Bernard is decidedly not model material. But he's just so cute!

Meanwhile, these poems were not really for me. I dunno, there just wasn't enough 'there' there, ya know?

Truly, a memoir of a friendship. I read most of this in alternating chapters with Lucy Grealy's book. It was a lovely way to see these two friends, and when Autobiography of a Face came to an end chapters before Truth and Beauty I was forced to finish this journey as Ann was, without Lucy and feeling her loss. This becomes very difficult to read as Grealy's life unravels. Her brilliant talent, loving friends, and wild accolades could not help her.

A great memoir. This has vaguely been on my TBR for ages and something pushed me to finally read it alongside Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty. It is difficult to review on its own, as Grealy's memoir finds a hopeful lightness in tragedy and hardship, but having read Patchett's work, I know where things end. Grealy's sad fate does not detract from the work though - this great memoir of honest reckoning and overcoming.

The art in this volume really varies, and it is not all for me. This is where I stopped reading in my original read through of the series, but I've already started 6 and I will persevere!

Norton is starting a new line of short reads, under 200 pages of exploration on a theme. They are calling it 'brilliance with brevity.' Wild Girls is the series opener and it is fantastic. Miles delves into the way nature and the outdoors contributed to the development and legacies of prominent women in American history. She dispels some myths and lionizes others (while grounding them in historical fact). A great short read with awesome notes ffr.

Still delightful. Still going.

Adorable YA summer romance. This was the inaugural pick for our bookshop's romance book club and we had a great time with it.

My second Keegan and damn if I am not just obsessed with her now. This is such a beautiful story of kindness and longing. Keegan's writing is phenomenal and the ending is simultaneously gutting and heartwarming.

(Please forgive the dorky photo, this is how we do currently reading at the bookshop and I didn't have a different pic!)

Delightful. If this image isn't enough to urge you to pick up Rat Queens then there is just nothing further I can say to you.

This book, y'all! This is war between the gods and the foundation of the Amazons. And it is freaking gorgeous and unbelievably detailed. I don't typically care for superhero comics but this isn't that. Trust Kelly Sue DeConnick to be absolutely epic. Just read it, okay?

Super fun, super short, super spicy.

Finally caught up with this Webtoon and now I'm waiting with everyone else at the mid-season break!
I'm invested in this one! It's a little silly and over-the-top but the characters are great. A detective and an assassin team up to bring down a crime syndicate. What's not love?

Uneven, as is typical of The Southern Review, but finished quite strong.

This is definitely a pick, though not as strong of one as her novels in verse.
When you consider this as not only an adult debut but a prose debut as well, it is truly a strong novel. I just went into with too large expectations.
Ultimately, a satisfying family novel with a lovely ending.

Also, I misplaced my ARC today (rearranging my office 🤦‍♀️), so please enjoy my favorite picture of Bernard.

If everyone on Earth suddenly had a genie and just one wish, how quickly would things get really weird and extremely dangerous?

This was a whole ride! Just over the top and Gothic and so fun. There is plenty of problematic here and this reads as very old-school romance but if you're up for it, Macnish is a good time. I will totally add the other books in the series to my TBR. Though I am sure they will not be as weird as this one (what with the grave robbing and midnight manhunts and such).

Pratchett will always be a pick, but I read this one in fits and starts and never really got fully immersed in it. Onto the next...

Please enjoy this photo of a cat that clearly did not want to be photographed.

I've been reading this series since I started with Webtoon and it finally wrapped up today. Definitely had its ups and downs but I enjoyed it for a quick read throughout. I don't think the story is strong enough to sustain reading as a graphic novel, but in weekly hits, it was fun.

Still working on rereads to finally finish this series. The Queens are as delightful as ever.

This novel is raved about and I am so happy to have finally read it even as it devastated me.
Matilda, a colony spaceship with a racially stratified society (think antebellum south, in space) has been moving among the stars for hundreds of years. Increasing blackouts reveal a plot that Solomon uses to explore ideas of gender, race, class, religion, and the myriad ways we can harm one another.
But seriously, this is a phenomenal book, read it!

An absolutely beautiful collection of letters, poems, and calls to action - each letter ends with an ask that begs the reader dive deeper into the work and their own interior life.

History, family, community, and the all encompassing power of life in the face of brutality are abundant in Ward's work, no less here. I was floored by the story of Annis, a young woman enslaved and sold down to a Louisiana plantation. Through her connections both physical and spiritual, Annis builds a life and a future beyond loss. With a slight twist of magical realism and always brilliant prose, Ward has delivered another amazing novel.

I read RQ as the trades came out for ages. Then I fell behind. Starting a reread to finally catch up on later issues and it is delightful as ever.

Did I find a book that is perfect? Yes. Yes, I found a book that is perfect.

Fossey is complicated but endlessly fascinating. I greatly enjoyed this memoir about her life amongst the mountain gorillas. It is exciting and beautiful but oh so heartbreaking.

I don't know how to review this book except to say that Ross Gay absolutely floors me every time. If you haven't read him, give yourself this gift.

Also, yes, I flew Southwest because my brother booked our flights. And yes, it was terrible. What chaos!

Well, we learned today that prison planet romance is not for me. Very interested to finally get to this Fated Mates deep dive episode because this book was unsettling.

I am walking away from this memoir not only feeling like I know these folks but like I genuinely care for them. Edie White, adopted as an infant never knew her biological parents, after a bit DNA testing and a ton of internet sleuthing she found mother, father, siblings, and more. A single entry into Ancestry.com solved a family's decades old mystery. A fascinating and abundantly charming family story; well researched and lovingly told.

I have had this book in my collection for ages and in my recent reading slump something drew me to it. This memoir by an environmental activist was a perfect slump buster, the fascinating story and conversational tone kept me invested. Hill lived on a small platform 200ft up in an ancient redwood for 2 years to protest deforestation. Full of hope and compassion even as she is met with greed, cruelty, ignorance, and indifference. An inspiring read.

After almost two decades of loving the film, I finally made my way to this novel. Absolutely what I was hoping for. Love the way Miyazaki and Jones use the same bones of story to work through similar and very different themes.

Standing on it's own though, the book is still a delight. Magic, fairy tales, courage, and true love - it's all there.

Batman is gone, Catwoman has been imprisoned for ten years, and Harvey Dent lords over Gotham.

This was an absolute delight! I adore this aged up, reflective Catwoman. The art is phenomenal and the character designs with all the nods to classic heroes (and villains) is a blast. Only four issues but it packs a resonant punch.

I have always had a deep fascination with mummies and perceived them as a direct connection to history. This is a real person, that lived! In Mummified, Stienne problematizes the mummy and the realities of human remains on open display. Deeply fascinating in a way that had me interrogating personal feelings and coming up against cultural blindspots.

Finally made time for the sequel to Guns and Smoke and it was a ride. I loved the new POV characters and look forward to the continuation of this dystopian-western romance series.

I've been slowing making my way through the Oz books. Diminishing returns, unfortunately. This one with a hearty xenophobic ending!

The choice to title his memoir Spare was absolutely savage. I don't typically go in for gossip about the Royals but he had me at that title.

Also, going with an American epigraph. We see you, Prince Harry.

Inspired by a Tibetan folktale, this is a pre-Ghibli Miyazaki story that will feel familiar to his fans. The stunning watercolors, the nature-magic commentary around environmentalism, it's all here. According to the translator a blend of this tale and Le Guin's Earthsea books are the foundation of the early Ghibli films. If you love Miyazaki, read this. If you don't yet love Miyazaki, read this and you soon will.

First read of the year is, again, the completion of my short story advent calendar.

My reading life was DERAILED this year. I haven't finished a book since October. But things are settling down and I spent this evening in the bath with these short stories, so all is right with my world.

Hi Litsy friends! I just wanted to share some exciting news, after thirteen years of leasing space, we have purchased a forever home for our bookshop, Cavalier House Books!

We'll be remodeling a historic building and opening up in the next few months. If you'd like to follow along, we're @CHBbookstore across social media. 💙📚

Made an after hours trip to the bookshop in my pajamas to grab this month's #littensloveromance pick and I had two gifts on my desk! The new Ross Gay from my Workman rep (had to cancel our meeting bc covid but he loves me enough that he dropped this by!) and Legends and Lattes which a customer dropped off bc I mentioned being bummed I didn't buy a copy before we sold out and now I'll have to wait for the Tor edition in October.

From @EadieB and @TheSpineView #two4tuesday

1 - I don't decorate my house with books, with two readers in the house we don't have enough space to get clever with displays or shelving. BUT we do decorate with books at our shop. I'm currently working on some paper folding beauties to create a focal point in our new shop but these are taking AGES.

2 - what distracts me from reading? Probably my sister, husband, and TikTok; in that order. Lol

Super cute and genuinely funny. Fake dating is one of my fave tropes.

Absolutely delightful short story collection! If you enjoy the form, this one is worth picking up.

I like cats. I like Paul Koudounaris. I like micro histories wherein you view the history of the world through a certain object or idea. All that being said, it stands to reason I'd like this book. But it has languished in my currently reading stack for ages, never being the book I chose. I finally finished and while I give it a soft pick, I'd be hesitant to recommend it.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the Olympic podium in 1968, sacrificing their sporting careers (and frankly, risking their lives) to speak out against the injustices suffered by Black Americans. Victory, Stand gives us the background not only of Smith's life but provides context for his historic decision. Smith's memoir is powerful and brilliantly translated into a graphic novel.

A fun read, but I wasn't head over heels for it as many are. Magic and mystery in what is, I guess, the cozy fantasy genre.

Whelp, it finally happened. John tested positive for COVID. Thus begins our quarantine. Luckily, I got this baby in last week. He's totally fine, by the way, and I'm still testing negative so at this point it's really best case scenario except we had several import work-related appointments this week. C'est la vie.

I read this a bit ago and oddly, it was all I talked about. I've written here before about loving novels written by poets and this is absolutely the gold standard of that statement. Lockwood begins this novel by basically synthesizing the whole of the internet (or Twitter, at the very least) and ends by crushing your soul with the brutality of a very real family tragedy. Read it and feel things. Your empathy muscles will grow three sizes.

I dunno if these authors are going to run out of people they'd 'like to F' but we must all hope that they do not because this anthology is as fun as the last and I've already pre-ordered Villain.

This is not what I wanted...at all. I wanted cultural criticism and oral history. I got recaps and interview snippets. As a Buffy fan, I still found enjoyed this, ish, but I wouldn't recommend it. There's much better writing about Buffy around the interwebs.

It's here and I'm happy!