Hello, readers! First of all, let me wish everyone a happy new year. I hope that this year will shower you with blessings. Welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I have to pick five books from my to-be-read piles that fit the week’s theme.

This week’s theme: Part of a Series

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: Arrow of God
Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 2016
No. of Pages: 230
Series: The African Trilogy

Synopsis: 

When Things Fall Apart ends, colonial rule has been introduced to Umuofia, and the character of the nation and its values, freedoms, and religious and sociopolitical foundations have substantially and irrevocably been altered. Arrow of God, the second novel in Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, moves the historical narrative forward. This time, the action revolves around Ezeulu, the headstrong chief priest of the god Ulu, which is worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. The novel is a meditation on the nature, uses, and responsibility of power and leadership. Ezeulu finds that his authority is increasingly under threat from rivals within his nation and functionaries of the newly established British colonial government. Yet he sees himself as untouchable. He is forced, with tragic consequences, to reconcile conflicting impulses in his own nature – a need to serve the protecting deity of his Umuaro people; a desire to retain control over their religious observances; and a need to gain increased personal power by pushing his authority to the limits. He ultimately fails as he leads his people to their own destruction and, consequently, his personal tragedy arises. Arrow of God is an unforgettable portrayal of the loss of faith and the downfall of a man in a society forever altered by colonialism.

Title: Neuromancer
Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Gollancz
Publishing Date: 2016
No. of Pages: 297
Series: The Sprawl Trilogy

Synopsis: 

William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term ‘cyberspace’ produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the Cyberpunk movement.

More than three decades later, Gibson’s text is as stylish as ever, his noir narrative still glitters like chrome in the shadows and his depictions of the rise and abuse of corporate power look more prescient every day. Part thriller, part warning, Neuromancer is a timeless classic of modern SF and one of the 20th century’s most potent and compelling visions of the future.

Title: Oryx and Crake
Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Anchor Books
Publishing Date: May 2004
No. of Pages: 374
Series: MaddAddam trilogy

Synopsis: 

Oryx and Crake, the first book of the MaddAddam trilogy, is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey – with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake – through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

Title: The ABC Murders
Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publishing Date: 2018
No. of Pages: 266
Series: Hercule Poirot Series

Synopsis: 

Murder is a very simple crime. But in the hands of a maniac, a serial killer, it becomes a very complicated business.

With the whole country in a state of panic, the killer is growing more confident with each successive execution – Mrs. Ascher in Andover, Betty Barnard in Bexhill, Sir Carmicheal Clarke in Churston… But laying a trail of deliberate clues to taunt the proud Hercule Poirot might just be his first mistake.

Title: The Three Musketeers
Author: Alexandre Dumas
Translator (from French): William Barrow
Publisher: The Reader’s Digest
Publishing Date: 2013 (1844)
No. of Pages: 568
Series: Trilogie des Mousquetaires Series

Synopsis: 

All For One, One For All!

When daring young swordsman d’Artagnan travels to Paris seeking honor and fortune in the king’s Guard, he quickly befriends the famed three Musketeers—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

Loyal servants to the crown, the four friends cross swords with street criminals, face the cardinal’s Guards in duels to the death, and save the honor of the queen by unraveling treasonous schemes in a race against time. It will take epic courage, chivalry, and skill to thwart the plots against them and achieve victory at last.

Alexandre Dumas’s classic swashbuckling tale of adventure, swordplay, and unbreakable friendship is enriched with brand-new, action-packed illustrations by renowned artist Brett Helquist. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: My Antonia
Author: Willa Cather
Publisher: Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc.
Publishing Date: 1995
No. of Pages: 419
Series: Prairie Trilogy

Synopsis: 

Her fourth novel, My Antonia (1918), which she thought “the best thing I’ve ever done,” is set in pioneer-era Nebraska and is a story of contrasts – most noticeably the contrast between Antonia Shimerda, the destitute child of Bohemian immigrants, and Jim Burden, a native Virginian who, after being orphaned at the age of ten, is sent to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. The novel traces the parallel lives of Jim and Antonia – Jim (said to be modeled in Cather herself) goes to Harvard, becomes a traveling businessman, and returns to Nebraska infrequently; Antonia elopes with a shiftless railway conductor, comes home disgraced, and finds happiness with Anton Cuzak, a gentle farmer, like Alexandra Bergson of O Pioneers! – and like the land they both call home – Antonia comes to embody unshakeable simplicity and integrity.