by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 11, 2023 | RELAX: Historical Fiction
The Dance Tree from Kiran Millwood Hargrave is thoroughly modern and intensely historical. It’s a personal story about four women, all experiencing differing moments in life. But it’s also a commentary on religion, patriarchy, and hopelessness. There are only a few...
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 25, 2022 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Mad Honey is a compulsively readable novel by two of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. It’s about two single moms in small-town Adams, New Hampshire, and their high school-age kids. Olivia is a beekeeper and entrepreneur. Her son Asher is...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 14, 2022 | LEARN: Chronic Illness, RELAX: Historical Fiction
Larry Kramer created seminal works of gay rights and AIDS epidemic history in his deeply personal plays, The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me. Both plays revolve around Ned Weeks, a gay man living and working in New York City in the 1980s. They are heartbreaking and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 19, 2022 | RELAX: Memoir
There’s nothing like sinking into a satisfying essay based memoir. Whether it’s following a cult survivor or a famous Hollywood star, slipping under another person’s skin is one of my favorite bookish pleasures. And sometimes memoirists step away from the simple...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 15, 2022 | RELAX: Memoir
Lauren Hough shares her outspoken and unique voice in the essay collection Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing. It’s a memoir that wanders (in the very best way) through the various chapters of her life. Listening to the audio version, narrated by Cate Blanchett and the...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 16, 2022 | RELAX: Historical Fiction
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is a complex and layered novel about secrets. At the center of the story are twin sisters, Stella and Desiree. Raised in small-town Louisiana, everyone around them focused on the color of their skin. The entire community of...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 10, 2022 | RELAX: Memoir
The upcoming memoir from Rachel Krantz, Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy is raw and sometimes raunchy. It’s also a tale about control and gaslighting in relationships. As the memoir opens, Krantz is a twenty-something writer who doesn’t...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 21, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Just River by Sara B. Fraser is a novel about hopeless people in Wattsville, a small upstate New York town. Once a place with a booming factory, it’s now slower and sadder. It’s the kind of town people leave as soon as they can. And yet, Carol raised her daughter...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 28, 2021 | LEARN: Medical Memoir
Leigh Cowart explores why people consent to experience pain in their upcoming book, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. They take the science of pain and correlate it with a variety of intentional experiences from ballet class to eating wildly...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 21, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction
Kiran Millwood Hargrave crafts a story of community and strength in her historical fiction novel, The Mercies. Set in a remote Norwegian coastal village called Vardø in 1617, the story centers on two women. Maren Bergensdatter is barely out of her teens when a...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 19, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else
Sasha Geffen writes a captivating musical and social history in Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary. Not only do they* capture the magic of music through the decades, they also explain how a plethora of performers broke through the limitations of...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 22, 2021 | RELAX: Memoir
Sarah McBride covers a wide variety of topics in Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality. But given the complexity of gender identity and McBride’s own path, it’s not surprising. This was also a perfect pick for Pride Month. It fits...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 3, 2021 | RELAX: Memoir
Afghani author and warrior Ukmina Manoori tells their unique story in I am a Bacha Posh: My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan. When they were a child, Manoori’s parents decided they needed another son. But whether due to genetics or medical situations,...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 9, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction
Shuggie Bain, the debut novel from author Douglas Stuart is a gut punch on nearly every page. It’s the story of a kid growing up in Glasgow, Scotland during the 1980s. He’s the youngest of three kids born to an alcoholic mother. His older siblings have a different...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 23, 2021 | LEARN: Medical Memoir
Ruth Coker Burks writes about her experiences caring for HIV/AIDS patients in All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South. She wasn’t a nurse or other health care provider. She was just a young woman with a big heart and buckets...
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