The Bibliophage
  • Bibliophage
    • About
  • Resist
    • Feminism
    • Social Justice
    • Politics
  • Relax
    • Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
    • Historical Fiction
    • Memoir
    • Mystery – Thriller
    • Other Relaxation
  • Learn
    • Chronic Illness
    • Medical Memoir
    • Everything Else
  • Miscellaneous
Select Page

Dawn — Octavia Butler (Lilith’s Brood #1)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 2, 2022 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Dawn, the first in Lilith’s Brood or Xenogenesis trilogy, is excellent Afrofuturism. It’s also Octavia Butler at her best. Although published in 1979, Butler envisions a future for the Earth that’s not just possible but probable. And amid the futuristic story, she...

Two Months of Witches

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 31, 2022 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Books about witches are the perfect fit for fall. I dusted off my copies of Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic series and embarked on a two-month project. Then I read a brand-new book from Megan Giddings with a unique and thought-provoking witchy premise. Combining all...

Qian Julie Wang — Beautiful Country (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 30, 2022 | RELAX: Memoir

Qian Julie Wang (王乾) crafts a poignant immigrant memoir in her 2021 book Beautiful Country. She and her parents emigrated to the New York City metro area from China. Wang discusses her early school experiences, one with a more diverse student population than others....

Chinua Achebe — Things Fall Apart (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 12, 2022 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

The late writer Chinua Achebe originally published his remarkable book, Things Fall Apart, in 1959. That it still lands on “best books ever” lists is a testament to its lasting effect on readers. Late to the party, I just read it for the first time this year. The book...

Kali Fajardo-Anstine — Woman of Light (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 6, 2022 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Kali Fajardo-Anstine delivers a portrait of womanhood in Colorado in her debut novel, Woman of Light. She tells the story of multiple women across three generations of an indigenous and mixed-race family. Moving back and forth across time, Fajardo-Anstine connects the...

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler (Patternist #1) — Book Review

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 3, 2022 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Octavia Butler creates a fantastical story in Wild Seed, the first book of her Patternist series. The main characters are two immortals, living in Africa and America during the years leading up to the Civil War. Doro is a body-snatching, shape shifter who believes he...

The Fervor by Alma Katsu (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 11, 2022 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

In The Fervor Alma Katsu blends lesser-known World War II history with Japanese folklore and the horror of racism. This relatively short book introduces Meiko and her young daughter Aiko. Meiko came to Seattle as part of an arranged marriage to another Japanese...

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 3, 2022 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead is a multi-layered book. The publisher promotes it as, “… a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.” And yes, all of that is in there. But Whitehead also waxes philosophical about...

Bakari Sellers — My Vanishing Country (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 8, 2022 | RESIST: Politics

Bakari Sellers addresses a few themes in his memoir, My Vanishing Country. Primarily, he talks about being a young black man in rural South Carolina. But his family is also intricately tied to the Civil Rights movement, so this connection influences him daily. He also...

The Warmth of Other Suns — Isabel Wilkerson (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 5, 2021 | RESIST: Social Justice

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration is Isabel Wilkerson’s first tour de force, published in 2010. Her second is Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which I reviewed earlier this year. Reading them in reverse order didn’t change the...

Vanguard — Martha S. Jones (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 20, 2021 | RESIST: Feminism, RESIST: Social Justice

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones made me rethink Black women’s activism. Most importantly, that activism started a full century sooner than I realized. And it happened through four primary...

Sanjena Sathian — Gold Diggers (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 14, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Gold Diggers by Sanjina Sathian is two parts a story about children of Indian immigrants balancing tradition with assimilation. It’s one part a history, with a nod to alternative histories. And it’s another part of magical realism that draws on cultural traditions,...

Andrea Lee — Red Island House (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 4, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation

In Red Island House, Andrea Lee introduces us to Shay and Senna, as well as the island nation of Madagascar. Shay is a California-born African American, working as a university professor in Milan. Her husband Senna is a successful Italian businessman. As Europeans do,...

Jarrett Adams — Redeeming Justice (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 3, 2021 | RESIST: Social Justice

Jarrett Adams tells his alternately inspiring and maddening story in Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System. At 17, he attended a college party with two of his buddies. Before the night was out, they had...

Mohsin Hamid — Exit West (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 31, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation

Mohsin Hamid creates a unique refugee story in Exit West. It’s partly delicate but cannot entirely be classified that way since it’s rooted in aggressive, war-torn circumstances. Still, the main characters, Nadia and Saeed navigate life despite the obstacles. And...

S. A. Cosby — Blacktop Wasteland (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 26, 2021 | RELAX: Mystery-Thriller

S.A. Cosby is a master of suspense and thrills in his 2020 novel, Blacktop Wasteland. He combines intensity, rapid pacing, and a command of the sentence that boggles my mind. This is a heist thriller, and its action sequences sizzle like hot metal on pavement at 120...
« Older Entries

Bookshop.Org Affiliate

bookshop logo Now a proud Bookshop.org Affiliate! Please consider supporting this blog by ordering from our shop!

Search All Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Barbara the Bibliophage on Mariam Petrosyan — The Gray House (Book Review)
  • Ira on Mariam Petrosyan — The Gray House (Book Review)
  • Barbara the Bibliophage on Malcolm Nance — They Want to Kill Americans (Book Review)
  • Barbara the Bibliophage on Dark Celebrations by Calvin Demmer

Tags

2.5 stars 3.0 stars 3.5 stars 4.0 stars 4.5 stars 5.0 stars advanced reader's copy backlist bump biography bodily autonomy booked2019 celadon chronic illness contemporary cults and religion diverse authors essays fantasy feminism fiction GOP administration / 45 historical fiction historical fiction with a twist history horror IRL book group lgbtq medical medical memoir medicine memoir mental health awareness mystery / thriller netgalley nonfiction politics reading asia 2021 reading women challenge 2019 science short stories social history social justice speculative fiction u.s. medical system women's studies

Purchase My Book

I will definitely recommend Kick Pain in the Kitchen to my patients: Those who are looking to avoid pharmaceutical treatment and those who want to combine western medicine with alternative therapies.

Jane A. Swartz
ARNP, MSN, Rheumatology Nurse Practitioner

 

Goodreads

Find Me on these Book-Related Sites

NetGalley Professional Reader NetGalley Top Reviewer NetGalley 100 Book Reviews My Favorite Bookish Social Media
© Copyright 2017 All images (unless otherwise noted) and text are the creation and property of Barbara Searles and TheBibliophage.com. Any other use must be approved.

Get RSS feed here

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments