Happy Tuesday, star bits! How was your 2023 reading year, now that it’s winding down? I am excited because I am headed into the biggest reading weeks of my year. We do round-up shows on All the Books! until the new year, so I have a little wiggle room. I use it to read a few backlist books that have caught my attention and also get a jump on my reading for the coming year. I *love* this time of year! This weekend, I read Penance by Eliza Clark. It was really good, but holy cats, it’s a really hard story to read. If you love true crime, you should pick up this novel. It was as stressful as any true crime book I have read!
For this week’s newsletter, I have three books out today that I am really looking forward to reading, including a book about pirates! You can hear about more fabulous books on this week’s episode of All the Books! Tirzah and I talked about books that make great gifts, including Snacking Bakes, Wizkit, and Fly.
And now it’s time for everyone’s favorite game, “Ahhh, My TBR!” Here are today’s contestants!
A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself by Katherine Howe
Katherine Howe is a master at historical fiction, going all the way back to her debut novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. This one is about pirates! (Pirates are really big right now.) It’s actually the story of two women: Hannah Masury and how she became the most notorious, feared pirate of the high seas. And Marian Beresford, a professor in 1930 who is studying Hannah’s own telling of the story of her life and trying to get to the bottom of a mystery involving the infamous pirate. It’s a look at two women yearning to get out from under the societal constrictions placed on women in their time. And did I mention there are pirates???
Backlist bump: Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon
This collection from the fabulous Graywolf Press is pretty self-explanatory: It rounds up some of today’s amazing writers to talk about their video gaming lives! Contributors to the book include Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Chain-Gang All-Stars), Alexander Chee (The Queen of the Night), Charlie Jane Anders (All the Birds in the Sky), Hanif Abdurraqib (They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us), and Elissa Washuta (White Magic).
Tone by Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno
This is a book I only just learned about, and I am already so excited to get it. (Probably the paperback version because it’s from a university press, so the hardcover is $80.) Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno are two unbelievably amazing writers, and the idea that they have done a book together makes me jump up and down. It’s about literary criticism with a specific examination of tone. From the publisher: “Tone is a collaborative study of literary tone, a notoriously challenging and slippery topic for criticism.” I’m not going to lie, just the description of this book was too smart for me, but I don’t care because I love the authors so much.
Backlist bump: A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar and O Fallen Angel by Kate Zambreno
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This week, I am reading Second Chances in New Port Stephen by TJ Alexander, Ice: Why I Was Born to Score by George Gervin and Scoop Jackson, and Burn by Peter Heller. In non-book things, I started rewatching Psych for the zillionth time. And thanks to a commercial — again — the song stuck in my head this week is that donut song from the new Dunkin’ commercial. IT WON’T LEAVE MY BRAIN. (It’s a really cute song, tho.) And here is your weekly cat picture: This is the face of a cat who wants to be fed again, after he just ate. (It doesn’t work on me.)
Thank you, as always, for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week. – XO, Liberty