This memoir is brilliant and one of my favorites this year so far. Kasher looks at his life from teen years on through the lens of six subcultures that shaped him. He writes about getting sober young at AA, his parents deafness and being a CODA, and his careers as a rave promoter/DJ, gate worker at Burning Man, and currently a comedian. He traces his Hasidic Jewish roots, too. Informative and funny with a surprising amount of heart!

This short story collection from a local Kentucky author really hit the spot. She wrote heavily pop culture-influenced looks a women on the verge sexually. On the verge of affairs or coming of age or rediscovering themselves. The stories were short, well focused, and several checked in on the same characters from multiple perspectives. Highly recommend!

Bourdain‘s graphic novel collaborator, Joel Rose, finished this two years after Tony‘s death. The artwork in this exploration of Japanese food-related horror tales was excellent, but the copy felt unfinished. I plan to try his other graphic novels on #hoopla that were finished before his death. This one is available there, too, but I took advantage of my library‘s hard copy. Between a pick and a so-so.

So excited Native Speaker came up when Ann Patchett just talked about it Friday! Also very excited for Ace Voices. Two of the audiobooks I‘ve bailed on before - Shopping and Don‘t Talk About, so I‘m a little worried there! #roll100

Nice to see the violet in bloom!

I would‘ve enjoyed this history of pockets more if I had read it in print with the accompanying pictures. Carlson does a good job outlining how pockets came to be prevalent and actually useful in menswear but patriarchal views kept (and still keeps) excellent pockets out of womenswear. I didn‘t know a pocket was so expensive to add! I sit here having switched from my winter men‘s sweatpants to women‘s pants for summer, and I want better pockets!!

Some of Bourdain‘s books I‘ve reread have been a bit disappointing, but not this one that ignited my original love of memoirs more than 20 years ago. It‘s good to read that initial enthusiasm and wonder he had for the world albeit with his trademark early cynicism, too. CT plays every night for free on PlutoTV, and I catch an episode every now and then and usually enjoy it. But I love reading later interviews, too, and how his outlook changed.

This mystery based around a school shooting in Britain was another okay one for me. I kept putting it down for more interesting books, but I liked the incorporation of conspiracy theorists.

A man shoots up a school play killing many elementary students and a popular teacher. A young man follows a wannabe politician down a conspiracy rabbit hole while the teacher‘s daughter grieves and keeps secrets of her own.

Why do I keep reading Miranda books if they‘re usually only so-so or pan for me? I‘m not sure. This one was definitely #MoreMehThanYeah.

Hazel is the daughter of tiny Mirror Lake‘s police chief. When he suddenly dies and a drought uncovers two sunken cars in the lake, she must piece together family secrets — including those held by her two brothers.

I loved this memoir from a supermodel and #metoo activist. Cameron charts her career from her discovery onward delving into physical and sexual boundaries both big and small crossed by photographers, stylists, and agents. They frequently treated her and other models as objects rather than teens and young adults. Her deep intelligence was rarely acknowledged either. One of my favorite #metoo memoirs so far!

I read A LOT of memoirs, and I‘m not sure this really adds anything to the glut of dysfunctional family ones. Eh it‘s okay.

Annabelle grew up in Ft Myers, Florida, the daughter of a white B‘Hai father and a Filipina mom who argue constantly. When her father suddenly dies, her family is unmoored, and she must step in as a second parent to her older siblings while her mother descends into anger and hoarding before shooting at a trespasser. 😳

The other two I‘ve read by her were home runs, but this one was more #goodnotgreat. I‘d still love to read more Ozeki, though! #AuthorAMonth

Yumi runs away from her tiny Idaho town at 14 after sleeping with a teacher. As her parents age, a neighbor takes care of them, but when their health falters she returns with three kids in tow. Meanwhile, a group of organic food activists have targeted the area to protest GMO potatoes.

ICYMI Camp Litsy is back! You still have until Sunday to nominate up to four books for #CampLitsy24. The books need to be published in 2024 but before mid-June.

In June, July, and August, we will read two books a month with discussion led by Me, @squirrelbrain or @BarbaraBB each Saturday. After we publish the longlist of nominees, we‘ll have voting by Google Doc to come up with the six books for Camp. Lmk if you‘d like to be tagged in posts!

The title says it all! Kuku writes compelling, revealing, and at times funny stories about relationships between the sexes in Nigeria. From a pop star keeping himself celibate on tour to meet up with a woman from Instagram who turns out to be more prudish than he thought to a woman who is about to sever her husband‘s member after he insists she sleep with a millionaire for money. Really fantastic short story collection!

Oh how I love dark academia! This tale of an older white male professor obsessed with a younger female Pakistani colleague hit on all cylinders. When a racial crisis hits campus, it reveals they both have darker pasts than first meets the eye. The ending stunned me. On #hoopla!

This was a look at the problem of waste (physical, energy, etc.) and its effect the environment and climate change. While I liked the individuals he profiled and what they were doing to affect change, there was a lot of repeated info (like verbatim), which got annoying.

So I‘ve been finding some good songs on my Spotify-curated lists lately. I put on “Evening Mix” last night when I was writing, and this came on. It just really hit hard. I‘m excited to listen to more by him. (But I‘ve been listening to dance music to get me through the day today!) #TuesdayTunes

https://open.spotify.com/track/5yGVHzJ2Se8pDzR7FIYUlU?si=Tatq23kOS9WoNaZ7KNZpPw&...

Yes, the rumors are true…Camp Litsy is back! Please check @BarbaraBB ‘s page for details!! Here are my nominees for #CampLitsy24. 😁👍🏻🏕️ We can‘t wait to see you there!

#recentacquisitions

I picked up the tagged as an algorithmic choice from Amazon! We‘ll see… James, which I loved, and A Sweet Sting of Salt are from @AardvarkBookClub 💜💜 The other three were from Amazon‘s current 3 for 2 sale. I was interested in the Nolan from the Women‘s Prize longlist, and I loved Cursed Bunny by Chung, so I wanted her latest! I‘m a bit uncertain about the Ko because I bailed on audio. We‘ll see…

Montell is just brilliant! Truly one of the best nonfiction writers around today. I‘ve only had four 5⭐️ books this year, and this is 💯 one of them.

Montell explores various psychological traps we tend to fall into, especially on social media where fake gurus abound. She illustrates with examples from her own life and other folks‘. Some traps covered: sunk cost fallacy, survivorship bias, and zero-sum bias. A must read!!

The fountain was on at the river!

Who doesn‘t enjoy a fun comedy of English manners? Glad I picked this up used. It‘s my first Taylor. This is my #Bookspin.

Mrs Palfrey is elderly and has moved into the Claremont Hotel. There she meets other long-term residents who are always in each other‘s business. When her grandson doesn‘t show to visit, she hires a rogue to impersonate him.

Can we do #TuesdayTunes on a Thursday night?? This just came up on a Spotify-curated playlist, and I could smell that school bus seat vinyl and that particular teenage muskiness. Man…took me straight back to high school. Hadn‘t heard the song in years!

https://open.spotify.com/track/2mxPSHEwjJWOQS7lGw6btF?si=MqVK7PlMR6uvHLLVpkq6jw&...

I rarely give 5⭐️ to lighthearted books, but Gramazio won me over with the perfect mix of humor and emotion! The ending was just perfect, and I didn‘t see it coming.

Lauren has returned from a hen-do to a husband she doesn‘t know in her house. She discovers she can change husbands by sending them up to the attic. As she cycles through these lives, she learns a lot about herself and has hilarious adventures! ⬇️

I heard about this from Parnassus Books‘ Laydown Diaries last week, and their recs rarely disappoint! Kimble looks at three cities in Texas and how proposed interstate highway expansions have negatively impacted local citizens, businesses, and the climate/air quality. I learned a great deal about why routing them through cities rather than around does not usually help travel times and what on-the-ground activists are doing to oppose this.

Cheers 🥂 to 8 years(!!) with some of the best bookish friends a girl could ask for!! 🤩🙌🏻🎉🎉📚📖💜

I truly appreciate all the support I receive here, especially over the last year!!

Loved this look at the toxicity famous women faced in what she calls the “upskirt decade” from 1999 to 2013. It was a time of upheaval in how celebrity news was covered and privacy rights. She writes about Amy Winehouse and WWE‘s Chyna‘s descent into addiction and death. She covers the sexualization of Britney and Lindsay, and Paris and Kim‘s sex tapes. She also looks in on the impact of older stars Janet Jackson and Jen Aniston. Highly recommend!

Very thought-provoking essays about how the legacy of slavery and institutional racism have impacted Parker and her mental health. She specifically writes about depression and issues with finding a therapist who understands as well as dealing with not having a life partner and dating as a Black woman.

This 16-hour audiobook was an investment but totally worth it imo. Pork production is huge in eastern NC and back when I lived there, I dated a man who studied air quality around lagoons of their waste. This book is about the people forced to live around those smelly pits and the lawsuits they brought against Smithfield and other industry titans to improve the conditions for themselves and the pigs. Reads very Grisham-y but is true! 👍🏻👍🏻

I didn‘t enjoy this as much as The Power. I found it both more difficult to follow page-to-page and the overarching plot more obvious. Low pick. #botm #borrownotbuy

Three tech billionaires are at a retreat when they get a call the world is ending. They board a plane, and it disappears. Who is behind the disappearance? Why is the world ending? Meanwhile a social media prepper stirs up trouble with religious separatists.

I was a bit disappointed with this one, but it was more my fault in choosing incorrectly. I was hoping it would be about the breakthroughs of various teams to develop the Rh+ shot pregnant women receiving to protect them and their babies, but it was just as much about their personal lives and the life of a special super blood donor in Australia that made the breakthrough possible. I was hoping for more science and got more biography. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Very cool graphic adaptation of The Lottery done by Jackson‘s grandson. He shared a great anecdote about her in the preface, and I really appreciated the care he took in staying true to the tension and horror of the story.

This #aardvark selection was a definitely a right book/right time choice. I loved it! It was just the SciFi escape I needed!

In the near future, people can create eggs and sperm from any cells, and Quinn serves as a surrogate for couples who can‘t carry a baby. She becomes convinced she‘s carrying the baby of a famous rock star, but he has hired a woman in biosecurity to make sure he never leaves a trace of cells. So whose baby is it?

This is what I ended up reading for the #transrightsreadathon, but I‘m not sure it sank in as well as it could‘ve due to a flare of my MCAS. It was a rough weekend!

Butler, a non-binary person, has written widely about gender, and in this collection of essays, they talk about people and organizations that are invested in continuing the gender binary from Republicans in the US to TERFs in the UK.

I had 6(!) library holds come in in the past 24 hours. Exciting!

Husbands was the only one tempting me from #botm, so I was glad to get it as a loan. Toxic sounded cool because I inhaled way too many tabloids in the 00s. Yesterdays is a Lady Macbeth book that piqued my interest. I didn‘t care for Girl A, but I decided to try the author again with Day One. Bookshop is set in 🇰🇷 and the other is a memoir, my top genre this year!

A lot of books about people disentangling themselves from the evangelical church have come my way recently. When Gazmarian was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she felt abandoned and misunderstood by her church and family. She maintains her faith after finding a more inclusive, supportive church and understanding partner.

Comen, a breast cancer specialist, tells the history of women‘s treatment in medicine and how the study of our different needs was often overlooked and breakthroughs were often in short supply. She takes a body system approach working through integumentary, musculoskeletal, reproductive, and more. The audio is fantastic!

I‘ve been an Everett fan for a while and count me among the many who thinks this is one of his best! His brilliant humor still manages to come through the story of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of Jim (James). I liked it better than the original Twain.

Well, today started out exciting with tornado sirens going off! Fortunately, nothing touched down, but there are more watches for this afternoon. 👎🏻

For the second month, one of my #roll100 books was chosen (Mrs. Palfrey). Also, I‘m going back and reading some of Bourdain‘s books I haven‘t seen in years. My copy of Cook‘s Tour was destroyed in an apartment flood in 2010, so I‘m excited to revisit it! #bookspin #doublespin

My April #roll100! I‘ve already started Good Blood, and I‘d like to get to The Lincoln Highway even though I‘ve bailed on his other books.

Unfortunately, our aide for Dad canceled this morning, and I‘m backup going on 2 hours of sleep. ☹️ I‘m not sure how much longer this is sustainable.

Here‘s my #bookspin list!

My appointment went well on Thursday. The doctor thinks I may have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, and of course I had a flare Saturday — just a bit too late (and with labs closed) to catch it on bloodwork. I‘m hoping he‘s willing to treat empirically because I want my life back!! Still tired and shaky from the weekend, but I‘ll be back soon!

Going to post my April #roll100 today as well. 👍🏻👍🏻

Does anyone else vote with their dollars when ordering from book clubs? I‘ve already read and loved James. (I am SO deeply behind on reviews!!) I bought it a) to support Everett, whom I love as an author, and b) because I want #aardvark to be incentivized to choose more books like it. Salt sounded interesting, and my library didn‘t have it, so it went in as well! I love the selkie myth.

I really enjoyed this look at the dark history of MLMs. Dad got caught up in one after he retired, and it truly tested my parents‘ marriage. The people who run them are insidious bloodsuckers, and I‘d like them made illegal. Marie looks at older ones like Amway, Avon, and Tupperware and how they set legal and business precedents that have allowed later ones like LuLaRoe and Pure Romance to thrive.

This is my choice for the #transrightsreadathon! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️ Unfortunately, it arrived with weird sticky spots, but I‘m just going roll with it. 🤔🫣

So this memoir is a bit special to me. Rex is from my hometown and graduated from my high school about 10 years before I did. Every day I saw his picture above the gym held up as one of Kentucky‘s finest playing basketball for UK and then the NBA. He lays bare NCAA corruption and racism. Unfortunately, opiate and gambling addiction caused him arrests and problems in his marriage and family life. Slowly he has rebuilt it sober. Loved this one!

This was fantastic! McCammon is an exvangelical herself and shares stories from her childhood and young adult experiences as well as her deconstruction journey. She also talks to many other GenX and Millennial folks about their journey of leaving the evangelical church. She paints a very comprehensive picture of this phenomenon and how it‘s reshaping America. A true must listen! 5⭐️

I finally got around to an #AuthorAMonth selection. I started the third in the Falk series and bailed because I realized I needed to read the second. It was a struggle. Not so much because Harper is a bad writer, but I just don‘t think it is a good mystery novel time for me. Low pick.

Falk and Carmen are investigating shady goings on at a financial firm when their key witness goes missing on a corporate retreat. 🕵🏼‍♂️

I loved this book. Kelly explored gender and sexuality and the weight of history without losing the all-too-important human connections that made this a great novel.

Dawn is a queer, gender fluid person in a relationship with another person exploring their own gender identity in 2001 NYC. When Dawn finds a lesbian paperback cover from the 1950s with a love note on it, she begins a journey into queer history that clears her artistic block.

I listened to this memoir on audio at the same time I read Housewife in print, and they dovetailed nicely.

DeRuiter is a food writer who shot to fame over a viral blog post about Mario Batali and the #metoo movement. Here, she‘s collected essays about feminism and the world of food (both professional and home cooking) and its impact on her life and beliefs.

Great nonfiction that looks at the housewife through history from Neolithic times to the supposedly good ol‘ days of the 1950s to the Working Girl 80s. Part 2 looks at the place of the housewife in today‘s America from several perspectives including her place in MAGA mythology and the real pressures faced by families and working moms.

Hmmm… While I loved her fiction, Fake Accounts, this collection of original essays felt a bit like mental masturbation. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It was okay, but I wouldn‘t say run out and buy it. #BorrowNotBuy

I‘m just going to go ahead and throw a heavy TW on this one for abusive relationships. I have a strong stomach for dark books usually, but the relationship between sentient sex robot Annie and her owner Doug had me stressed the F out and dreading picking it up again. No thanks!