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Forty-seven years ago, Michael discovered his soulmate Deborah on a dance floor in Keene, New Hampshire. It took her soul a few years and an around-the-world bike trek to fully reciprocate. Riding the Edge is the astonishing tale of the six-month odyssey that profoundly shaped the next 564 months of their lives together. Kirkus Reviews says Riding the Edge “is powerfully engaging—readers will be eager to learn how this passionate yet volatile relationship with Deborah developed and how traveling to locations that shaped their lineage impacted them psychologically and emotionally.”
I’m almost done with a book by Sara Gruen (remember her? from the elephant book?) called Ape House, and I can’t stop thinking about that article that came out about how her life has been taken over by trying to get this man out of jail. Like, who saw that coming?
Also, not gonna lie, but the title of this newsletter has got me listening to the not-very-good musical about Gráinne O’Malley, The Pirate Queen (there’s a song called The Sea of Life). That musical was so unpopular, it’s not available on Spotify. I had to dig up my old iTunes library and pull the tracks from the CD I UPLOADED. Man. Remember having to import CD tracks to your computer? I do not miss that.
Let’s get to new releases!
This Party’s Dead: Grief, Joy and Spilled Rum at the World’s Death Festivals by Erica Buist
After the unexpected death of an in-law, Buist “decided to confront death head-on by visiting seven death festivals around the world.” She goes to Mexico, Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan, and Indonesia (they seem to throw in New Orleans as a bonus site), looking for “the answers to both fundamental and unexpected questions around death anxiety.” As someone who reads a bunch of Caitlin Doughty books, I’m glad more people are writing about death and the way cultures respond to it. America is overall bad at it! Let’s look at other places.
Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence by Tara Dudley
Get ready, m’nerds, because here’s a dive into New Orleans architecture (awwwww yeah). The Creole architecture of New Orleans is iconic, but what about the people behind it? Dudley “examines the architectural activities and influence of gens de couleur libres—free people of color—in a city where the mixed-race descendants of whites could own property.” Not specific enough? She also writes “an intimate microhistory of two prominent families of Black developers, the Dollioles and Souliés.” So neat! So historical.
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun L. Harrison
This book, with a foreword by Kiese Laymon, explores the intersections of “Blackness, gender, fatness, health, and the violence of policing.” Harrison is a a fat, Black, disabled, and nonbinary trans writer who examines anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, and offers strategies for “dismantling denial, unlearning the cultural programming that tells us ‘fat is bad,’ and destroying the world as we know it, so the Black fat can inhabit a place not built on their subjugation.”
Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them by Siân Evans
OCEAN LINERS. So vast. So oceanic. This feels very crafted to appeal to the Titanic viewer, with emphases on class differences and experiences between decks (and yes, of course they talk about the Titanic and “The Unsinkable Stewardess” aboard her). Ocean liners occupy a very particular stretch of time in world history. I admit to being jealous of the people who got to experience them and pretend they were living out Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (is there a version of that where I end up with Jane Russell?). I’ve been psyched about this one for a while, and now it’s out!
For more nonfiction reads, check out the For Real podcast which I co-host with the excellent Kim here at Book Riot. If you have any questions/comments/book suggestions, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.
