neglect and bitterness, Yejide is looking for a way out.

Raised in the countryside by a devout mother, Darwin has always abided by the ancient Rastafarian vow not to interact with the dead. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when the only job he can find is gravedigging, he must betray the life his mother built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past, and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger.

Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Didelis, an old and sprawling cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and exuberant storytelling, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding and hopeful novel about inheritance, loss, and love’s seismic power to heal.

Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: William Morrow
Publishing Date: 2006
No. of Pages: 248

Synopsis: 

Young Tristan Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria – even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristan learns, lies Faerie – where nothing, not even a fallen star, is what he imagined.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman comes a remarkable quest into the dark and miraculous – in pursuit of love and the utterly impossible.

Title: Into the Wild
Author: Jon Krakauer

Synopsis: 

In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: The Snow Child
Author: Eowyn Ivey

Synopsis: 

A bewitching tale of heartbreak and hope set in 1920s Alaska, Eowyn Ivey’s THE SNOW CHILD was a top ten bestseller in hardback and paperback, and went on to be a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Alaska, the 1920s. Jack and Mabel have staked everything on a fresh start in a remote homestead, but the wilderness is a stark place, and Mabel is haunted by the baby she lost many years before. When a little girl appears mysteriously on their land, each is filled with wonder, but also foreboding: is she what she seems, and can they find room in their hearts for her?

Written with the clarity and vividness of the Russian fairy tale from which it takes its inspiration, The Snow Child is an instant classic. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: The Jungle Book
Author: Rudyard Kipling

Synopsis: 

Since its publication in 1894, Rudyard Kipling’s beloved masterpiece The Jungle Book has been celebrated by generations of readers. Composed of seven tales, each one accompanied by a poem, The Jungle Book introduces a lush, colorful world full of adventure and danger. The first three tales include some of the most charming and unforgettable characters in literature—the man-cub Mowgli, the black panther Bagheera, the wise brown bear Baloo, and the ruthless tiger Shere Khan. The other four tales each tell the story of a different animal, such as the travels of the white seal Kotick; the battle between the courageous mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the deadly cobra Nag; Toomai and the elephant dance; and the camp animals of the queen’s guard. (Source: Goodreads)