This year, my spouse, the Corgis, and I are staying home for the holiday. I spent several hours today prepping everything for our dinner tomorrow. Gwen was right there, ready to clean up any carrot peels or pieces of celery that flew off the counter. I made one of my favorites, cranberry sauce, made from scratch. Since I am the only one who likes it at my house, I always have way more than I need. As the person who makes Thanksgiving dinner at my house, I have a lot of extra time to listen to audiobooks, the way I consume the majority of my nonfiction. So, I’m going to be sharing two audiobooks I’ve listened to of late. But first, new books!
We’re here to enrich your reading life! Get to know the world of books and publishing better with a subscription to The Deep Dive, Book Riot’s staff-written publication delivered directly to your inbox. Find a guide to reading logs and trackers, hear about why the bestseller list is broken, analyze some anticipated books, and more from our familiar in-house experts. Get a free subscription for weekly content delivered to your inbox, or upgrade to paid-for bonus content and community features connecting you to like-minded readers.
Bookish Goods
Customized Book Store Ornament by Love Boutique Books
With the holiday season upon us, Christmas tree ornaments abound! I adore finding all sorts of bookish ways to trim my tree. And this one is just too cute. $21
New Releases
The Book of James: The Power, Politics, and Passion of Lebron by Valerie Babb
Author Valorie Babb writes about the social juggernaut that is LeBron James. Babb follows James through his rise to fame and discusses how James’s Blackness has been perceived over the course of time.
All Things Edible, Random & Odd: Essays on Grief, Love & Food by Sheila Squillante
In this book of essays, Sheila Squillante describes how cooking gave her a path to work through her grief after the death of her father. Her father loved food, and recreating his favorite dishes helped her understand better who her father was.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Thin Skin by Jenn Shapland
As I chopped vegetables, made cranberry sauce, and prepped my turkey brine, I listened to Thin Skin by Jenn Shapland. In her essay collection, Jenn has several long pieces about her experience traveling alone and the role that clothes have played throughout her life. With each of these base ideas, she connects her personal experiences to ideas in wider society. For example, in her essays about clothes, she ties together ideas of consumerism and how clothes help us perform societal expectations. I was struck over and over again by how Shapland’s work contains multiple layers of depth and meaning. Her prose feels so intentional, as if she’s already thought of and discarded every other possible way of expressing what she wants to say.
High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris
Just a few hours ago, I saw that the second season of Netflix’s High on the Hog has been released! Based on Jessica B. Harris’ book of the same name, the docuseries chronicles how enslaved Africans brought their culinary traditions to America. In her book, Harris describes how African cooks created one of the primary foundations for American cuisine as we know it today. She follows African American foodways, describing the growth of Black Southern cooking and how those food traditions traveled across the country during the great migration. High on the Hog is a must-read book (and now a must-watch docuseries) for any food lover.
That’s it for this week! You can find me over on my substack Winchester Ave, over on Instagram @kdwinchester, or on my podcast Read Appalachia. As always, feel free to drop me a line at kendra.d.winchester@gmail.com. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.
Happy Reading, Friends!
~ Kendra