Here‘s my card for October! I just finished up Nobody Gets Out Alive from the National Book Award longlist, and it was excellent. Not sure where I‘ll go next… 🤔 Gotta walk Molly before more reading though! #BookspinBingo

Both my #bookspin and my #doublespin are from my Book Outlet order that is not here yet. (🤞🏻 Monday) Anyway, HF has been on my TBR for years, but RABT is an impulse buy. Interesting to see how my reviews will shake out… 🤔

Why did I wait so long to read this masterpiece? You really feel like you‘re there in Stratford! I can‘t wait to see her in less than two weeks!

Based on real events from Shakespeare‘s life, O‘Farrell brings you into the world of 1590s England. In dual timelines, she imagines William and Agnes‘s love story and then the way his three children are raised. She draws on Hamnet‘s real death to bring fear and consequences of the plague to life.

This is one of those books that goes from WTF to wow! The way the characters crash together in the end was exquisite!

The Rabbit Hutch is a low-income housing complex in a dying Indiana town. The book follows a new mother and three boys plus one girl, who have just aged out of foster care. Coming from LA, there‘s the son of a child star. Gunty slowly reveals their back stories and what drew them all to an apartment from the first scene. Note ⬇️

My best #BookspinBingo board this year! Five bingos!

Favorite book is the tagged one. It‘s about two friends growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s and how moving to London as adults fundamentally changes them in some ways but leaves core aspects of their personalities intact and the consequences of crossing one. 5⭐️!!

Eight books start with “The”? Put them together! Still waiting on a large Book Outlet order to arrive, but I‘ve gone ahead and added a few to the list. Plus, I‘ve got my first Aardvark book on there. 👍🏻

Excited for October! 🎃 #bookspin #BookspinBingo

Library sale haul!! It was so busy, but I managed to find these 8!

The Answers and The Antiques are going on my #BookspinBingo board 👍🏻📚

I just love Less and Freddy. If you found the first book endearingly hilarious as well, you‘ll love book 2. I do think this could work as a stand-alone.

Less‘ first long term partner has died, and he finds out the house he and Freddy are living in had a reverse mortgage. He needs cash fast before they are homeless. He goes on a trek across the USA to raise funds and makes peace with people and himself along the way. Freddy once again narrates.

A fantastically creepy hacienda with a deadly past. The mystery was fun, but I particularly loved the indigenous representation in the priest. (Cañas wrote an interesting note at the end.)

Beatriz‘s father was killed in the war for independence. Stuck in the home of unkind family, she accepts a proposal from Rodolfo, a plantation owner. But his hacienda is haunted by a woman murdered there. Can she and the priest put the spirit to rest?

I‘m going to put the #1 most frustrating thing about reading this in a spoiler. If you‘re on the fence 🤨 or just want a laugh, look!

Will receives 108 predictions as he‘s waking from sleep. As the early ones start to come true, he and his best friend decide how best to use this knowledge. Do they monetize it? Prevent disasters? Is there a plan behind them? Who or what sent them?

The Good: The short stories, particularly Control Negro, were fantastic. She brings an interesting perspective to immigration, assimilation, parenthood, & racism.

The Not-So-Good: The title novella that is the majority of the book lacked resolution imo. I don‘t mind if a 20 page story has an undefined end, but if you‘re writing a 140 pg novella, give me an ending. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Been trimming the shrubs now that it‘s fall. Enjoying the cooler weather!

I did it! I set a goal of 6k pages and 200 hours of audiobooks at the beginning of the month, and I made it! I probably shouldn‘t be this excited but I am! 😁😁😁😁

Behind on reviews, but I am so close to making my goal of 6000 pages this month and have made my goal of 200 audiobook hours!! I‘m hoping to catch up tomorrow after my doctor‘s appointment, but I‘m v excited for Saturday morning because FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY SALE!! $5 a bag! 🙌🏻🙌🏻

Recent reads
Picks - all awesome
The Rabbit Hutch
Less Is Lost
The Hacienda

So-so
My Monticello
The Oracle Year

Night y‘all! 💜

A little random spin for one of my last #BookspinBingo squares! Unfortunately, I‘m not loving the title novella yet. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was waiting to see what BOTM chose this month before I decided whether to try Aardvark. I was tempted by Sign Here from BOTM, but ultimately decided to get in on the ground floor of Aardvark with this gothic tale!

Go Ask Alice always read as fake hyperbole to me, so I was surprised to read it was taken so seriously by most when it came out in 1971. This book chronicles the real-life conniving and damage done by the middle-age mom who wrote it. The truly sad part of this exposé about Beatrice Sparks was the real-life family who gave her the diary she virtually ? fabricated into Jay‘s Journal, her follow up that fed into the satanic panic of the 80s.

Blarg!! The time travel rules in this book did not make sense at all!! I could not get past it because they kept on referencing them every time I‘d try to just get into each chapter and enjoy the narrative. 🤦🏻‍♀️

On Oona‘s 19th birthday, she wakes up in her own 51-year-old body. The book chronicles her life as she jumps from one age to the next…out of order. 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

I enjoyed this. I thought the epistolary elements added an interesting touch, and I liked that it was based on true events yet didn‘t get caught up in 💯 accuracy.

Imperial mathematician Johannes Kepler‘s mother has been accused of witchcraft by the wife of a “third-rate glazier”. As the town chooses sides, Hans tries to mount a defense. The townspeople‘s testimonies and Hans‘ letters are shared in addition to Katharin‘s & her guardian‘s stories.

#unpopularopinion time! This did not work for me. I appreciate that McCurdy has been through a lot but I agree with @jdiehr that it would‘ve been a stronger, more interesting book for me in 20 years. At times, it read like lists of things that happened without the greater context and more nuanced reflection that comes with age. The #audiobook narration sounded detached and flat to me, which didn‘t help either.

Wayne is one of my favorite lesser-known authors, but this is not his strongest book; although it is still a pick. Maybe I‘m just tired of Trump-era fiction.

Divorced dad Paul was recently demoted to adjunct professor and can no longer maintain his Brooklyn apartment. Forced to move away from his tween daughter, he‘s sure his luck will change when he finishes his book railing against technology. But a chance encounter with a producer ⬇️

Lucy has stolen my heart again! This is the gold standard for pandemic-set fiction. It is surprisingly warm, but Strout still captures the uncertainty of 2020-21. 5⭐️ Read notes below!

Lucy, like many of us, was a bit clueless heading into 2020, but her ex-husband, William, saw the writing on the wall and whisks her away to Maine. Their daughters flee to CT. What follows is a loving look at our new normal, and Lucy adjusting to small-town life.

I first read Temple‘s research in vet school, and she has a singularly interesting perspective. I‘m so excited that @RiverheadBooks sent me an ARC of her new book the different ways visually-oriented people think. I can never decide if I‘m more auditory or visual, so I‘m excited to read this! Out October 11.

These vines are from a sweet potato that sprouted. We just put it in an old planter and it‘s growing like crazy! 🍠

So I think I‘m finally, maybe 🤞🏻🙏🏻 making a turn for the better in my long Covid battle! Just today I trimmed 5 hedges and walked my dog over a mile. My brain fog is lifting and my attention span is better, as you can see with the 13(!) books I finished this week. 🤯🤩

I still have to review the four on the bottom left, but Lucy stole my heart again, and it was a 5⭐️ read! The McCurdy was a huge disappointment, though. #BookReport

These stories explore emptiness and connection and how they tug and pull in families. In my favorite story, a girl‘s sister drinks bleach on her birthday, and she meets a man who may be sinister or may be nice in the hospital waiting room. I love that she left space for me to consider his motives. In the novella, she writes about a woman suspicious of the teens in her neighborhood and how it has heartbreaking consequences. Fantastic collection!!

This short story collection, while classified as literary fiction, definitely has some horror elements. Murata explores cannibalism and wearing people‘s skin, bones and teeth. It‘s from the perspective that cremation and the care for bodies after death is strictly a cultural phenomenon, which she subverts. She subverts sexual norms as well in a story where people feast on a dead person then have sex with a stranger in public. Weird but good.

If you‘re on Instagram, do yourself a favor and watch the reel Ann posted today. I‘ve read over 200 memoirs in the past two years, and what she said about them often being about one big event and not having much story development other than that, I‘ve found is quite true. She gave words to why I wasn‘t impressed by McCurdy‘s book (tagged ⬆️) and many others.

The book she recommends (tagged ⬇️) is on my shopping list at Parnassus next month!

This novel made me feel! It‘s an evocative debut for anyone who came of age during the Great Recession. Simply stunning.

S is an Indian woman with a complicated immigration history. In 2012, she graduates college and takes a job as a consultant in Milwaukee. She and her friends have many young millennial complications like debt, job insecurity, poor housing options, coupled with queerness. Mathews brings empathy and urgency to these characters.

When you‘re constantly bombarded with information about health and wellness on the internet or social media, it can be hard to separate science from being sold to. Raphael goes down the line of various categories of wellness from supplements to exercise and brings a healthy dose of skepticism to fads, brands, and influencers. While I didn‘t always agree with her, this was an interesting #audiobook!

Now I know why you gave this just 3⭐️ @BarbaraBB 🤨🤣 I rather like the name Barbara!

This book was heartbreaking. Set against the backdrop of Ueno Station where the 1964 Olympics took place, the novel follows the tragic life of Kazu, a man who worked construction on the buildings there and died in its homeless encampments as an elderly man. There is a lot of Japanese history woven into his struggle, too. Grab the tissues (and Google). This won last year‘s National Book Award for literature in translation, and it‘s deserving.

Nina is just fantastic, and this book about her friendship with RBG (and other women) was lovely. She also wrote about the difficulty climbing the ladder as a woman in the 1970s and how friendships with women like RBG and Cokie Roberts got her through. She gave interesting insights into the court and its other justices, too. Great reflections on a life well lived. Still missing you RBG!! 😢

This was exactly what I wanted: a fun, nostalgic novel about the sisterly bonds of friendship with a happy ending. Have to suspend your disbelief a bit though.

Melissa, Tara, Priya, and Suki were BFFs in the class of 1997. They all had most likelys in the yearbook, but only Suki became hers. As the other three gather for their 25th reunion, they make a pact to live up to them like Suki has, but it turns out Suki‘s life isn‘t so charmed. #botm

This is one of the most thought-provoking books I‘ve read this year. Aviv was diagnosed with anorexia as a young child (6) and hospitalized with older kids and teens. This gave her an interesting perspective on mental healthcare and its evolution. She looks at four people who had very different interactions with mental health professionals in the US and India. The last woman she profiles talked about seeing herself through the lens of her ⬇️

Believe. The. Hype! This is a fun, adventurous novel about some deadly seniors.

Four women were plucked from obscurity in the 1970s to train as assassins for a group of Nazi hunters. As the Nazis died, the Museum expanded its operations to assassinating other bad folks. But just as these four ladies have earned their retirement, they discover another assassin on their tail. An action-packed, cinematic thriller!

My four short stories this month come from the Second Persephone book of them.

WWI is often subsumed into the second one, so it was interesting to read about a woman reflecting on death on Armistice Day in the 1930s.

Thunder Shower I didn‘t get. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In The Exile, a niece finds quite a surprise when she travels to visit her uncle‘s grave in China.

Safety Zone was a beautiful four-page story about welcoming Jewish refugees to America.

Women and men are treated differently in leadership roles, and while it has been written about a lot recently, I enjoyed Herman‘s take on it. I especially appreciated her deep dive into historical texts about Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medici, and others. She also looked at modern politicians from Bhutto to Kim Campbell to May, but she circled back to Hillary often. Hillary was treated horribly & unfairly, but I enjoyed the historical aspects more.

Thank you so much @RiverheadBooks for sending me this #gifted copy of Seven Empty Houses, which has just been longlisted for the National Book Award for literature in translation! I think this is up next!

A really fantastic reading week. All picks. The print books were especially on point, but my favorites were What If 2 and Other Birds. One engaged my brain and the other made my heart sing! The Kleeman was amazing too; I couldn‘t put it down. I think One‘s Company will have a lot of Litsy fans when it catches on. Review of Off with Her Head tomorrow! #BookReport

Also two #BookspinBingos! I‘m having my highest avg print pages per day this year! 🎉

Wow. The various mafias in Italy don‘t mess around! Much of the book reflected on Puppetta, an infamous woman who avenged her husband‘s murder in the 1950s while six months pregnant. Nadeau was among the last to interview her before her death in 2021. She also writes more briefly about other of Italy‘s mafia women, who do everything from minor drug trafficking to ordering murder, and she looks at the female victims and sexism in Italy. Note ⬇️

I‘m glad I gave this another shot. Hutson is definitely an author to read/watch if you like Moshfegh or Awad. This is a strong debut, and an author I‘ll read again!

In the wake of some severe trauma, Bonnie became obsessed with Three‘s Company. When she‘s not working, the DVDs are always on. Then she wins an obscene amount in the lottery and can finally make her dream of living as the cast of Three‘s Company a reality.

CW in 1st spoiler

Glad I got around to this celebrity memoir! Molly‘s relatable and has an interesting story. There was a weird pattern of sentences repeating almost verbatim one in prior paragraphs, which was very noticeable in the #audiobook.

Molly‘s mother died in a horrific car accident when she was young, and the memoir jumps out from there showing how this early trauma affected her, especially her relationship with her dad. I loved the inside SNL bits too!

Oh my heart! 💖 This was the uplifting read I needed! I read (and enjoy) a lot of dark books, but sometimes it‘s nice to read the opposite.

Zoey comes to Mallow Island to claim her deceased mother‘s apartment. When another woman in the complex dies, Zoey starts cleaning out her apartment, and through this process, she finds a family of friends she never knew and starts healing. I enjoyed the magical realism and ghostly touches! #botm

A messy and fun reread! Straub is great at writing a dynamic between two couples and her young characters are believable, too.

Amidst Jim‘s cheating scandal, he and Franny take off on a Mallorcan vacation. Their daughter hopes to lose her virginity before college while their son tries to hang onto his girlfriend, who is also along on holiday. Franny‘s oldest friend Charles and his husband hope to hear they‘ve been chosen to adopt a baby.

This was a really interesting way to look at the mass shooting epidemic in America. Instead of looking at gun control alone as a means of curtailing them, Follman looks at community-based interventions that make an impact in preventing shooters from picking up a gun. It was interesting reading specific examples of what some school systems have done to prevent violence by intervening with children that have threatened it.

While this isn‘t the best book I‘ve read this year, I actually stayed up all night reading it! 🙌🏻 It makes me want to read more dystopian cli-fi because I loved this.

A writer goes to LA to work on the adaptation of his book to a movie, but he ends up a glorified assistant to its star, who want to be paid in water. Meanwhile everyone else on the West Coast is drinking WAT-R, a synthetic water, but is it a true substitute or something sinister?

Out tomorrow! Do you like science and laughing? If so, What If 2 is for you! Munroe gives real science answers to crazy questions from adults and kids. My favorite is the top one, where Neptune and Uranus are big problems! Another had exponentially breeding dogs, where 10^101 Dalmatians take over the universe. I loved the Q about funneling Niagara Falls into a straw, too. While I‘ve enjoyed his audiobooks, the cartoons are great in the print book!

This is my least favorite Straub. While I didn‘t bail this time, it didn‘t charm me either. It was all mess and not as fun as Modern Lovers.

Astrid is the widowed matriarch of a Hudson Valley clan and has fallen in love with a woman. Her three adult children‘s, businessman Elliott, former-actor Nicky, and goat-farmer Porter, reactions are as different as their jobs. Add on Porter‘s solo pregnancy and Nicky‘s daughter moving in with Astrid = mess!

Some book acquisitions this weekend!

The tagged was sent from @Penguinpress and I‘m very excited to learn more about women in the mafia! Thank you 🙏🏻

The rest are from 2NC. The Dry is a blame it on @BarbaraBB 💜 I‘m giving Manhattan Beach another try because I am loving Egan this year, but I think I panned or bailed in 2017. 😬 Ways was an impulse buy, but it‘s been on my TBR since #FoodAndLit Brazil two years ago! 🤣

I‘m not sure what to make of Butler. She writes these Eeyore-like millennial anti-heroes that are just hard to get behind. This time with a foil upbeat, Christian hot mess. Then it just ends…

Megan, full of millennial ennui and hate for her job, works with Jillian, an upbeat mom with a special-needs kid, who just believes everything will work out. The book follows the women together at work and outside as they both dig holes in their lives. ⬇️

I missed doing a #BookReport last week, so this is a combo of the last two weeks. My four faves are on top, including my first 5⭐️ of September Best of Friends! Life on the Mississippi was incredibly fascinating, too.

I haven‘t reviewed Jillian yet, but I think you‘ll enjoy my photo essay with Molly when I write it! 🤣 Also, I‘m one free space away from a bingo, and I might‘ve just bought three new books. 🤓 Pic soon!