Weekly Round Up | Feb. 3
As this is the first weekly round-up of the month, I’ll be going over all the books I read last month. So, In January, I read six books:
I’ve mentioned this before, but I loved this book. It’s an alternate history slightly magical dark academic adventure mystery extravaganza, and it’s so smart. I happened to chose it from my Book of the Month subscription (which I’ve had for years, and has never let me down—that’s a referral link to join), and I’m so glad I did, because it became one of my favorite books of all time. I can’t wait to reread it and learn even more. I love the voice of the footnotes as well, and the characters. It is a long book, but I would have happily stayed with these characters for much longer.
I’ve never been that interested in the British royal family, but I’ve been fascinated with the way Harry has stood up to his family and The Institution and their mistreatment of him and his wife. I know he has received a lot of criticism for the book, and it certainly did reveal more than I expected, but I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and I thought it was a fascinating peek into a very dysfunctional and traumatized family. His struggles with mental health and trauma and trying to break cycles with his own children is quite admirable, I think, and the way he takes accountability for his past mistakes sets a good example for how to do that. It has been interesting to witness on my social media pages how vastly different my UK friends reacted to the book’s publication (overwhelmingly negative) vs. my US friends (overwhelmingly positive or indifferent).
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
This was the first book I read this year with my book club, and it was another hit. It takes the folklore of Baba Yaga, the history of Jewish pograms, and a bit of magical realism into an adventurous chase around the US. It’s a mix of horror and speculative fiction and folklore and I loved it. I read this one in hardcover and audiobook from my library, and the narrator, January LaVoy, did an excellent job with all the different characters’ voices. The voice of the house (both LaVoy’s narration and the POV sections of the book itself) were my favorite.
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
The “cozy fantasy” genre was totally new to me, but it was exactly what I needed, and this book, about an orc who leaves head hunting and opens a coffee shop was so enjoyable to read. I’m excited to read the second book in the series, a prequel, called Books and Bonedust, out in November 2023.
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
This was the first in a trilogy I’ve since finished (thank you to the Libby app that lets me check out library books digitally!) about an Autistic woman who hires a male escort to learn how to date and get better in bed, and, of course, ends up falling in love. It was fine, and I loved the neurodivergent rep, but the series gets much better with each subsequent volume.
Wow, this novel. I started reading it in December, through my local library, but didn’t finish it before it had to be returned, and then there was a wait on it, so I wasn’t able to finish the book until the end of January, but it was fantastic. I immediately ended up seeking out Wang’s other works. The novel follows Joan, an ICU doctor, whose father has just passed away in late 2019, in China. It sees her through that experience and the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. I loved Joan as a character, but also the way it is written. It is deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head. This book actually inspired me to write several poems, and I ended up buying my own copy of the book so I can reread it in print.
Lunar Baboon is one of my favorite web comics, and I saw this one the other day, and loved it.
Have you ever wondered what we mean when we call something a “small press?” Anne Trubek, of Belt Publishing, one of my favorite small presses, wrote a great newsletter about this very thing!
Did you know that your circadian rhythm is part of your genetic makeup? Whether you are a “morning person” or a “night owl,” there’s very little control you have over your natural tendencies. I’ve always been a night owl, and though I spent all over 2022 waking up at 5am and going to bed by 8:30pm for my full time corporate job, it never got easy, and I hated it every day, because it felt like I was fighting my body. I’m most creative after dark. It’s always been this way, and to be cut off from that window for a year was difficult. This article in The Guardian explains that, “sleeping late isn’t a sign of laziness.” I’m glad to see more people talking about this, because I’ve been shamed for this my entire life. Throw in the fact that I also have CFS/ME, which makes it even harder to wake up early, and you see how this can also be a disability issue.
The Academy of American Poets has a wonderful collection of 12 poems to read for Black History Month, introduced by 12 other Black poets. Well worth a read. The poems they share are amazing, but their commentary is just as awesome.
An article from Jezebel that gets at what many of us have been thinking, that “We Deserve So Much More Than Roe.”
LitHub has a cover reveal of the first two Roxane Gay Books titles—And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu and Lush Lives by J. Vanessa Lyon. I’m very excited.
Here’s a new poem from Danez Smith in The Believer!
Alexander Chee shares 100 things about writing a novel, that almost reads like a prose poem.
I’m fascinated with Tressie McMillan Cottom’s journey with analyzing the racialized use of “blondeness.” I saw her original TikTok stitch, and as someone who was born blonde and spent a good chunk of my life paying a lot of money to stay blonde, I can attest to the weirdness (and definitely racial element) of blond in the US. Maybe elsewhere too, I don’t know. The opinion piece in the New York Times is worth a read, though.
That’s it for this week. I’m on day 3 of a migraine, and screens are not my friend right now. Wishing you all a restful weekend!
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