Hello hello! It’s a busy and stressful week, but amongst all the chaos and caucusing, at least there is a new podcast to solace your ears. We’re here this week to talk about our resolutions from last year, the new resolutions we’re making for this year (if any), and how to make sense of The Three Musketeers. (The answer, to nobody’s surprise, is alcohol). We also fail, again, to identify and read a podcast book that will be as delightful as it sounds when we read its synopsis online. One of these days we are going to successfully read a…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
Note: Upright Women Wanted is published by Tor, an imprint of Macmillan. Macmillan has established a policy of embargoing its ebooks to libraries. It’s a policy that hurts authors, libraries, and readers, and the American Library Association is sponsoring an initiative to promote fair library ebook policies. You can support that initiative here! A girl named Esther, fleeing the town that hanged her girlfriend for possession of illegal books, stows away in the wagon of a visiting group of Librarians. In part she’s drawn to their work — distributing Approved Materials for reading so people all around this postapocalyptic version…
Leave a CommentSo here’s what happened: I recorded a guest appearance on Fangirl Happy Hour in which I talked about The Untamed, and in the course of that conversation, I promised to write a brief primer for The Untamed for the benefit of Renay’s listeners, which she could then put in the show notes for the episode. Three thousand-odd words later, I had to admit that my primer had gotten out of control and I would need to post it at my own gd blog. Here the fuck it is. Click the arrow next to any of these questions to see the…
Leave a CommentWell, friends, I have been listening to Phantom of the Opera and reading Harrow the Ninth, so that’s how I’m doing. Like, in case you were curious. I love these two things so much it hurts me, but especially I love Harrow the Ninth. If you haven’t read Gideon the Ninth yet, can I highly recommend that you hop to it before Harrow comes out this summer? You will not be sorry. You will rejoice in having done so. Be blessed. I miss Grantland all the time, but I’m so glad The Ringer exists. Here’s a terrific piece on how…
Leave a CommentNote: Riot Baby is published by Tor, an imprint of Macmillan. Macmillan has established a policy of embargoing its ebooks to libraries. It’s a policy that hurts authors, libraries, and readers, and the American Library Association is sponsoring an initiative to promote fair library ebook policies. You can support that initiative here! Riot Baby is a primal scream of a novella, ranging through America’s racist history into a near-future version of the country that continues the climate emergency and militarization of the police. Our protagonists are siblings Ella and Kev, both of whom are gifted — Ella more noticeably than…
Leave a CommentI know, I know! Y’all have missed us and we have been MIA! Honestly, the podcast has been cursed over the last little while. First we had a podcast audio disaster, which we hoped and believed we could come back from, but wow, we could not. So we lost that podcast (argh) and then had some health and family issues, mostly on the side of me, Gin Jenny, that put us on a bit of a podcast hiatus. Nevertheless, we persisted! Eventually! And here we are back with a short episode just to catch y’all up on what we’ve been…
Leave a CommentOn the run from a dangerous father, Steph has never lived in one place long enough to make real friends; but her clowder (group chat) on CatNet supplies most of what she needs. But one day she complains to her clowder about a teacher bullying a classmate, Rachel (whom Steph has a crush on), and the next day, the teacher has left the school permanently. She chalks it up to confusing coincidence, but the reality is that one of the members of her clowder is a benevolent AI who likes her and wants to help improve her life. When one…
Leave a CommentLook, y’all know me, and you know that when The Millions releases its book preview, I am ruined for all else for a while. This year, Lithub has also begun releasing a book preview too, which, I mean, there can never be too many large-size book previews, right? The first half of the year book preview is up at The Millions! And here’s the Lithub one, which I haven’t perused yet so I can’t speak to how solid or unsolid it is or isn’t. This is a very good review of Marriage Story. Women can write spy thrillers too! Goddammit.…
Leave a CommentWell, 2019 is over, and I say good riddance to bad rubbish, overall. So many trash things happened this year that when I discovered Notre Dame burned down this year, I had to fact-check it thrice. (It did though.) (Not over it.) On the positive side, I read a lot of terrific books, and there are many more awesome books in the offing for 2020 — which will be a separate post, of course! Here’s a list of my favorite reads of the year, listed in the order in which I read them. There are thirteen of them, which I…
Leave a CommentWhat, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the fuck. Kate Alice’s Marshall’s sophomore novel is the scariest book I have read in… I don’t know, maybe ever? It’s hard for me to say from my current vantage point of being huddled up under a warm blanket mumbling soft prayers for safety in a world so cold and bleak. Rules for Vanishing is fucking scary. Read it in the dark. Read it in the winter. Let it seep into your brittle bones and fuck you all the way up. Sara’s sister Becca disappeared one year ago. Probably she ran off with…
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