Those who love speculative fiction and are looking for something new and well-written, should run to get a copy of Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning. In her debut novel, most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of climate apocalypse, and Dinétah (the Navajo Nation) has arisen. A magical wall has been built to keep the Diné safe from the outside madness but it can’t keep them safe from the monsters and witches who have awakened. Maggie Hoskie survives in this harsh world using her skills as a supernaturally gifted killer, nicknamed monsterslayer. When Maggie ..read more

A few weeks back, some asshole broke into the server hosting this here blog and it got deleted almost entirely. Fuck. Luckily the server had back up and I’ve managed to put it mostly back together including over ten years of reading lists. In having to put the humpy dumpty back together, I realize how much fun I used to have writing about books (and sometimes food). The more I wrote the more I began to worry about sounding professional, as if I was writing for the Times Book Review or The New Yorker. Do I like those publications? Hell yeah I do but I don’t need to sound or write like them. My ..read more

I thought I’d mention some of the amazing books I read last year. Some I read in 2017 but will be out in 2018, One of best novels I read coming in just one week is Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists. She’ll be at Harvard Book Store on 1/23. I won’t shut up about Danielle Lazarin’s story collection Back Talk coming in February. I don’t normally like short stories (I know) but I loved loved loved this book. And she’ll be at Harvard Book Store on 2/13 and I can’t wait. Other novels I loved were Peter Heller’s Celine, Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory, Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett,  Kintu by Jenn ..read more

I haven’t disappeared I promise! I still read a ton (even when brushing my teeth) but found myself feeling less excited writing review after review. But after a year or more off, I’m going to start back up again. Some things might be short, some might be long. And I won’t pressure myself to write about a book if I don’t want to at all. Most of all I want it to be fun again. I’m what I call a ‘completist’. I usually try to finish a book, even if I’m not enjoying it. I don’t do that 100% of the time but I will more likely finish a book that I’m not liking just to see where it goes. Occasionally ..read more

A fantastic debut, that strides the line between adult and YA fiction, Rabbit Cake tells the story of 12-year-old Elvis Babbit, whose mother recently drowned while sleepwalking. Elvis loves facts and studies phenomena almost obsessively, yet when her school counselor convinces her she needs 18 months to properly grieve, she finds out all kinds of things she doesn’t know yet. How to keep her older sister who also sleepwalks from poisoning herself while sleep-eating or why her father has started wearing her mother’s silk robe around the house? And how did her mother, always a strong swimmer ..read more

If I haven’t mentioned, Mr. Bookdwarf and I bought a house last year that needed to be completely gutted. We finally unpacked most of our cookbooks a few weeks back and start cooking, but now is the time to finish the kitchen, so we have no kitchen sink for a while! Before that, however, we did cook a delicious beef stew from The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. This is a classic cookbook, one we turn to time and time again. It’s a straightforward beef carbonnade made with beer. We cheat and add potatoes and carrots. Yum ..read more

We started unpacking cookbooks that had been in storage for over a year in our new house. I forgot how many I have! Mr. Bookdwarf and I decided to make a recipe from each cookbook, as a way to try new recipes and to test that they’re worthy of keeping. Last night, we cooked this Winter Minestrone from David Tanis’s One Good Dish. As an aside, you should also know is that I got an Instapot for Christmas this year. Did I (or you) need another kitchen appliance? Honestly, after living in a temporary apartment with not much of my kitchen stuff, I realized there was a lot I didn’t need co ..read more

The Invisible Library had me at “interdimensional secret agent librarian” but it turns out to also be a charmingly-written novel with a wry awareness of literary tropes and their permutations. Published last year in the UK, this is a book The Guardian noted as some of its favorite science fiction, saying “it’s a breath of fresh air to discover a fantastical world that defies easy provenance and brings something new to the genre.” I agree wholeheartedly, and was gratified to see that two sequels are already written, and due out in the US in September and December, respectively ..read more

I like a lot of historical novels but for a lot of them I have a similar objection: The narrator or protagonist has anachronistically modern views. This, of course, makes it easier to identify with and easier to enjoy, but it’s sort of a cop-out. For example, the otherwise excellent Imogen Robertson runs into this problem with her protagonists, Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther. They manage it because she’s a widow used to running her own household and he’s an eccentric, and the minor characters react with appropriate alarm at their breaches of decorum. But the people we empathize with mo ..read more

The exonerated suspect in a notorious kidnapping case is suddenly dead. Journalists and police descend upon Joanie, his widow, to try to get her to share the real story behind what went on when 2-year-old Bella disappeared. Fiona Barton’s The Widow is hard enough to put down that I missed my stop while reading it on the train. The unreliable narrators and creepy sex crimes are sure to earn it recommendations to anyone who liked The Girl on The Train, although it’s certainly not one of those “me too” novels snapped up to try and ride on its coattails. The psychologicall ..read more