As I started reviewing my reading year there was one stat that jumped off the chart at me. Of the 13 five-star books I read this year my favorite 9 were backlist (published before 2024). I’m sure publishing analysts could provide an easy explanation (fewer books published in an election year) or a psychologist something more detailed (possibly around escape and avoidance) but ... Read More...
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
A successful food writer, Nina Dean is happy with her life. She has close friends, her own apartment in London, and her breakup with her longtime boyfriend was amicable. She’s happy being alone, but a partner would be nice as well, so with her sense of self-esteem mostly in place she makes the foray back into the dating world. It’s that simple decision that sets the dominoes in ... Read More...
July Reading Wrap-Up
Goodbye, July. It was a busy month of travel, family reunion, and not-so-fun adulting, but overall there was some great reading to be had amongst the gorgeous weather here in Seattle. I’m sorry for you lovelies who struggled with sweltering. One week in Colorado in the 90s was enough to make me overjoyed to return to days in the 70s and nights in the 50s. My favorite kind of ... Read More...
June Reading Wrap-Up
What an odd month June has turned out to be. Partly summer and partly more spring with lots and lots of rain—the kind we usually get in April and May. We traveled at the beginning of the month so that felt weird and then I hit a hard reading slump that was only cured by true crime nonfiction. Here are the highs and lows. I wasn’t a real-time fan of Friends ... Read More...
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
Samantha Irby is a 36-year-old, black, lesbian living in Chicago. She also grew up broke-ass poor—all of which she lets you know from the get-go in her essay collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. But her biographical details are the least interesting thing about her. What really matters is that she is wildly funny, even as I cringed at how she has NO filter about ... Read More...
Heat by Bill Buford
I’m not sure how seriously I can take a man who is foolish enough to invite a world class chef into his home for dinner, but I decided to give Bill Buford a chance. His invitation to Mario Batali leads him to ask if he can work as an intern in the kitchen of Mario’s restaurant, Babbo. When Mario says yes it results in his Italian food lover’s dream memoir, Heat. I realize, ... Read More...
