For a long time, I didn’t *get* Anthony Bourdain. I thought he was just one of those machismo-fueled, egomaniacal celebrity chefs, who chose to be mean instead of having a personality. I finally picked up Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly and decided that I wasn’t wrong. But, I wasn’t right either. After reading … More Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
I read Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror and then immediately read So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, because, I guess I don’t want to feel happiness ever again. Let’s start with the book everyone has been telling you to read since the moment it was off the printing presses in 2018: So … More So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Image: Business Insider High-tech military equipment, a flesh eating disease, and ancient curses collide in this unapologetically modern twist on the gentleman-explorer narrative. Most books about white men exploring the jungle harken back to the grainy black-and-white days of Theodore Rosevelt or Queen Victoria but Douglas Preston’s trek in The Lost City of the Monkey … More The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
I’m in my twenties and I’m not an avid home chef, so it’s no surprise that I’d never heard of Ruth Reichl. When her latest memoir, Save Me the Plums was released last Spring, I wasn’t remotely interested in reading it. Then, as it happens sometimes when you’re browsing the “currently available audio books” on … More Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
Washington Black is one of those books I heard about months ago and has been vaguely on my radar ever since. When I realized I’d be going to the Caribbean in January, I picked up a copy at a local bookstore because I like to read stories that are set in the places I’m visiting … More Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
As the best of 2019 lists began rolling out, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe was in everyone’s best books of the year lists. I had seen the advanced reader’s copy on our shelf in the library workroom a few months before it was published, but by the size of the tome (nearly 500 pages) … More Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
Once Upon A River is a novel of fairy-tale-adjacent historical fiction that manages to skillfully avoid hackneyed genre tropes to deliver a powerful and engaging account of family, community, and the power of storytelling. From the first line of the novel, Setterfield brings you into a world completely consumed by the ebb and flow of … More Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
In literature there is a bias against Romance. There is a pervasive belief amongst readers that a novel, where the driving plot device is a romantic relationship, cannot be considered Literature and is therefore unworthy of critique. Women call books with a busty corseted Queen their “guilty pleasure,” waving their hand in the air as … More The Crawdads Sing of Romance
In a fantasy world where a divorcée from Texas with Mexican-American children wins the 2016 presidential election, the idea that her bisexual son might begin a lasting love affair with the Prince of England doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Casey McQuiston is a masterful storyteller: Red, White, and Royal Blue is pure bodice-ripping romantic fantasy set … More Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Uprooted by Naomi Novik (2015) is a fairy tale that takes place in what is probably Poland in a time that is probably the Middle Ages. It features a few powerful wizards, at least two equally powerful witches, and just a little bit of sex. Uprooted is also – unlike most of its historical fantasy … More Uprooted by Naomi Novik
The Ohioan 